<p>The problems in our society are structural and systemic. They are not cyclical and seasonal. Its the perfect storm of financial shenanigans brought on by wallstreet greed and tomfoolery, coupled with greed in the mortgage banking/originator world and filtering down to overly ambitious developers and builders. That was compounded by the dot.com craze in the 90’s, which blew up, and everyone headed to real estate for a safe haven but it wasnt so safe in the end. Then as we built out the internet and wireless empires, we learned that computers were eliminating as many jobs or more than they were creating, and globalization meant many ordinary jobs went overseas to developing countries. Its a highly competitive world and we are also inter-dependent. A very big bubble indeed. </p>
<p>That affects law firms because clients shrink or disappear, clients move overseas, and as margins shrink clients can’t afford huge legal bills to fight over money or shelf space at Walmart anymore. The entire construct has changed. </p>
<p>Meanwhile the NEED for lawyers grows…but in the lowly (as in payscale) areas of family law, personal bankruptcy, and largely “district court” level stuff that makes it hard for debt burdened lawyers pay their rent. Further, large law firms are not hiring an entire cadre of newly licensed attorneys…they are being very picky and selecting a very few…making a lot of lawyers finishing below the top 30% of their classes scramble for jobs…and often having to hang out a shingle. Not good. They can’t even make a living on real estate transactions because nobody is buying houses and they can’t get loans for them anyway.</p>
<p>My advice to most lawyers is to think twice…and be honest. If you are in the muddled middle of your class or below, get out and find something else to do, unless you have family paying your way through school. </p>
<p>And by the way, the stock market is overvalued now and we may see yet another crash in the next 12-18 months just as severe as the last one. Oh joy.</p>
<p>Reality bites sometimes. Be prudent.</p>