The Last Days of Big Law
July 22, 2013 9:08 AM Subscribe
Of all the occupational golden ages to come and go in the twentieth century—for doctors, journalists, ad-men, autoworkers—none lasted longer, felt cushier, and was all in all more golden than the reign of the law partner. Noam Schreiber on The Last Days of Big Law: You can't imagine the terror when the money dries up. Former law partner Steven J. Harper, author of The Lawyer Bubble, believes the profession to be in existential crisis. Another former partner weighs in. Libertarian law professor Richard Epstein presents a more sanguine view.
Better call Saul.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:10 AM on July 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:10 AM on July 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
Rest easy guys, there will always be bullshit.
posted by Artw at 9:12 AM on July 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 9:12 AM on July 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
Things will be better after the bubble bursts, but the "correction" will be painful for a few years at least.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:16 AM on July 22, 2013
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:16 AM on July 22, 2013
Libertarian law professor Richard Epstein presents a more sanguine view.
Zoë: Sanguine. Hopeful. Plus, point of interest, it also means "bloody".
Mal: Well, that pretty much covers all the options, don't it?
posted by backseatpilot at 9:18 AM on July 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
Zoë: Sanguine. Hopeful. Plus, point of interest, it also means "bloody".
Mal: Well, that pretty much covers all the options, don't it?
posted by backseatpilot at 9:18 AM on July 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
So the bankers have gone after everyone now. Except themselves.
I bet that will be like watching a tank full of starving piranha.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:23 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
I bet that will be like watching a tank full of starving piranha.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:23 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
My brother just started a new job at Big Law last week, though, so, uh a lot of firms are hiring.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:24 AM on July 22, 2013
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:24 AM on July 22, 2013
"In the past decade, twelve major firms with more than 1,000 partners between them have collapsed entirely. "
Aww.
posted by colie at 9:27 AM on July 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
Aww.
posted by colie at 9:27 AM on July 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
Will no one think of the sociopaths?
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:30 AM on July 22, 2013 [10 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:30 AM on July 22, 2013 [10 favorites]
What I don't understand is why law firms seem to be based on the partnership model, rather than a more modern corporate structure. I assume regulations have something to do with it? Even so, it seems like a rather antiquated way to run a business--it's not as though you can only provide competent legal counsel in this manner.
posted by Cash4Lead at 9:31 AM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Cash4Lead at 9:31 AM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I was hoping this was about cops.
posted by shothotbot at 9:34 AM on July 22, 2013
posted by shothotbot at 9:34 AM on July 22, 2013
OK, less snidely, I think there is something to worry about when the prestige jobs of the middle class, the ones that offer some hope of making the jump into upper class, are being eliminated by technology and (potentially) outsourcing. I'm not inclined to be "boo hoo hoo lawyers" (except I know some very hard-working lawyers who are working for people who need help, and this is not exactly good news for them), but I a bit "boo hoo hoo middle class." Yeah, they have been dicks in their voting for the past 3-4 decades, but it's not like ceding the field to the 1% is a victory.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:35 AM on July 22, 2013 [16 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:35 AM on July 22, 2013 [16 favorites]
"What I don't understand is why law firms seem to be based on the partnership model, rather than a more modern corporate structure."
I'm guessing because it was nice for the wealthy people that do it.
Whereas everything a corporation does is, for the employees, always horrible.
posted by colie at 9:36 AM on July 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
I'm guessing because it was nice for the wealthy people that do it.
Whereas everything a corporation does is, for the employees, always horrible.
posted by colie at 9:36 AM on July 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
The existing law firm model is broken. It might have worked fifty years ago, but it doesn't work anymore.
posted by ambrosia at 9:37 AM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by ambrosia at 9:37 AM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
so all of this handwringing about the demise of BigLaw seems to get more attention than it deserves
This is one of the reasons:
posted by shivohum at 9:41 AM on July 22, 2013 [24 favorites]
This is one of the reasons:
If you wanted to be a writer or an actor or a businessman, you could rest assured that law school would be there if your plans fell through. However much you’d maxed out your credit card, however late you were on your rent, you were never more than an admissions test and six semesters away from upper-middle-class respectability.Law, and particularly Big Law, was one of the last relatively meritocratic paths to the upper middle class, particularly for those interested in the humanities, and now it's closing up. It didn't depend on who you knew. If you got good grades in college, did well on the LSAT, attended a good law school, passed the bar, and then did the work, you would be guaranteed a financially secure life -- sort of like doctors still have. Now that is increasingly in jeopardy.
posted by shivohum at 9:41 AM on July 22, 2013 [24 favorites]
What I don't understand is why law firms seem to be based on the partnership model, rather than a more modern corporate structure. I assume regulations have something to do with it? Even so, it seems like a rather antiquated way to run a business--it's not as though you can only provide competent legal counsel in this manner.
Its simple. The client has the right to pick the lawyer. Say you are with Smith of Smith, Jones and Walsh. Smith is your lawyer. If it was just Law Co. and Smith didn't like his pay, well, Smith takes all his clients with him elsewhere. The Client has the right to decide who his or her counsel will be. Law Co. can't dictate it and has to pay Smith to get to his clients. Hence the partnership model, which pays the legal talent what it is worth.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:52 AM on July 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
Its simple. The client has the right to pick the lawyer. Say you are with Smith of Smith, Jones and Walsh. Smith is your lawyer. If it was just Law Co. and Smith didn't like his pay, well, Smith takes all his clients with him elsewhere. The Client has the right to decide who his or her counsel will be. Law Co. can't dictate it and has to pay Smith to get to his clients. Hence the partnership model, which pays the legal talent what it is worth.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:52 AM on July 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
What I don't understand is why law firms seem to be based on the partnership model, rather than a more modern corporate structure.
In the US, I think the issue is the ethical rules that lawyers and state supreme courts have created. For instance, Rule 5.4 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Responsibility keeps law firms from being owned by a non-lawyer. I guess the idea would be that a non-lawyer owner of a firm might interfere with the lawyers' exercise of their professional duties. I don't know whether that's a well-grounded fear.
posted by Area Man at 9:52 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
In the US, I think the issue is the ethical rules that lawyers and state supreme courts have created. For instance, Rule 5.4 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Responsibility keeps law firms from being owned by a non-lawyer. I guess the idea would be that a non-lawyer owner of a firm might interfere with the lawyers' exercise of their professional duties. I don't know whether that's a well-grounded fear.
posted by Area Man at 9:52 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
The existing law firm model is broken. It might have worked fifty years ago, but it doesn't work anymore.
This comment is useless without expansion, but it sounds like there could be something interesting behind it, so, please clarify?
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 9:53 AM on July 22, 2013
This comment is useless without expansion, but it sounds like there could be something interesting behind it, so, please clarify?
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 9:53 AM on July 22, 2013
I spent most of my career in BigLaw, at two of the whitest shoe firms around. It's a dismal life at its best, and I was fortunate to avoid its worst, by virtue of the practice group I was in, and the firms where I worked. But each had their stealth layoffs, and there was much gnashing of teeth. I am glad I got out (went in house) and would sooner give up the law entirely than go back to a firm.
We have these threads pretty regularly, and I hope anyone who considers law school gives them ample consideration. Don't pay T1 prices for law school unless you're going to a top 5 school--and even then, it's probably a bad idea. The tuition is predicated on getting a BigLaw salary right out of school, which is really dubious. And you will leave law school knowing nothing that will actually be put to use in practice. It's amazing how little you know. When I graduated law school, I was $120K in debt, with loan payments of something like $1500 a month. That is a tough nut to crack, particularly given that you'll never discharge that debt in bankruptcy.
And it really isn't all psychopaths, honest. I think I'm more or less, and "MeFi kind of person." There are lots of us in the law. I worked in non profits and the arts before going to law school. My best friends in the law were PhDs and MAs in Chinese literature and middle eastern studies. I think they'd be MeFi, people too. While I certainly don't weep for the $1000/hour partners I worked for whose ride is going to come to an end, it was never difficult to find a friendly, normal person (or at least MeFi normal) among the associates. It really sucks to be them, or to be a graduating law student. Sorry guys.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 9:53 AM on July 22, 2013 [19 favorites]
We have these threads pretty regularly, and I hope anyone who considers law school gives them ample consideration. Don't pay T1 prices for law school unless you're going to a top 5 school--and even then, it's probably a bad idea. The tuition is predicated on getting a BigLaw salary right out of school, which is really dubious. And you will leave law school knowing nothing that will actually be put to use in practice. It's amazing how little you know. When I graduated law school, I was $120K in debt, with loan payments of something like $1500 a month. That is a tough nut to crack, particularly given that you'll never discharge that debt in bankruptcy.
And it really isn't all psychopaths, honest. I think I'm more or less, and "MeFi kind of person." There are lots of us in the law. I worked in non profits and the arts before going to law school. My best friends in the law were PhDs and MAs in Chinese literature and middle eastern studies. I think they'd be MeFi, people too. While I certainly don't weep for the $1000/hour partners I worked for whose ride is going to come to an end, it was never difficult to find a friendly, normal person (or at least MeFi normal) among the associates. It really sucks to be them, or to be a graduating law student. Sorry guys.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 9:53 AM on July 22, 2013 [19 favorites]
I work at a relatively civilized SmallLaw that uses modified "eat what you kill." That New Republic article on compensation fights at Weil Gotschall highlighted the way incentives in the typical law firm compensation system do not bring out the best in people and do lead to a lot of "bad stress."
For example, today I got an email that one of my clients wants to hire someone else at the firm to do exactly what I do for a second project. Result, lost money and work for me. I guess I should have stayed late drinking at that cocktail party after all. We'll work it out fine internally, but I'm feeling the adrenaline as I type. If the people I work with weren't fundamentally decent, it would be pretty awful.
posted by Measured Out my Life in Coffeespoons at 9:58 AM on July 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
For example, today I got an email that one of my clients wants to hire someone else at the firm to do exactly what I do for a second project. Result, lost money and work for me. I guess I should have stayed late drinking at that cocktail party after all. We'll work it out fine internally, but I'm feeling the adrenaline as I type. If the people I work with weren't fundamentally decent, it would be pretty awful.
posted by Measured Out my Life in Coffeespoons at 9:58 AM on July 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
Area Man has intuited the main reason for forbidding law-firm ownership by non-lawyers. I'm a lawyer. My absolute duty of loyalty and everything else is to my client. If anybody who's not a lawyer in my firm, which, by definition, shares my imputed conflicts and ethical obligations and such, has a 51% ownership in the company and demands that I do a certain thing (ethical or not) which harms my client, everything asplodes--I may have to withdraw from the representation and disclose the demand to my client, which might violate my duty of loyalty to the corporation, etc. Ergo, no non-lawyers allowed.
posted by radicalawyer at 10:02 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by radicalawyer at 10:02 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
But this path really never was available to everyone
It's not that it was available to everyone; medical school is also not available to everyone either, and it certainly isn't easy. It's that it was available to people based on hard work, education, and objective performance. Get the GPA and LSAT, you would get into a good law school (still true). Do decently well, you would get into the big law firm. Work reasonably hard, and you would either graduate to partner, go to a smaller firm, or go in house to a corporation or government or non-profit, but your future was secure one way or another. That security is what is being lost.
Also, the health of big law firms propped up wages and prices for the entire legal profession. Its problems are bad news for most all lawyers, because they're indicative of a big supply/demand imbalance across the industry.
posted by shivohum at 10:07 AM on July 22, 2013 [9 favorites]
It's not that it was available to everyone; medical school is also not available to everyone either, and it certainly isn't easy. It's that it was available to people based on hard work, education, and objective performance. Get the GPA and LSAT, you would get into a good law school (still true). Do decently well, you would get into the big law firm. Work reasonably hard, and you would either graduate to partner, go to a smaller firm, or go in house to a corporation or government or non-profit, but your future was secure one way or another. That security is what is being lost.
Also, the health of big law firms propped up wages and prices for the entire legal profession. Its problems are bad news for most all lawyers, because they're indicative of a big supply/demand imbalance across the industry.
posted by shivohum at 10:07 AM on July 22, 2013 [9 favorites]
This comment is useless without expansion, but it sounds like there could be something interesting behind it, so, please clarify?
Not my comment, but for starters: the explosion in pay is a recent phenomenon, and the corresponding tuition hikes. 50 years ago, the average pay was more in line with the rest of the middle class. It was a respectable middle class job. The eighties saw the advent of the corporate raiders and the big Wall St. deal. Lawyers wanted a piece of that action, and demanded (and received) higher pay. Associates got some of that, and the law schools that filled the Wall St. ranks raised tuitions to get their piece of the action--if you're going to make $185K a year to start, the school that gets you there can charge a premium. Then lower tier schools raised tuitions to show that they are on par with the top 10. Then you get universities starting law schools, since it's like free money--no labs, low physical plant requirements, enroll as many people as possible etc. It's all a cascade of greed, but it's the kids at the end of the line that are left holding the bag, in the form of student loan debt.
Another reason is technology and the attendant increase in the speed of the practice. It used to be that firms and counterparties would, say, negotiate a contract by mail, or courier, and the typing pool would type the edits up. There was time to think about issues, etc., and since the billing rates were lower, clients didn't really balk (or so I'm told). Now, firms trade drafts in real time, often crossing each other over the internet. There is much less (if any) time to really think about anything. The result is a lot of associates, who arrive at the firm not really knowing anything (because law school is a joke), can leave the firm not really knowing much more. Whether this is because they've just been doing doc review for three years, or because partners have no time to mentor and then just use associates as secretaries to churn markups.
It really isn't a tenable system at all. And I don't mean to be an apologist for it, but again, it really does suck to be getting out of school (or be a junior associate) and find the whole system crashing down--and again (I hate to belabor this), but law school teaches you absolutely nothing.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 10:08 AM on July 22, 2013 [21 favorites]
Not my comment, but for starters: the explosion in pay is a recent phenomenon, and the corresponding tuition hikes. 50 years ago, the average pay was more in line with the rest of the middle class. It was a respectable middle class job. The eighties saw the advent of the corporate raiders and the big Wall St. deal. Lawyers wanted a piece of that action, and demanded (and received) higher pay. Associates got some of that, and the law schools that filled the Wall St. ranks raised tuitions to get their piece of the action--if you're going to make $185K a year to start, the school that gets you there can charge a premium. Then lower tier schools raised tuitions to show that they are on par with the top 10. Then you get universities starting law schools, since it's like free money--no labs, low physical plant requirements, enroll as many people as possible etc. It's all a cascade of greed, but it's the kids at the end of the line that are left holding the bag, in the form of student loan debt.
Another reason is technology and the attendant increase in the speed of the practice. It used to be that firms and counterparties would, say, negotiate a contract by mail, or courier, and the typing pool would type the edits up. There was time to think about issues, etc., and since the billing rates were lower, clients didn't really balk (or so I'm told). Now, firms trade drafts in real time, often crossing each other over the internet. There is much less (if any) time to really think about anything. The result is a lot of associates, who arrive at the firm not really knowing anything (because law school is a joke), can leave the firm not really knowing much more. Whether this is because they've just been doing doc review for three years, or because partners have no time to mentor and then just use associates as secretaries to churn markups.
It really isn't a tenable system at all. And I don't mean to be an apologist for it, but again, it really does suck to be getting out of school (or be a junior associate) and find the whole system crashing down--and again (I hate to belabor this), but law school teaches you absolutely nothing.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 10:08 AM on July 22, 2013 [21 favorites]
Every single time a thread about the law and/or law school gets posted, I am so, so, so glad I decided not to go, which is too bad, because it always did sound interesting. I just knew there were bad times coming when literally everyone I talked to from high school said they were going to law school after college.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 10:17 AM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 10:17 AM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
All I am saying is that the number of people who fit into the category of "have a reasonable chance to work for BigLaw" is small. Which is why I think this whole story is overblown. I understand why it makes a compelling story, though.
The issue with this story, and why it is good that it's dying, is that law schools have based their tuition and their marketing on the assumption that their graduates would jump right into biglaw, as Admiral Haddock noted above. The story of getting into BigLaw and having it made with a little hard work needs to die because it is that lie which created the law school bubble.
posted by gauche at 10:30 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
The issue with this story, and why it is good that it's dying, is that law schools have based their tuition and their marketing on the assumption that their graduates would jump right into biglaw, as Admiral Haddock noted above. The story of getting into BigLaw and having it made with a little hard work needs to die because it is that lie which created the law school bubble.
posted by gauche at 10:30 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
The benefits of careers in law and medicine were once both the result of tightly controlled labor markets. The AMA continues to keep a stranglehold on the number of doctors, through their limitation of the number of accredited medical schools. The ABA has done no such thing, and as this article points out, the number of law schools in the US has increased by 50% since 1963.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:37 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:37 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
Big excess may be on the rocks, but big law is surviving. Epstein has the better argument here.
posted by caddis at 11:23 AM on July 22, 2013
posted by caddis at 11:23 AM on July 22, 2013
Just skimming the thread makes me glad I blew out of an academic career and not a law career again. I came out without crushing debt (go go grad school stipends) on top of dropping out of my prestige professional career.
posted by immlass at 11:35 AM on July 22, 2013
posted by immlass at 11:35 AM on July 22, 2013
Once you needed a huge law library to work in the profession. Now even I can look up case law on the Internet, and I don't need to pay an attorney to do it for me.
There are only so many jobs a society can support that do not produce a useful product or service. Arguing over minutiae and searching for even more minutiae to argue about does not manufacture goods or physically assist people. The class that does so is a drain on our already overstretched economy.
If we are to have laws, we will need attorneys, but they should be paid like everyone else, maybe $25 an hour. My job is moving pianos, and not one person in ten thousand can do what I do, while there are dozens of attorneys per ten thousand of the general population. If pay were based on how hard the job is, I would get a lot more than an attorney does.
posted by Repack Rider at 11:44 AM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
There are only so many jobs a society can support that do not produce a useful product or service. Arguing over minutiae and searching for even more minutiae to argue about does not manufacture goods or physically assist people. The class that does so is a drain on our already overstretched economy.
If we are to have laws, we will need attorneys, but they should be paid like everyone else, maybe $25 an hour. My job is moving pianos, and not one person in ten thousand can do what I do, while there are dozens of attorneys per ten thousand of the general population. If pay were based on how hard the job is, I would get a lot more than an attorney does.
posted by Repack Rider at 11:44 AM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
My job is moving pianos, and not one person in ten thousand can do what I do, while there are dozens of attorneys per ten thousand of the general population.
How much demand is there for piano moving?
posted by me & my monkey at 11:49 AM on July 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
How much demand is there for piano moving?
posted by me & my monkey at 11:49 AM on July 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
And how long would it take an attorney to retrain for piano moving?
posted by asperity at 11:55 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by asperity at 11:55 AM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
It is also worth pointing out again, as others have above, that attorneys practicing in "BigLaw" firms that are the focus of the posted articles are a very small minority of all attorneys. Harvard Law School estimates ~43,000 lawyers practice in the U.S. offices of the top 50 law firms, which is a reasonable cut-off for "BigLaw" (cite). Current U.S. population is 311.6 million (cite). That means 1 in 7,246 U.S. citizens is demonstrably qualified for a position as a BigLaw lawyer. Not so far off from 1 in 10,000 ... and also keep in mind that the point of the linked articles was that a lot of these folks, no matter how qualified, have very poor job security, and there is also a wide range of compensation paid to them (only a very, very small elite are earning $1M/year plus).
The overall universe of attorneys (which Harvard Law estimates at 760,000 to 1,000,000, so about 1 in 300 Americans) includes many who probably do make about $25/hour, and many who make substantially less than that. It also includes thousands of in-house corporate attorneys with only one client each.
I worked for 13 years in BigLaw, including a couple in one of the biggest of the big. I was part of the 2009 "bloody Thursday" layoffs. I have never even considered seeking another position in BigLaw, for the reasons cited by others above and in the linked articles.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 12:08 PM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
The overall universe of attorneys (which Harvard Law estimates at 760,000 to 1,000,000, so about 1 in 300 Americans) includes many who probably do make about $25/hour, and many who make substantially less than that. It also includes thousands of in-house corporate attorneys with only one client each.
I worked for 13 years in BigLaw, including a couple in one of the biggest of the big. I was part of the 2009 "bloody Thursday" layoffs. I have never even considered seeking another position in BigLaw, for the reasons cited by others above and in the linked articles.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 12:08 PM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
The piece is fairly off base.
With exceptions you can count on the fingers of one hand, every large law firm in the country has had since the mid-1990s some variation of the hard-boiled business model that the article illustrates. Layoffs and firm failures were at least as severe following the bust of the NASDAQ bubble in 2001 as they were following the bust of the credit bubble in 2008. General Counsels have been scrutinizing bills for a while, too.
Law firm billing rates, and associate salaries, and partner profits remain high. There's still essentially no option to BigLaw and all of its ups and downs if you have sophisticated legal work you need done well and quickly.
The loss of commodity discovery work has hurt some people to be sure, but the bigger impact has been from corporate consolidation. The structural changes to which Weil alludes are not General Counsels demanding rate discounts, but there being fewer clients.
The consumption of billable hours in many respects scales to the number of clients not the size of clients (above a certain minimum). Bank of America bought Merrill and Countrywide, Barclays and Nomura split up Lehman, JP Morgan bought Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, and Wells Fargo bought Wachovia. That's a hell of lot of billable hours gone.
Of course it stinks if you are a recent grad on the sharp end of the relatively modest decline in staffing. The huge increase in tuitions and the government's determination to lend anyone any amount of money for a graduate degree (to the extent those aren't the same phenomenon) has made a bad situation worse. However, that is under correction. Law classes are down (way down in some places) and net tuition is down in even further. Sooner or later Congress will step in with more sensible limits on tuition loans, especially for low-ranked schools and unpromising students.
posted by MattD at 12:53 PM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
With exceptions you can count on the fingers of one hand, every large law firm in the country has had since the mid-1990s some variation of the hard-boiled business model that the article illustrates. Layoffs and firm failures were at least as severe following the bust of the NASDAQ bubble in 2001 as they were following the bust of the credit bubble in 2008. General Counsels have been scrutinizing bills for a while, too.
Law firm billing rates, and associate salaries, and partner profits remain high. There's still essentially no option to BigLaw and all of its ups and downs if you have sophisticated legal work you need done well and quickly.
The loss of commodity discovery work has hurt some people to be sure, but the bigger impact has been from corporate consolidation. The structural changes to which Weil alludes are not General Counsels demanding rate discounts, but there being fewer clients.
The consumption of billable hours in many respects scales to the number of clients not the size of clients (above a certain minimum). Bank of America bought Merrill and Countrywide, Barclays and Nomura split up Lehman, JP Morgan bought Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, and Wells Fargo bought Wachovia. That's a hell of lot of billable hours gone.
Of course it stinks if you are a recent grad on the sharp end of the relatively modest decline in staffing. The huge increase in tuitions and the government's determination to lend anyone any amount of money for a graduate degree (to the extent those aren't the same phenomenon) has made a bad situation worse. However, that is under correction. Law classes are down (way down in some places) and net tuition is down in even further. Sooner or later Congress will step in with more sensible limits on tuition loans, especially for low-ranked schools and unpromising students.
posted by MattD at 12:53 PM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
And how long would it take an attorney to retrain for piano moving?
Based on this article, I'd say a long time of hard work, and I conclude that not many are going to have the skills to cut it. I can tell you right now as a lawyer, I wouldn't. Also, interestingly, piano moving like stable jobs in big law has been on a rapid decline, and for similar reasons -- not enough clients for law firms, not enough pianos for piano movers. Only the elite survive.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 1:03 PM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Based on this article, I'd say a long time of hard work, and I conclude that not many are going to have the skills to cut it. I can tell you right now as a lawyer, I wouldn't. Also, interestingly, piano moving like stable jobs in big law has been on a rapid decline, and for similar reasons -- not enough clients for law firms, not enough pianos for piano movers. Only the elite survive.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 1:03 PM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Area Man has intuited the main reason for forbidding law-firm ownership by non-lawyers. I'm a lawyer. My absolute duty of loyalty and everything else is to my client. If anybody who's not a lawyer in my firm, which, by definition, shares my imputed conflicts and ethical obligations and such, has a 51% ownership in the company and demands that I do a certain thing (ethical or not) which harms my client, everything asplodes--I may have to withdraw from the representation and disclose the demand to my client, which might violate my duty of loyalty to the corporation, etc. Ergo, no non-lawyers allowed.
In DC a non-lawyer may own a law practice, actually.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:25 PM on July 22, 2013
In DC a non-lawyer may own a law practice, actually.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:25 PM on July 22, 2013
Keep in mind as a lawyer, if you go up against someone who is willing to bar grieve you for any misstep or whatever slight, your insurance rates will rise and price you right out of the job you just trained for.
The bar grievance committee will protect you (I know of a lawyer who strangled his wife to where she blacked out, got charged with attempted murder, failed to close estates, and was non-responsive to the Court and the grievance committee did not publicly chastise him) yet the insurance companies will assume every complaint is valid and your rates will go up. He closed his office and is awaiting his rates to drop - still holds a bar card.
Another lawyer responded to a discovery outside the 30 day timeframe with 'we'll sign an affidavit with the answer to your discovery request only if you drop the case VS my client' Bar Grievance position - he did nothing wrong.
If court watchers ever get organized and start bar grieving in bulk, attorneys will be on a 'one mistake and you are out' due to insurance pricing.
posted by rough ashlar at 1:59 PM on July 22, 2013
The bar grievance committee will protect you (I know of a lawyer who strangled his wife to where she blacked out, got charged with attempted murder, failed to close estates, and was non-responsive to the Court and the grievance committee did not publicly chastise him) yet the insurance companies will assume every complaint is valid and your rates will go up. He closed his office and is awaiting his rates to drop - still holds a bar card.
Another lawyer responded to a discovery outside the 30 day timeframe with 'we'll sign an affidavit with the answer to your discovery request only if you drop the case VS my client' Bar Grievance position - he did nothing wrong.
If court watchers ever get organized and start bar grieving in bulk, attorneys will be on a 'one mistake and you are out' due to insurance pricing.
posted by rough ashlar at 1:59 PM on July 22, 2013
How much demand is there for piano moving?
Enough that I have been making a living at it for a long time. The world does not run out of pianos even if no new ones are being sold, and you can't send the job to Bangladesh.
And how long would it take an attorney to retrain for piano moving?
i have never seen an attorney successfully adapt to a physical gig, so I have no opinion. Piano moving takes a unique combination of intelligence, imagination, people skills, spatial relations, brute strength, self-confidence and monstrous cojones. Lawyers generally lack one of two of those qualities.
posted by Repack Rider at 2:26 PM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Enough that I have been making a living at it for a long time. The world does not run out of pianos even if no new ones are being sold, and you can't send the job to Bangladesh.
And how long would it take an attorney to retrain for piano moving?
i have never seen an attorney successfully adapt to a physical gig, so I have no opinion. Piano moving takes a unique combination of intelligence, imagination, people skills, spatial relations, brute strength, self-confidence and monstrous cojones. Lawyers generally lack one of two of those qualities.
posted by Repack Rider at 2:26 PM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Oh man. That part in the New Republic article about associates being encouraged to bring in business, only to have all the credit stolen by a partner, is completely 100% true. That is what will bring down the big law firms eventually, sure as the sun rises in the east, if the partners don't find any other ways to screw them up more imminently.
I know at least two people at large law firms to whom this has actually happened, and here is the thing - they both now hate their respective firms with a white-hot passion. They do not aspire to make partner there, they aspire to get the hell out as soon as the getting's good, and in a perfect world, would walk down the halls and personally tell each partner to go fuck himself on the way out. Suffice to say, when they leave, they will not be sending work back to the mother ship, which is another thing firms like to see from the departing partners and associates, and which is a reason they have firm "alumni" networking events.
They are completely, completely shitting the bed every time they screw over an associate like that, and at this point, barely any associate can make it up to the brink of partnership without seeing it at least once.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 2:31 PM on July 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
I know at least two people at large law firms to whom this has actually happened, and here is the thing - they both now hate their respective firms with a white-hot passion. They do not aspire to make partner there, they aspire to get the hell out as soon as the getting's good, and in a perfect world, would walk down the halls and personally tell each partner to go fuck himself on the way out. Suffice to say, when they leave, they will not be sending work back to the mother ship, which is another thing firms like to see from the departing partners and associates, and which is a reason they have firm "alumni" networking events.
They are completely, completely shitting the bed every time they screw over an associate like that, and at this point, barely any associate can make it up to the brink of partnership without seeing it at least once.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 2:31 PM on July 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
They are completely, completely shitting the bed every time they screw over an associate like that,
Before I lateraled, there was an associate who was busted shitting in the potted plants. I think he must have had the same thing happen to him.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 2:45 PM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Before I lateraled, there was an associate who was busted shitting in the potted plants. I think he must have had the same thing happen to him.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 2:45 PM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Every single time a thread about the law and/or law school gets posted, I am so, so, so glad I decided not to go, which is too bad, because it always did sound interesting. I just knew there were bad times coming when literally everyone I talked to from high school said they were going to law school after college.
Same here, especially when the pay in the field I was interested in is not much above the $25/hr rate mentioned upthread and even the public university law schools were charging $20K/yr+ in tuition.
posted by junco at 2:49 PM on July 22, 2013
Same here, especially when the pay in the field I was interested in is not much above the $25/hr rate mentioned upthread and even the public university law schools were charging $20K/yr+ in tuition.
posted by junco at 2:49 PM on July 22, 2013
They are completely, completely shitting the bed every time they screw over an associate like that...
I kind of doubt it. There is practically an unlimited supply of eager young law students fighting for those prized positions LOL.
It's kind of like rock bands and musicians being eager to sign corporate music labels' onerous, one-sided contracts. At least the Biglaw associates will get paid for a few years...
posted by mikeand1 at 3:35 PM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I kind of doubt it. There is practically an unlimited supply of eager young law students fighting for those prized positions LOL.
It's kind of like rock bands and musicians being eager to sign corporate music labels' onerous, one-sided contracts. At least the Biglaw associates will get paid for a few years...
posted by mikeand1 at 3:35 PM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I kind of doubt it. There is practically an unlimited supply of eager young law students fighting for those prized positions LOL.
It's not about having an unlimited stream of associates - on that you are undoubtedly right. It's about having goodwill in the community and a collection of people who are willing to either hire you or refer you to others who will.
The legal profession is SO dependent on this sort of schmoozing, networking, and knowing-a-guy-who-knows-a-guy for new business - it is impossible to overstate how important this is. As an attorney, literally everyone you interact with in a professional setting is a potential source of new business (and you for them, as well).
That includes former associates. And if you cut them off in a way that says "sorry, we'd love to have you, but there's not enough room in the partnership for everyone," you can avoid burning your bridges. But if you conduct yourself like a despicable bastard in every interaction, you'll have a hard time finding anyone willing to piss on you if you catch fire, let alone hire you and give you money. THAT is going to be the death knell of these large firms, not getting a bad reputation at law school recruiting fairs.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 3:46 PM on July 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
It's not about having an unlimited stream of associates - on that you are undoubtedly right. It's about having goodwill in the community and a collection of people who are willing to either hire you or refer you to others who will.
The legal profession is SO dependent on this sort of schmoozing, networking, and knowing-a-guy-who-knows-a-guy for new business - it is impossible to overstate how important this is. As an attorney, literally everyone you interact with in a professional setting is a potential source of new business (and you for them, as well).
That includes former associates. And if you cut them off in a way that says "sorry, we'd love to have you, but there's not enough room in the partnership for everyone," you can avoid burning your bridges. But if you conduct yourself like a despicable bastard in every interaction, you'll have a hard time finding anyone willing to piss on you if you catch fire, let alone hire you and give you money. THAT is going to be the death knell of these large firms, not getting a bad reputation at law school recruiting fairs.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 3:46 PM on July 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
and for similar reasons -- not enough clients for law firms, not enough pianos for piano movers. Only the elite survive.
IN one sense, this is a tautology. If you survive, presumably you are an elite at something. The articles tell a somewhat different story -- a fair number of the elite lawyers are people who can rig the system in the favor best. The description of the law firm that tried to reorganize its culture to promote more cooperation in tough times was an excellent example -- everyone immediately began to game the system to benefit themselves. I'm not sure that's elite behavior in any ind of objective way.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:09 PM on July 22, 2013
IN one sense, this is a tautology. If you survive, presumably you are an elite at something. The articles tell a somewhat different story -- a fair number of the elite lawyers are people who can rig the system in the favor best. The description of the law firm that tried to reorganize its culture to promote more cooperation in tough times was an excellent example -- everyone immediately began to game the system to benefit themselves. I'm not sure that's elite behavior in any ind of objective way.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:09 PM on July 22, 2013
The legal profession is SO dependent on this sort of schmoozing, networking, and knowing-a-guy-who-knows-a-guy for new business - it is impossible to overstate how important this is.
Oh I'm quite well aware of that, believe me. But I don't think laid-off associates are really that significant as a future source of business for large law firms--especially not in this economy.
posted by mikeand1 at 4:32 PM on July 22, 2013
Oh I'm quite well aware of that, believe me. But I don't think laid-off associates are really that significant as a future source of business for large law firms--especially not in this economy.
posted by mikeand1 at 4:32 PM on July 22, 2013
Not necessarily laid off associates - but former associates often wind up in-house and involved in or at least influential in hiring decisions.
posted by marguerite at 4:43 PM on July 22, 2013
posted by marguerite at 4:43 PM on July 22, 2013
And how long would it take an attorney to retrain for piano moving?
i have never seen an attorney successfully adapt to a physical gig... Lawyers generally lack one of two of those qualities.
posted by Repack Rider
Whoa, Repack, good save. You realize you got that posted just in time? I heard the whooshing sound as a hoard* of lawyers attempted to file for sole proprietor businesses.
*I realize that isn't the actual collective noun desegnation. Googling results in a disputation of lawyers, otherwise known as a greed, a huddle, a quarrel, an eloquence, or an escheat. However, I relish the thought of a dozen lawyers in Viking helmets with axes strapped to their briefcases.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:50 PM on July 22, 2013
i have never seen an attorney successfully adapt to a physical gig... Lawyers generally lack one of two of those qualities.
posted by Repack Rider
Whoa, Repack, good save. You realize you got that posted just in time? I heard the whooshing sound as a hoard* of lawyers attempted to file for sole proprietor businesses.
*I realize that isn't the actual collective noun desegnation. Googling results in a disputation of lawyers, otherwise known as a greed, a huddle, a quarrel, an eloquence, or an escheat. However, I relish the thought of a dozen lawyers in Viking helmets with axes strapped to their briefcases.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:50 PM on July 22, 2013
The benefits of careers in law and medicine were once both the result of tightly controlled labor markets. The AMA continues to keep a stranglehold on the number of doctors, through their limitation of the number of accredited medical schools. The ABA has done no such thing, and as this article points out, the number of law schools in the US has increased by 50% since 1963.
That's true, but I don't think it's such a bad thing*. Any profession that requires extended education and training should only take on as many students as it can employ. You don't want people getting dumped on the street after investing 10 years of their lives. That said, the AMA is taking it too far, since 22% of new medical residents come from foreign schools.
* IANAL and IANAD
posted by cosmic.osmo at 5:49 PM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
That's true, but I don't think it's such a bad thing*. Any profession that requires extended education and training should only take on as many students as it can employ. You don't want people getting dumped on the street after investing 10 years of their lives. That said, the AMA is taking it too far, since 22% of new medical residents come from foreign schools.
* IANAL and IANAD
posted by cosmic.osmo at 5:49 PM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Oh, I agree that it's not necessarily a bad thing -- a cartel system is pretty much the only thing capable of protecting labor interests in the US, as the past 50-60 years of union erosion have shown. You have to control the entire labor supply chain from the very top or else you will get undercut.
A year or two ago I was seriously contemplating going to dental school. But I observed what appears to be going on in dental schools, a similar pattern to what happened in law. New, for-profit, non-university-affiliated schools are popping up; tuition is unimaginable and still rising; yet young applicants are being told that being a dentist is a guaranteed ticket to upper-middle-class comfort, so don't you worry about the astronomical debt.
I'm not so sure this will be the case in 5-10 years, particularly in saturated markets. Like lawyers, there can only be so many dentists per square mile. What's worse, often the greatest need exists in rural areas or impoverished neighborhoods -- which a young practitioner can't afford to serve.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 7:23 PM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
A year or two ago I was seriously contemplating going to dental school. But I observed what appears to be going on in dental schools, a similar pattern to what happened in law. New, for-profit, non-university-affiliated schools are popping up; tuition is unimaginable and still rising; yet young applicants are being told that being a dentist is a guaranteed ticket to upper-middle-class comfort, so don't you worry about the astronomical debt.
I'm not so sure this will be the case in 5-10 years, particularly in saturated markets. Like lawyers, there can only be so many dentists per square mile. What's worse, often the greatest need exists in rural areas or impoverished neighborhoods -- which a young practitioner can't afford to serve.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 7:23 PM on July 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Isn't this largely yet another consequence of the increasing consolidation of big everything in this country?
posted by wierdo at 2:19 AM on July 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by wierdo at 2:19 AM on July 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
I was a piano mover once too.
By the way, increasingly lightweight digital keyboards dominate the piano market and sales of real pianos have fallen drastically. Piano dealers all over America are going bankrupt fast. Pianos last a long time, but not forever. And there is no second hand market for any but the few top brands in grand size. So right now a piano mover can do well as literally thousands of baby-boomers who were the last to buy or inherit the middle-class living room piano try to get rid of grandma's beloved Baldwin. Look on Craigslist and you will find dozens being given away for free if you will just pay moving costs to get it out of grandma's apartment before we sell it.
So I wouldn't count on piano moving surviving as a profession indefinitely either.
Back in my day the theory was three really strong goons and a skinny smart guy who could read a map, calculate a bill, measure a stairwell, put a piano back together after taking it apart, and deal with the sort of people who hire piano movers. Sober.
Guess which one I was?
posted by spitbull at 4:17 AM on July 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
By the way, increasingly lightweight digital keyboards dominate the piano market and sales of real pianos have fallen drastically. Piano dealers all over America are going bankrupt fast. Pianos last a long time, but not forever. And there is no second hand market for any but the few top brands in grand size. So right now a piano mover can do well as literally thousands of baby-boomers who were the last to buy or inherit the middle-class living room piano try to get rid of grandma's beloved Baldwin. Look on Craigslist and you will find dozens being given away for free if you will just pay moving costs to get it out of grandma's apartment before we sell it.
So I wouldn't count on piano moving surviving as a profession indefinitely either.
Back in my day the theory was three really strong goons and a skinny smart guy who could read a map, calculate a bill, measure a stairwell, put a piano back together after taking it apart, and deal with the sort of people who hire piano movers. Sober.
Guess which one I was?
posted by spitbull at 4:17 AM on July 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
The sober one?
posted by Carillon at 1:09 PM on July 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 1:09 PM on July 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
Well . . .
And I was talking about a law firm. A piano moving crew is just goons.
posted by spitbull at 3:01 PM on July 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
And I was talking about a law firm. A piano moving crew is just goons.
posted by spitbull at 3:01 PM on July 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
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