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Black Thursday strikes law firms

S

stateofbeasley

Senior member
LA Times: Black Thursday

For years, the large law firms have been bilking, I mean billing, their corporate clients $800-$1000/hr for a partner's advice, and $400/hr for associates who know nothing to review documents.

Now with the economy going down the drain, the big firms are faltering and the ax is falling.

The corporations are wising up now that their coffers are shrinking.

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.
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One attorney profiled in the article did corporate law and now can't even land a job as a paralegal:

With help from a family member, she moved to her own place to try to figure out her marriage and her career. As for the latter, she reluctantly decided to lower her expectations and began applying for jobs as a contract administrator, an office administrator and a paralegal. But she struck out there too, in part because other lawyers were trying the same thing.

"After a while with the paralegal jobs, the listings said, 'No attorneys.' I think it's because they figured attorneys would leave as soon as they found work as lawyers."
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The days of reckoning are here for the big law firms, their useless bar associations, and the ripoff law schools that scam students with claims of a big payoff after graduation. The era of cheap student loans is over.

And these jobs that are going away aren't coming back.

When some Indian in Mumbai can do the same legal research and document drafting for $10/hr, fewer clients will be willing to pay for people in the US to do the same work.

Don't go to law school if you can help it. It's a waste of time and the jobs are going overseas.
 
I read a statistic that there are 10x more lawyers in the USA than the rest of the world combined. Our out-of-control legal system is truly the one thing that sometimes make me wonder if it would be better to live somewhere else.
 
I'm sitting in one of my final classes before graduating this May right now.

Job market is tough right now. That's why I hedged and went at night, so I have an actual career concurrent with my education. If I don't find a position as an associate before/soon after I graduate, I'll stay with what I do now until the market picks up. It's just part of the economic downturn.

It's short-sighted to say the jobs won't be back. Sure, lawyers as a whole are pretty bad businesspeople (which is why most went to undergrad in liberal arts), but not all of us are. Whatever the efficient business model needs to be, some of us will figure it out. I don't have a business degree and years of experience in business for nothing, you know 🙂 Plus, I have little desire to work at a big firm, so if a smaller firm doesn't want to pick me up, I'll do it myself.

I agree with aphex, sounds like you have an axe to grind.
 
Originally posted by: stateofbeasley
And these jobs that are going away aren't coming back.

When some Indian in Mumbai can do the same legal research and document drafting for $10/hr, fewer clients will be willing to pay for people in the US to do the same work.

Don't go to law school if you can help it. It's a waste of time and the jobs are going overseas.
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Are you shitting me?
 
My money is that the OP's step dad was a lawyer who liked to make fun of the OP for being stupid. His step dad was right.
 
I'm going to sue them because Black Thursday sounds like Black Friday, which misled me into going to the store on Thursday and buying a huge amount of electronics because I thought they were a good deal.
 
Originally posted by: The Sauce
I read a statistic that there are 10x more lawyers in the USA than the rest of the world combined. Our out-of-control legal system is truly the one thing that sometimes make me wonder if it would be better to live somewhere else.
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That's an axiom. 😉

Come live in Australia.

 
Originally posted by: zzuupp
So, how again would someone in Mumbai have any relevant US legal experience to draft any documents?
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There are companies set up in India that are headed by American lawyers. The companies do the legal research and draft legal docs accordingly. I was actually thing about starting such a company.

I work in a small firm of about 15-20 lawyers (depending on the owners mood :laugh🙂 and we are a little slow but I don't think anyone is getting axed any time soon.
 
Originally posted by: zzuupp
So, how again would someone in Mumbai have any relevant US legal experience to draft any documents?
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Better yet, how can someone in Mumbai be a licensed attorney in any U.S. state and thus be able to provide legal advice? O/P's brain is full of FAIL.
 
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