Bitter Lawyer (bitterlawyer.com) is seeking an editor in chief with vision and a great sense of humor.
POSITION FILLED on April 11, 2013.
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From the LAB:
I’m exploring contracting out certain areas of my solo practice. We are cloud based on the Clio platform and have cloud based forms as well. I have a great virtual paralegal for Medi-Cal / elder planning and a drafter for basic estate planning. I’m looking for someone (paralegal? attorney?) with experience in probate and trust administration and/or corporate transactions to work virtually.
Visit the thread in the Job Postings & Referrals forum to learn more.
Most of us got into law because of some noble, high-minded principles of justice and promotion of the greater good…but at the end of the day, it turns out that money is still rather important. Tangential to the news addressing jobs for lawyers in the current economy is data collected by American Lawyer magazine addressing compensation for Biglaw non-equity partners.
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Following up on yesterday’s news that the legal sector gained 1,000 jobs in September, I have done some research to look at the jobs gap in the legal market to give some context to the gain of 1,000 jobs. A “jobs gap” is traditionally thought of as the number of jobs it would take to get back to pre-recession levels. In this case, though, the number of lawyer jobs has significantly increased since 2003, so what we need to look at instead is the number of jobs in light of the number of new graduates entering the market. The resulting jobs gap number is mind-blowing.
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Based on data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States added approximately 1,000 jobs to the legal sector in September—up approximately 3,000 from September of 2011. Although a relatively small number overall, this addition is part of a trend of growing employment in the legal sector, which is comforting news for many recent law school graduates.
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Graduates of non-Ivy-League law schools may not have a prayer of becoming a U.S. Supreme Court justice (all the current justices went to Harvard, Yale, or Columbia (Ginburg, who started at Harvard), but we can at least hope to clerk for one. At a talk on Friday at the University of Florida, Justice Clarence Thomas had nothing nice to say about law school rankings:
Isn’t that the antithesis of what this country is supposed to be about? Isn’t that the bias that we fought about on racial terms, or on terms of sex, or on terms of religion, etc.? … “My new bias, which I now embrace, is that I don’t eliminate the Ivies in hiring, but I intentionally prefer kids from regular backgrounds and regular students.
On myShingle, Carolyn Elefant has a two-part postmortem on a solo practice started by a BigLaw refugee. It looks like he kept it up for a bit less than two years, which is a decent time to gauge the likelihood of success. However, like the last postmortem we saw, just as it looked like things were starting to turn around, he got a better offer.
I suppose it should be no surprise that a steady paycheck (especially a good one) is an effective lure for solos who really want to have a job, not to own a business. This is good news for those who never wanted a solo practice in the first place (although I don’t think this solo thought he was in that category); starting your own business can definitely lead to employment by someone else’s.
Reasonable hours. A regular paycheck. No constant pressure to market your practice. No wonder lawyers in private practice often view a corporate in-house position as the Holy Grail of legal work.
Unfortunately, the supply of such positions does not meet the demand. There are well over a million lawyers in the United States; 75 percent of them are in private practice. Many of the rest work for the government. Based on these numbers, it is reasonable to assume that considerably less than ten percent of lawyers work for corporations. The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), which is the bar association for in-house lawyers, has only 28,000 members. Obviously, in-house opportunities are scarce – especially in this unsteady economy.
That said, there are in-house positions available for lawyers who are persistent and patient. Unless your skill-set is a perfect match for the employer’s needs, the search for an in-house position can take many months – and very possibly years.
Here are the questions I am most-frequently asked when coaching lawyers:
This is the first of a two-part series on joining the JAG Corps. Here is part one: Should You Join the JAG Corps?
Military lawyers are an interesting breed. It takes something a little strange in someone to want to go through college, through law school, and then join the military. But judging by the growing number of applicants to the various branches of the JAG Corps, it might seem that that breed of lawyer is rising. However, you might say that the rise in applications is nothing more than a reaction to poor job market, or a desire for extreme job security. But one thing is certain, a lot of law students and lawyers are trying to become military lawyers for whatever reason. If you happen to be one of these prospective applicants, and if you’re wondering whether the JAG Corps is right for you, I will do my best here to provide some insight.
Maybe, but when you compete for jobs that are few and far between, employers are not generally willing to take a risk on a “lower-tier” candidate when they can just pick from, honestly, T1 grads who are in the same boat but with better grades and more impressive resumes. It’s the harsh reality, probably the same shitkicker that didn’t get you into a better school.
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