Law-Grad Jobs - Employment Prospects Dim as Firms Retrench, Derailing Career Paths for Many
Mr. Ronisky is one of about 40,000 law-school students who will graduate this spring and enter one of the worst job markets for attorneys in decades. This year’s classes have it particularly bad, according to lawyers and industry experts. Though hiring was down last year as well, they said 2009 graduates applied for jobs before law firms had felt the full brunt of the downturn.
The situation is so bleak that some students and industry experts are rethinking the value of a law degree, long considered a ticket to financial security. If students performed well, particularly at top-tier law schools, they could count on jobs at corporate firms where annual pay starts as high as $160,000 and can top out well north of $1 million. While plenty of graduates are still set to embark on that career path, many others have had their dreams upended.
Part of the problem is supply and demand. Law-school enrollment has held steady in recent years while law firms, judges, the government and other employers have drastically cut hiring in the economic downturn.
Large corporate law firms have been hit particularly hard. The nation’s 100 highest-grossing corporate firms last year reported an average revenue decline of 3.4%, the first overall drop in more than 20 years, according to the May issue of The American Lawyer magazine.
Morrison & Foerster LLP, a 1,000-lawyer San Francisco-based firm, hired about 30% fewer graduates this year than in the prior year. “It would not surprise me if all firms cut back on hiring law graduates for a couple of years,” said Keith Wetmore, its chairman. Saul Ewing LLP, a 250-lawyer Philadelphia firm, cut hiring of law graduates this year by about two-thirds.
[…]
Employers last year offered 69% of summer interns a full-time job, down from about 90% in the previous five years.
(via WSJ)
You don’t get sustainable GDP growth in a world of contracting monetary aggregates and sluggish credit demand.
The pre-cursors of the next crisis. Sovereign debt and stalled economies.
For example; how will the Greece government collect new taxes (and current taxes) from a stalled economy? How will the government function when everyone is on strike. Public and private sector workers? How will you combat tax evasion when there is no big taxes to collect? Or people start to barter. Or people work under the radar in the private sector (Schwarzarbeit)?
The same with Spain and +20% unemployment, how will the government fund that social safety net? Same in the USA, now have to pay more in social security out than it collects in tax from the ‘working’?
Governments who were NOT in shape before this Great Recession are likely to default (PIIGS). Or have a stalled or <2% growth rate (without stimulus) … which doesn’t really help to reign in escalating sovereign debt. Or even balance the budget without making the really tough decisions.
