There was always an opportunity cost of leaving a job to study full-time for another degree. In a less volatile economy that could eventually pay off, but usually that required years. Now, in such turbulent times, that opportunity cost may be too high for a reasonable professional to take.
The tale of Kashif Sheikh, recounted in THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL by Jeff Jeffrey, could be a 21-st century tragedy which we will witness myriad times in the next few years. Sheikh was employed at Merrill Lynch. His position was lucrative and there was no reason for him to leave. But leave he did to attend Georgetown University Law Center. During those three years of matriculating for his law degree he acquired $150,000 in debt.
At first, that still appeared to be a wise investment. He was hired fresh out of Georgetown at Thacher Proffitt & Wood in 2008. In December of the same year, the law firm tanked. Of the lawyers there, about 100 were invited to join Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. Sheikh was not among them. Since then he has not been employed full-time in law, only doing a legal odd job now and then. So disappointing has been his search for a legal job in BigLaw that he has, notes Jeffrey, "switched his focus to government legal positions and is also trying to return to the financial sector."
Even less comprehensive studies have not yielded their expected payoff. Some lawyers in Texas, for example, added Information Technology to their credentials, hoping to get work in Intellectual Property. Patent lawsuits went down in number. They were out of luck.
More bad news: Laid-off associates, adds Jeffrey, are not being looked at by BigLaw, at least not if they travel the head-hunter route. Those who apply themselves might get looked at. But in this market, don't count on being hired.
As in all broad-scale disasters, in this one in the legal industry, those left out in the cold might just have to suck up the opportunity cost and decide to move on. The latter ain't easy. The more invested in a career path, the more denial there will be, the more tendency to stay stuck. Stuck often trumps reality.
Here is some wisdom I shared at the New York State Bar Association which was recently published in VITAL SPEECHES OF THE DAY Download NYSBAtalkinVITALSPEECHESOFDAY. It's derived from the career-advice book targeted at Baby Boomers but applicable for anyone in a changing economy - OVER-50: HOW WE KEEP WORKING.
WARNING: Don't go near any of this until you're finished mourning your loss. But don't overdo the grief process, especially since the economy is picking up. By 2018, predict policy analysts Barry Bluestone and Mark Mednick, there will be 14+ mllion new nonfarm jobs created.
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