Honesty is Refreshing!

The Lost Generation--that's you, folks!  Crain's put out an article spelling out the cold, hard truth:

Young lawyers in New York are not supposed to have to wait tables or string together temp jobs until they get their big break—that kind of seat-of-your-pants lifestyle used to be reserved for aspiring actors.

Not these days. The traditional career path—which assured law students that if they studied diligently and racked up good grades, a decent legal position would await them at the end of law school—has been all but washed away by the financial crisis, which has caused the New York legal industry to contract by 10% over the past year.

Waiting tables.  Stripping.  Working as a barrista at the local Starbucks.  Finally, the truth.  Being a lawyer isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Namely, it's not even being a lawyer.

“We're being called the lost generation,” says Shorav Kaushik, a 2009 Brooklyn Law School grad. Despite interning with the New York Attorney General's office, finishing in the top half of his class and winning a fellowship at the New York City Environmental Control Board, Mr. Kaushik has been unable to land a full-time law job.

Boo hoo, Shorav.  How many of BIDER readers went to better schools and finished in the top quarter of their class, and still don't have a job?  What about those that GOT a job, and because of stylish deferments, still don't have a job.

Indeed, 22,000 law jobs disappeared during the year ending in May. The 88% employment rate for the class of 2009 was the lowest in nearly two decades, according to the National Association of Legal Professionals. 

I hate the NALP for citing this figure.  88%?  That's a statistic that certainly includes all of those in the private industry, such as those working at Banana Republic and Johnny Rocket's and those working as Independent Contractors for shitlaw firms.  It's no wonder that bloggers and our sympathizers are called "whiners" with bogus stats such as this. I wish it was 88%.

Ramit Singh doesn't need to be told. The 28-year-old finished in the top 25% of his class from New England Law and came to New York nearly two years ago to pursue entertainment law. He tried volunteering at entertainment law firms, with no luck. He has strung together freelance positions at a music-licensing company, a part-time stint at a social media company and a volunteer gig at the New York State Supreme Court. He also does freelance document review. “It's a lot of really small irons in a big raging fire,” he says.

While he doesn't regret becoming a lawyer, “I didn't think I'd be hustling like this,” he says. “I had three jobs last month.”

That's what it comes down to, hustling.  Hustling is certainly what I've been doing to get by. You hustle your ass off.  Some months, you make it.  Some months, you don't.  Your savings decrease. Your credit card balances increase.  You're exhausted and you don't have health insurance, so you just hope that something stable comes through.  I'm a hustler.  Chances are, so are you--or:

Some new lawyers have responded by doing the unthinkable—working for nothing.

After graduating from New York Law School last year, Alyssa Farruggia ended up volunteering nearly full-time for the Staten Island courts. “You have your sights on the job at a big firm, but when that doesn't happen, you've got to do something else,” explains the 25-year-old Staten Islander, who lives at home. “The most important thing was keeping my résumé going.”

Most of the city's law schools last year started working with the New York State Unified Court System, channeling grads into its Volunteer Attorney Programs, so local courts are now flooded with young lawyers looking for experience and something to do. 

Working in New York, I've actually run into bunches of these kids.  If I represent a creditor, they represent the debtor.  They lifelessly argue their *extremely* valid points in the halls of civil court.  Their  eyes are dead, their clothes are dirty and torn, they look broken. I feel for these young lawyers, but it's not bunches better for this older lawyer.

People think that the legal industry goes in cycles.  By all accounts, we've been hit by several "bad" markets: the eighties, the dot.com bubble burst, post 9/11 economy and now this.  The lemmings who just started law school last week, are convinced that hiring will miraculously pick up in 2013.  However, this isn't a slump--it's a sputter of a dying engine.  The legal industry is shot.  Only when people believe that, and refuse to mortgage their futures on the chance that things will get better in three years, will we have any chance of salvaging our crippled industry.

You're not being smart going to law school. It blows to start off at the bottom rung of any company because you "only" have a college diploma.  But you're better off than you will be if you do the responsible thing and go on to get an advanced degree.

Per Diem and Part-time Jobs for Part-time Pay: Glorified by the Media

Well, I take on per diem work. I think lots of solos do.  When you don't have enough of your own clients to keep you busy, then you have to do what you have to do--even if that's making a court appearance for $50.  I have been paid more, but that's the going rate.  It sucks, but you have to look at the long term picture and at the end of a slow month, $500 means too much to let it go.

I was in court today on a per diem matter in Civil Court. I checked the calendar and noted that my case was 188 on the calendar.  All I had to do was yell out, "Plaintiff, application!"  Easy schmeezy, right?  This is what the calendar call sounded like (I actually wrote it down, because I couldn't believe what I was hearing):
one huded one personal touch and dandho
one huded too so non jury personal touch
one huded tree rental surrogates altight
one huded foh wess end buy de parsippany.

She's still warm.  Can you go to a compliance
conference for me on Friday?  Lemme know
what happens.

Yah, he sounded liked he had a whole keg of beer and went to work to call the calendar call.  Now, if he wasn't actually drunk--THAT is job security.  You are hired to call out the calendar and little else, you somehow are no longer able to to do the one task you were hired to do and you still get to do it.  Thank God that I noted the number and the numbers were somewhat discernible.  I heard "one huded aay ate" and stood quickly to get my adjournment and leave.  He said something to me, when I asked for the date.  I just repeated myself and skedaddled.  I laughed all the way to my office.  That's the nice side of per diem work.

So, just to summarize, you are a warm body sent to court to get adjournments and such and you're paid.  I could be a chimp with a pipe in plaid pants and accomplish the task.  Essentially, I'm doing the work that any first year associate in a small to mid-sized firm SHOULD be doing to learn the ins and outs of court, but the firms that hire me are too cheap to take someone on full-time. It's outsourcing on a small scale.

Then I ran into this delightful article about per diem work, which doesn't mention it by name.  Instead, the article is entitled: Lawyers seek more work-life balance; firms accommodate them
So nice of them to do that.  But you and I and the chimp that wants to go to court instead of me, knows better.  But here are the high points (with italics):

By day, Katie Birmingham is all about her inner foodie, as chef-owner of  her Atlanta  eatery, Noon Midtown. By night, Birmingham's a barrister for Counsel on Call, a law firm that gives its network of lawyers the choice to take on as much or as little legal work as desired.  If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck--it's per diem work.  Call it like it is.


Though she loves the law and has practiced since 2003, Birmingham loves cooking just as much, and left the big Atlanta firm Kilpatrick Stockton in 2008 to have the flexibility to do both. Hmmm... in the midst of the recession, she "left" KS to open a restaurant and be a per diem attorney.

"Cooking is such a strong passion for me; it always has been," she said. The flexible scheduling with Counsel on Call "gives you a little bit more control over your time and, as a consequence, more control of your life."  I agree.  This is a perk.  But I wish my time, resulted in more money.  I doubt Atlanta pays more.
****
Now onto the part of the article that talks about screwing attorneys (even partners) out of money under the guise of work-life balance.


"The legal profession right now is changing so much. First, there are fewer jobs now in the industry. Second, you have a squeeze on rates, which makes it hard to bill a premium on associates," said Stephen M. Paskoff, an attorney, founder and president of ELI, an Atlanta-based employer consulting firm that specializes in harassment, wage and hour compliance and other workplace training. "I do think there's a greater appreciation for diversity."

Part of that diversity appreciation comes from a realization by law firms they risk losing good lawyers by holding on to rigid standards. "For today's people coming fresh out of law school, it's not at all unusual for them to talk to you about their desire to have balance of life," said Roger Quillen, chairman and managing partner of Fisher & Phillips, a national labor and employment law firm based in Atlanta.  

Andria Lure Ryan, a partner at Fisher & Phillips, works on a reduced schedule. As a single mom, she's juggling her kids' wrestling, softball and volleyball practices and games and other activities. She's wired, though, so whether she's in the office or at her youngest daughter's softball game, she's never more than a iPhone "beep" away. "If I’m not responsive to my clients when they need me to be, then I’m going to lose my clients."

There is a trade-off: Ryan earns roughly 25 percent less than her peer partners who do not work a reduced schedule, but she said it's worth it.
*********

With more lawyers seeking time do engage in activities beyond familial obligations, more firms are formalizing leave policies tailored for that.

"A couple of generations ago, it was unheard of for you to think you could be an effective lawyer and work reduced hours. It's no longer," said Vanessa E. Goggans, human resources partner at Morris, Manning Martin in Atlanta. Reduce your hours and your pay, or join the bread line.

Am I the only one that sees this as a way of reducing salaries?  Am I the only one who sees per diem as a means of outsourcing your grunt work as an alternative to hiring a first year associate?  Tell me if I'm wrong, please!  I want to think that law firms are doing this for the benefit of associates, but I somehow doubt that work-life balance is on their balance sheets.

LIES! Watch Out, Kansas City! Bull Alert!

I saw this headline ("Study: Life After Law School Gets Tougher") and was happy--over the moon! As you know, more news coverage is good news. And then I read on and somehow this reporter skews the news into something positive. I took Journalism in college, and I could hear my professor saying: "Journalism 101: Who, What, When, Where, Why?" What's up with dropping your uneducated opinion into a news story, Steve Vockrodt???

So, although the title sounds accurate, the article says...

Here are a few survey findings that stick out from NALP’s report:
• Between 3,200 and 3,700 graduates in 2009 had their start dates at law firms deferred past Dec. 1. The usual start date is around September.
• About 25 percent of respondents said their jobs were temporary, although that figure includes judicial clerkships.
• Many of those who did find jobs weren’t happy with them — about 22 percent of 2009 graduates were looking for a different job, double what the figure was in 2000.
If those figures seem grim, there’s one that contradicts the perception of an entirely ugly job market. The overall employment rate for 2009 law school graduates was 88 percent, down just a bit from the recent high of nearly 92 percent in 2007.That’s not bad, but it’s clear that the dynamic of employment options has changed and may continue to change during the next couple of years.

“Members of this graduating class were more likely to be working part-time, working in a temporary job, working in a job that does not require a JD, working as a solo practitioner or working but still looking for another job than their peers who graduated in the classes before them,” says James Leipold, NALP’s executive director.

What's wrong with this picture, folks? Surely, you've read the scam blogs long enough to say, right??? I'll tell you what's wrong. 88 percent of law graduates are employed, OF THE PEOPLE THAT REPORTED.

Yep, the shame factor is not computed into the NALP survey and certainly not mentioned by this reporter. What's the shame factor? It's the same thing that keeps me from revealing my identity to the world, or any of us for this matter (except Nando and L4L). It's the same thing that keeps all of us from passing out pamphlets in front of our alma mater. It's the reason why you comment anonymously. So, if you adjust that 88% downward, for the number of graduates that are too ashamed to tell their law school that they are STILL unemployed--we're looking at something like 50%. If you adjust that figure, by taking out the 10% or so that are employed--in temporary document review--we're at 40%.

Hang in there, law school grads!

Suck it, Steve!

(written by Angel, posted by HardKnocks)

Update: My Job Scavenger Hunt

Back in September, in  my tribute to Gmail, I told the world that I applied to 233 jobs and I received about 5 rejection letters.  Since then, things have been looking up. I've been inundated by rejection letters.  Every day, I get one or two and sometimes three. I get them by email mostly, but I have received a few via snail mail.  The rejection letters via snail mail are so kind to... it makes me think I'm almost human and worth the amount of postage spent on the letter.  So, things are changing. I feel it!  

I can only speculate why this is happening.  I have been applying for jobs for nearly 6 months because I saw that my head might be on the chopping block (and I was right).  Is it possible that the positions were open to accepting applications for that long?  Or did it take them that long to sift through the applications because there were so many.  Whatever it is, I'm sure that it's a good thing because things are moving.  And I, unlike recent grads, have experience as an attorney.  So my chances of getting something are small, but not infinitesimal.  

Now, I've applied to about 300 places at least.  I've had 4 interviews and I'm waiting to hear back from only one of them.  

Being unemployed is the worst because you have lots of free time and tremendous fear of spending money... so you end up sleeping most of the day and catching up on TV.  Bus fare is hardly worth the risk.

My friend, Sarah, called me today and told me about this great deal on trips to the Caribbean.  "I'm unemployed, Sarah.  Did you forget?"  

"Well, it's so little though!"

"What if I'm unemployed in 6 months.  Will I look back on my Caribbean vacation fondly? I don't think so.  I  think I'll be pissed at you for suggesting I spend money on a effing vacation."

And how much would I enjoy a vacation anyhow?  Knowing I'm going back to nothing but my couch and remote control

So, I'm home, hoarding my pennies and praying that the job comes before the savings go.  I am eating nasty food because it's in my cupboard and I can't justify a trip to Whole foods, because that is a luxury.  A tv dinner is practical and cheap.

I have yet to get my first unemployment check. I'm not even sure what's happening with that. I'm so annoyed at this point, I can't even bear calling them up to ask.

I am painting again.  It's a hobby that I have. I'm horrible at it, but I like my work product. Most of my apartment is filled with my own creations. I didn't paint for the last 6 months of my employment because I was so stressed out. I couldn't find inspiration.  

I have yet to forebear my student loans.  Might be a dumb move. I know I can forebear for 3 years without questions.  But I'm still holding onto the hope that I'll pop out a baby one day and want to stay home with him for the first 3 years of his life... and at that point, I could cash out that option.

Is the dream still alive?  The dream being "gainful employment"?  Yes. It's alive.  But it's on life support and there is a chance of recovery, but the doctor hasn't determined whether or not the brain stem shows signs of life.

Let's pray it doesn't meet the same fate as Terri.