cartera45

Neonzeus, have I called you! Patent law can be the exception to the rule. Undergrad prestige can trump law school. I have several IP searches now and the range of credentials that my clients will accept is pretty broad in that practice area.

Neonzeus

Cartera: I don't think we've spoken LOL. I don't work in the area of patent law, but agree with you that patent law can have different requirements. The patent lawyers I work with have undergrad degrees in the same field as our patents, so they can "talk the talk" when working on the patents with our developers.

On the other hand, my own degrees have absolutely nothing to do with my industry. I was a liberal arts major, and I work in a science-based industry. I learned my industry the hard way, through 30+ years of experience and working closely with the people who DID know their business. My practice was defined by my first job as a clerk for a boutique law firm in law school. That job led to the next job in the same area of law, etc.

Eventually the attorneys in an industry or practice area get to know each other well. The group with the most experience and expertise is relatively limited. Executives and senior managers tend to show up at competitors eventually. Those people can want to work with you again. It's a small world, after all.

brownug

What is "big law"..."middle law" lol. ....is there a "small law" too?

I'm a complete newbie. heh heh.


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EDIT:

Also are you saying that this fierce competition applies to government and non-profit law as well? Or just to private law practices?

I've known some people from either low ranked law schools or decent law schools, but bottom of their class get government related positions (such as being a prosecutor or a regulator...like FDIC/banking)....

Neonzeus

Mid-law is my own invention to describe mid-sized firms. I never heard of any small firms showing up to conduct interviews.

Yeah, Brownug, there's very stiff competition for government, military and public interest legal jobs now too (particularly federal jobs). There are also fewer of those jobs and people tend to try to hang onto them longer, even with the low salaries.

These are just my experiences though. I'm not in a major legal market like New York City, Washington DC, Boston, or Chicago (although I did practice in one of those markets at one time). I've heard it's even more competitive in those markets.

zoosermom

Personally, I think there is downward pressure since hiring has gotten so tough at the bigger law firms that pay the huge salaries. Of course, Dewey's closing didn't help matters. I know for a professional fact that smaller, less previously prestigious firms are hiring people who wouldn't have looked at them a few years ago, and people from top undergrad, law schools and law firms are snapping up the public interest or government jobs. Some of the public interest jobs are going to grads being actually paid by law firms as "interns," rather than permanent hires, so that's squeezing the pool of people who would have been permanent government hires. I'm not an expert on inhouse hiring, but my observations have been that it's often experienced lawyers who are hired and in this economy, the mid-level lawyers who are being weeded out of partnership tracks are moving into those jobs. Also from top law schools.

It is very sad, but I see a lot of graduates from mid-level and above law schools working as hourly temps and being treated like garbage. And in the legal field, being a temp is like having cooties. No one will touch you after that. So they are doing what they can to pay down debt, but destroying their chances at permanent legal employment in many cases.

brownug

Wow, this stuff is super scary to me...

Dang...it's depressing somewhat.

Why don't law firms reduce hours for some workers (I'm sure many would prefer a 60 hour work week instead of an 80-100 hour one that I hear about) and hire more to fill in the extra needed hours? .....I actually think working less gives your mind and body time to heal and recuperate and come back stronger and be more productive. Being overworked doesn't produce greatness.

Why not hire more people and have current employers work a few less hours/week...the subtraction of a little salary in return for more personal time would seem awesome and make people more happy in the long run.

Where can a law school hopeful find out more about this type of info. you guys are talking about??? It's depressing news, but stuff I'd want to know about to prepare myself for the job market in law.

Are there industry publications ...like one or two that are the gold standard for legal news?

zoosermom

That's exactly the opposite of how law firms work. In order to be considered to be performing at a satisfactory level, an attorney must bill a certain amount of hours. Note the word "bill" which is not the same as "work." It is upon associate billable hours that law firms are profitable. Only the highest billers will continue on the partnership track, which should be considered an upscale game of Survivor, and they would never, ever, ever, ever give away billable hours. In slow times, people fight for billables because they know that's the only way to partnership. Firms don't want to hire more people, that involves benefits and increased support staff. Many firms are only hiring as permanent associates the grads at the top of the heap and using temp attorneys and "staff" attorneys to do the grunt work. Young attorneys do not have personal time or personal lives. That's not part of the deal and if you are looking for a work-life balance, in this day and age, law is probably not for you, unless you are the child of a family that owns its own law practice. Also, law is a business. Personal happiness is for the people who own the firms. Not the employees at any level. The employees get compensated very, very well and associates hope to join the rank of owners someday. Most won't, of course, and will find themselves unemployed at year eight, but some get corporate or government jobs at that point and can have a work-life balance on much less money.

Scope out abovetthelaw.com for the real, albeit sarcastic, story.

brownug

1.) Why are the unemployed at year eight?

2.) What are these part-time and temp attorneys I'm hearing about? ... Is that similar to an adjunct professor?


The more I hear the more depressing it sounds!!!

zoosermom

Large and medium sized law firms are generally built on an "up or out" model. What hapens is that a class of lawyers is hired every fall (the number hired depends on the size of the firm) and every year they are all evaluated and some are told that they will not make partner at that firm and have X months to find another option. By year 8, which is often the partnership year, there will only be a couple of people left from that class at the very most. The more senior you are the more difficult it is to find another job and if you come to a vote and aren't elected to the partnership it is staggeringly difficult.

Temp attorneys are exactly like all temps. Hired for a period of time with no benefits, no security and paid an hourly rate. Unemployed at the end of that period. Staff attorneys can be permanent employes of a firm, but they are more like clerks tha lawyers and aren't on the partnership track, don't earn top money, and have no career path.

It is depressing. Terrible time to become a lawyer if you aren't independently wealthy or guaranteed a job.

brownug

Yeah, that sounds like professorship tenure...you have approx. six years to publish something worthy of tenure at your school. ...otherwise, you are given a one year notice to seek employment elsewhere.

I didn't know law was that way too.

I have a question, however. You said that these new hires are given ONE year to do well or else find a job? ..Was that a typo? I wasn't sure, b/c you then go on to say that at year eight these people are told whether or not they can make partner.

...And lastly...why would it be tough to be a "higher up" lawyer who doesn't make partner? ...Wouldn't it be easier to find a job having at least made it that high? It's better than the person who got dumped after one year or ...two years, right? That person who never even made it to year eight would seem much more suspect on the market, no?

amarkov

It's not like professorship, where you have the six years and you're generally allowed to use it. Each year, if you're at the bottom of the pile, you get kicked out. So each year, you have to engage in a competition to get the most billable hours.

The problem with being a higher up lawyer is that you'll be used to a higher salary, and you'll be used to doing more interesting stuff than entry-level associate work. If you get bumped back down the ladder and told to work your way up again, there's a pretty serious risk of you just burning out completely; the modern firm model does assume that some people will burn out, but that doesn't mean they want to go out of their way to hire people who will. (And it's not like there's a shortage of new graduates who would like to be first-year associates...)

brownug

I see.....

So here's a question...why can't all the new hires stay if they're all doing well? What if the person billing the least hours does a good job, but simply doesn't bill as much as the others?

Also, what's up with billing hours? ...Do the lawyers have to sort of be entreprenuers and go out and find clients to work with and bill? Or do clients just walk right in and the lawyers have stuff to do and it's just a matter of how much or how fast they do it? ...

I'm not familiar with this billing scenario of law, lol. But good to find out NOW early on! Thanks!!

cbreeze

According to one big law firm's website, only TEN people made partners this year. This is a firm with 23 offices worldwide. What happens to all those year-eight associates who didn't make partner? What other options do they have if they don't leave the firm?

Neonzeus

You can try to go in-house with a corporation, which might be your best bet if biglaw had given you work that might be useful at a corporation. If biglaw assigned you to work only with some dead-end project (think asbestos litigation) or in a narrow field, you may not be as marketable as others with different skill sets.

You can try a lateral move to a mid-sized firm, although this is likely to result in a pay drop. This time the competition is different. Instead of competing solely on grades and legal writing skills, you could be competing for a job with someone who had spent the last 8 years doing trial work, building a small practice of their own, etc.

You can try moving into a teaching job if your credentials were stellar (and try to convince people that you're doing it because you were burned out, vs. doing it because you suddenly discovered that you wanted to enlighten young minds instead of making a lot of money as a partner).

You might be "lucky" enough to be told that you can continue with the firm as a paid employee who isn't on partnership track. Recently I've met two lawyers who were given the title "of Counsel." They told me that they've were advised that they will not be made partner.

You might be told you could work another year and try again, although I've heard this is rare.

You can try for those nonlegal or government jobs along with everyone else. As with teaching, you can tell people that you're either burned out or that this was part of some long-term plan that you always intended to do on your way to a bright future.

And yes, all of the rest of us know that if you have biglaw on your resume but you're not a partner at that firm, that you didn't make the cut.

Brownug: It doesn't matter if you're just a good employee. Everyone is presumably a good employee. Billable hours will depend on the practice group, whether others in the practice group are hustling for hours better, if the partner you work with has power, etc. Bringing in clients is always a good thing, if you can manage to find clients who will pay biglaw rates and a partner doesn't strip the client from you. I'm willing to bet that the 10 who made partner were either capable of bringing in clients, were somehow "connected" to important people, or had written articles or otherwise raised the profile of the firm.

zoosermom

What I said was that EVERY YEAR attorneys are evaulated and a number are asked to find other positions. The total could start as 12 or 30 or whatever in a class. The numbers thin each year. By partnership year, they all have to be up or out.

No, exactly the opposite. Senior lawyers make much more money and find it hard to make do on so much less. Also, there are fewer senior positions than junior. Mid-level attorneys, from years 3-5 are most desirable to new employers because they are well trained but not too expensive.