"I can't get a job anywhere." Says laid off lawyer. Lawyers losing jobs in droves

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez15-2009feb15,0,7634251.column

Laid-off lawyer in predicament she never imagined

Steve Lopez
February 15, 2009

"I can't get a job anywhere."

I've been getting a lot of e-mails that start like that. This one was from Ellie Trope of Mid-City in Los Angeles, near La Brea, who lost her job more than a year ago. She wrote me after reading my column two weeks ago about the endless mob scene at the employment office in Van Nuys.

Trope, 43, is an attorney with 15 years of experience, and she said lawyers are losing their jobs in droves.

When people in banking and the mortgage industry were getting the heave-ho, it came as no surprise. In fact, on Friday I spoke to a banking executive with 20,000 employees under him who got fired in December after 21 years on the job. But I would have thought anyone with a law degree would be able to talk their way out of a layoff, file for an injunction, whatever.

Not so. Trope told me it's gotten much worse of late, and when I made some phone calls and checked on the Internet, I found that law firms in California and throughout the nation have been handing out pink slips by the dozens and the hundreds.

"Job cuts in U.S. legal sector hit 1,300 for January," said a headline at Legalweek.com.

"Today isn't over, but it already has a name: Black Thursday," said a Los Angeles County Bar Assn. blog this week, making reference to hundreds of layoffs in the legal biz that were announced around the world the other day.

[Deja Q]

1. Is that industry being offshored as well?

[Warpy]

9. No, but real estate and banking are both cutting services

and lawyers in firms that specialize in that stuff are all getting pink slips, along with paralegals and other support staff.

Never fear, though, "Ladders" is open to suck up all remaining money from the formerly six figure salary corporate lawyers.

Before this becomes an exercise in schadenfreude, remember that a lot of these people are paying off a quarter of a million bucks in school debt. We might not have liked their clients much, but there's a reason they took those jobs instead of trying to become Perry Mason.

[nashville_brook]

20. i know quite a few lawyers who make a lot less than anyone would imagine (including a Havard grad)

these folks make maybe 80-90K a year (5-10 years exp), just about enough for a family to live modestly on in Central Florida. the fiance and his cowokers (including the Harvard grad) have traded-in the soul-sucking, eat-what-you-kill life of the "silk stocking" law firm, for the security and sanity of in-house counsel for an insurance company connected to the real estate industry (title insurance). the fiance's good buddy is a Harvard grad, still paying off those enormous loans on an 80/yr salary. she's a down-to-earth, genuinely good person -- not the sort to excel in the law firm world.

his company has laid off almost 40 percent of their employees. all the attorneys are furloughed -- mandatory one month off per year (a week per quarter) with no pay. he's terrified that they'll cut more, and that soon his name will be one of those slips.

i'm a senior marketing person and it took me more than a year to find the job i have now in commercial real estate. we just went thru a 35 percent reduction in staff -- i have no seniority at this job, obviously -- so i likely won't survive the next round.

[Berry Cool]

31. Actually, it IS being offshored to some extent.

The latest trend is getting legal research and routine legal paperwork drafting done in India instead of having paralegals and associates do it. Just more bad news for those with law degrees.

[BlooInBloo]

13. hahahaah!!!

*Everything* is "dem damn furriners".

:rofl:

[Hello_Kitty]

18. No, *everything* is the greedy corporate whores you carry water for on DU. eom

[Deja Q]

37. Bloo probably has a point about helping other countries and their peoples...

Assuming that mindset is identical in the countries we've been helping, of course...
And, yeah, I've read some posts from globalists -- who are naive or consciously being stupid. Usually the latter, but then when you put up evidence breaking their own beliefs, they get consciously stupid anyway. Libertarians just don't have a clue.

[Hello_Kitty]

38. C'mon, you remember this thread from the other day.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5054694#5054716

"Man - when I was interviewing mathematical programmers, I'm DAMN glad...I wasn't forced to hire an American citizen. It was amazing how stupid the "normal Americans" were (by contrast with the average foreign-born candidates)..."

[OhioChick]

23. Read on:

From the Wall St. Journal:

With Times Tight, Even Lawyers Get Outsourced

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122765161306957779.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Legal outsourcing set to boom

http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2008/dec/29bpo-legal-outsourcing-set-to-boom.htm

[Berry Cool]

32. Ha, didn't know you'd added these links already

but yeah, it's exactly what I was talking about.

Personally I don't know how long it will last. Those people in India better have impeccable English and grammar skills.

[Deja Q]

36. The last 2 years, even outfits like zdnet.com would put in an article about legal services...

Thanks for your links... but either corporations are greedy and can't see beyond 12 hours in terms of their balance sheets, or all this will end up in a one world government. I'd rather it be the latter, if there is a choice.

[Orsino]

27. Fewer and smaller financial transactions during the crisis...

...means fewer lawyers are needed to guard/raid them.

[Stephanie]

30. Actually it is.

Legal support services are already being offshored, including much of the work usually done by junior attorneys.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/10/AR2008051002355.html

[FightingIrish]

2. Maybe the Bushco prosecutions should have been part of

the stimulus bill. That would keep lawyers on both sides busy for years.

[ThomWV]

3. Dam shame, that means they'll have to hang up a shingle and do wills and divorces.

Work, not advice.

[Blackhatjack]

29. I am going to assume you are just uninformed and meant no ill will in your comment...

Most of the legal work done today in preparing wills and supporting documentation to facilitate divorces is done by PARALEGALS, not lawyers.

There was a time when preparation of wills, simple divorces, etc. helped pay the monthly overhead for self-employed attorneys. No more.

In the past 25 years the legal profession has virtually eliminated the 'jack of all trades' attorney, and replaced them with attorneys who specialize in particular areas of the law. It had to happen because no single attorney can keep up with all the changes in the law in every area.

During that same period of time, the market has been flooded with attorneys and overall compensation for all attorneys has gone down, not up.

It is virtually impossible for a specialist to 'hang out a shingle' and begin doing work they have no experience with in the past. Changing a specialty is a major operation.

So these unemployed attorneys are having a hard time finding work, especially in areas like real estate where the supporting legal work has virtually disappeared.

[madaboutharry]

4. The legal profession is hard hit during recessions.

In the late 1980's early 1990's, it was the same.

[Deja Q]

7. Good point; wish I'd seen your response a moment ago.

The media might just be sensationalizing things again. :S

[Deja Q]

5. A serious question: How do companies expect to survive by laying people off?

The deflationary spiral everybody's been saying. It's got to be turned around if they are to survive too.

[NashVegas]

15. By Exporting, Automating, And Expecting Others to Work 12 Hour Days

I have a sibling at a well-known computer manufacture, very high-level support-services. Now doing the work of three people. She makes a great paycheck but because she's got a mortgage and credit card debt, doesn't dare walk.

[Greyhound]

16. I think that is why the stimulus needed far more for small businesses.

There is far too much emphasis on the "big guys". Large corporations have passed the point in their life cycle where they create employment and are mostly concerned with eliminating as many positions as possible to improve profits.

It is small business that employs America and drives our economy.

It is small business that is concerned with growing and expanding.

It is small business that innovates and competes.

[BlooInBloo]

17. Are you serious?

Um, when demand goes down, the cost of resources providing the supply is no longer offset by the revenue brought in by the produced supply.

Durr.

Or to dumb it down for American consumption: Employees cost companies regardless of whether or not they bring in money.

[Hannah Bell]

39. "Or to dumb it down for American consumption"

reflects the poster.

are you some kind of democratic activist? i see why the party's in trouble.

[JerseygirlCT]

24. I think many are in the same place that a lot of people are right now

even if they haven't yet been hit personally. It's a duck and cover, hope to get through the next couple of years, and we'll worry about beyond that then. Planning for the future is now about the next 6-18 months, I think.

[kestrel91316]

25. When businesses slow down, fewer people are needed to get the work

done, and we can't be expected to carry what is essentially dead weight. My staffing levels are highly dependent on how busy we are trending.

[Lex]

6. Of course an economic downtown has a negative impact for every profession

and I don't understand why that is a surprise.

[leftofthedial]

8. what is driving the legal layoffs?

is it all lost corporate law gigs?

[nashville_brook]

22. lots of good legal gigs are tied to real estate (property law), finance/banking and insurance...

where legal fees are generated on the exchange of property, insurance and financial instruments. when there's no market activity, there's no fees generated. so, this particular cycle has been awful for the profession.

[Greyhound]

10. I understand our marvelous bankruptcy "reform" has created many new opportunities in that field. n/t

[MrPerson]

11. Bankruptcy lawyers have plenty of work.

[LSparkle]

19. Sad but true ... n/t

[Berry Cool]

33. That means a "boutique" bankruptcy firm may have a ton of work

but if it's a big firm with lots of different specialties, it's still suffering in some of them.

[NashVegas]

12. Working Its Way Right Up ...

I feel sorry for anyone getting hit by this, and I also hope that upper middle-income people in "the professions" will learn to have a new empathy for the blue collar, service-industry, and other workers whose jobs went overseas or were consolidated in mergers, and start voting with their pocketbooks to stop the insanity of exported jobs, jobs lost to automation, and involuntary 14-hour work days.

[pretzel4gore]

14. bush proved there is no law...

until Prez Obama somehow reverses that long term revelation (the law is: anything I, my gun, my fists or rush limbah says...) then why waste vast sums supporting EATERS when there's not as much food as before and $30 TRILLION are missing from the nat. treasury, and the PIG needs crazed lawyers in the streets harrassing the dem gov so they haven't time to go after the thieves, bush/rove and company (more like abetters of the real thieves, though bob novak and sam donaldson etc made out like bandits- even peter jennings of abc had $58 million stashed away before CIA killed him lol)

[Still Sensible]

21. Unfortunately lawyers tend to work for other lawyers

and the fuckers at the top of the food chain often are the most ruthless shitting downhill when things get tough. There are certainly attorneys who are caring individuals that take care of their employees through hard times and I even know a few. But I bet the bastards are real fuckers.

[Shakespeare]

26. This seems to be hitting mostly bigger firms so far.

Cox Castle Nicholson here in LA has gone through a couple rounds of attorney layoffs (we're in the same office tower, and hear chatter on the elevator). I work for a boutique firm which, for now, is in okay shape (and it's the first time I've been this happy to be at a small firm).

Times are tough, even for attorneys. And remember that when attorneys are downsized, so is support staff: paralegals, secretaries, etc. The pain goes pretty deep.

[Berry Cool]

34. Last Thursday was a very nasty day for layoffs.

About 800 people let go in eight major law firms in a single day.

[Turbineguy]

28. Florida.

Must be a paradise for Lawyers. Lots of wrecks. Terrible drivers.

[Berry Cool]

35. Maybe for ambulance chasers.

Not so good for other kinds.