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Category Archives: Recession
Graduating into a recession
It’s rare that a reader asks me to write something on a specific topic, rarer still that multiple requests for the same subject come in. So the fact that a few people have now asked for a post about law students and the recession indicates just how much anxiety is rising in law schools and [...]
Also posted in Careers, New Lawyers 8 Comments
How to solve the legal employment crisis
The cover story in last week’s Economist got me thinking about the looming crisis in lawyer employment. “When jobs disappear” paints a bleak picture of a rising wave of unemployment worldwide that will hurt more and last longer than past employment crises. The credit crunch has forced companies to cut costs rapidly, while the massive [...]
Also posted in Innovation, Talent 14 Comments
The other shoe
If you like your comedy dark, track the law firm layoff news. There’s the partner at Pillsbury LLP who, seated on a crowded but quiet commuter train into NewYork City, conducted a loud cellphone conversation with a colleague at the office that revealed planned associate layoffs at the firm, right down to naming the names [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Talent 2 Comments
The disappearing associate
Well, that was ugly. In case you missed it, or you need a summary, here’s what happened on a day (yesterday) that the ABA Journal called Black Thursday and Above The Law readers have decided should be named (a little early) the Valentine’s Day Massacre:
Holland & Knight fired 70 lawyers and 173 staff
DLA Piper fired [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, New Lawyers, Talent 7 Comments
What the recession will bring
My newest Law21 column is up at Slaw. Click the link to go read it, and then take some time to peruse all of Slaw’s other great posts and conversations at what Dennis Kennedy calls the best law blog in the business. As always, I’ll also post the article here.
“Are we looking at a second [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Clients 2 Comments
Staff cuts and short-term thinking
That sound you hear is the rapidly accelerating crash of dominoes. The mainstream legal media is tracking, body blow by body blow, the shocking personnel reductions taking place at law firms throughout the US and UK. One after another, firms are laying off employees, and it seems each firm’s announcement gives three others the confidence [...]
Also posted in Management, Research 9 Comments
Avalanche alert
“[F]irms still have too many lawyers,” says the Chicago Tribune in the course of a rather grim 2009 forecast for American law firms. That might not be a problem for too much longer, because we’re about due for another round of bloodletting. But the next stage of the inexorable rationalization of the private bar won’t [...]
The recession, so far