Law And More

Amanda Knox Reveals She Considered Suicide: Does that help/hurt the brand?

Suicide remains a taboo subject in America, a nation built on super-human notions of optimism despite the odds. 

So, we wonder if it will help or hurt Amanda Knox's book sales that she revealed, reports USA TODAY, that during her incarceration she considered suicide.  To be exact, her plan was to swallow broken glass or suffocate herself with a garbage bag.

Americans might prefer to envision her as a young woman who never wavered in her hope that her name would be cleared in the court of law and the court of public opinion.  Books about that kind of emotional strength become best sellers.  An example was "Sea Biscuit."

The Knox memoir will be released at the end of this month.

Winston & Strawn: ATL receives leaks about 30 stealth layoffs, less than 70% offers to summers

As the legal sector's revenues are growing slowly and there is expense creep, stress is building.  All categories of manpower could face Reductions in Force (RIFs): Staff, associates, plain-vanilla partners, and equity partners.   The bottom line on this is this: BigLaw needs a new business model and that isn't in place yet.

On Abovethelaw.com, David Lat reports the return of layoffs among associates.   ATL has been informed by sources at Winston & Strawn that about 30 associates there were victims of stealth layoffs last week.  In addition, it's possible that less than 70% of summers received offers.

Is the darkness starting to fall again on associates?  We all remember after the balloon burst in 2007, layoffs were happening everywhere.  In addition, those extended offers faced a delayed hiring date.  Some were paid something to do something else for a year and then given a job.  Some were paid to go away and stay away.  That was Def Land.  Those were horrific times.  They could return as BigLaw gets it that things haven't improved enough and, well, there is a crisis under way.

In my field of public affairs, things have improved significantly for those who have embraced the new realities.  That entailed a paradigm shift to being all-business with prospects in making a pitch and all-business in delivering service.  In addition, we smaller players had to adjust our pricing downward.  For lawyers who are willing to make a career change, this field is a growing one.  They can apply their legal background to working for highly regulated industries, ranging from energy to insurance.

Def Land: Now, degree-getting is being deferred

For several years the Def Land story was about JDs who had received offers of employment from BigLaw, only to have them deferred, some indefinitely.  It was not a pretty time.  Now, the Def Land story is about business schools with MBA programs.  A growing share of those admitted to those are penning well-reasoned requests to defer the day they actually enrol. 

In BLOOMBERG BUSINESS WEEK, Kiah Lau Haslett reports on this new trend.  Usually in a down economy academic programs bulk up.  Why not wait out the recession there, plus emerge more marketable?  That conventional thinking has been replaced, at least by those with jobs or successful businesses, with a bird-in-the-hand mindset. 

An example is Harvard's 2+2 Program.  Admitted in 2009, the Class of 2011 worked for two years.   Of the 106 expected to start the Program, only 67 will.  The rest will stay working.  About 39 of them requested Def Land.

This mindset could become contagious.  Those who have jobs or who have started businesses might decide it's too risky to reach for that bird in the bush and enrol in law school.  This might even play out for those accepted into prestigious programs.  Law school deans should factor this possibility in.  The slow economy is expected to endure for years.  The norm could be the best and brightest applying to law school, then requesting the exit to Def Land.

Caution: BigLaw extended 33% fewer offers to summers in 2010

The mood in BigLaw is caution when it comes to extending job offers.  In 2010, reports Tom Huddleston Jr. in the AMERICAN LAWYER, that number was down 33% for summer associates in 2010.  Part of the reason the number was significantly lower was that BigLaw had fewer summers.  Among those which had cut back on the number of summers were Skadden, Arps and Cravath.

Huddleston points out that BigLaw has learned not to make offers it might have defer.  In the worst of the implosion the legal sector went through after the bubble burst, some hires were not able to start actual work until a year or more after they were originally supposed to show up for work.  Those deferred or "Defs" attracted considerable media attention, particularly from popular tabloid Abovethelaw.com. 

Thanksgiving Day 2010: Every reason for 1Ls to have attitude of gratitude

This Thursday, America will be celebrating another day of Thanksgiving.  Among those with the most to be grateful for are 1Ls in law schools across the nation.  Here are some of the reasons why:

• Not so much money has been invested in matriculating for a JD that it is impossible to just leave.  Chuck the whole enchilada.  If you were alert and insightful during these few months, then you have the material to write a nonfiction book, novel, documentary, or script for the lecture circuit on the mysterious pull force of becoming a lawyer in America.  Regarding the lecture circuit, here is information.

 

• You have accomplished what remains of the American Dream: going to law school.

 

• No newbie on encountering a horrific job market in 2013 [read some Hildebrandt here], you have the opportunity to get real smart about developing your edge.  Already you might have begun putting together a niche in an emerging practice area such as animal or gay/lesbian/transgender law.  Also, you are not giving your all to booking it.  You are volunteering to proofread your professor's next book and the motions at the 40-lawyer firm within bicycling distance of your school. In addition, you're cooking up something equivalent to Scott Turow's homerun "iL."  In short, you know you need a niche, you need experience, and you need a gimmick.  Innocents hanging up in Def Land, that is, with offers of a job but no report date, weren't as aware as you are.   

 

 

• Your Generation Y has many mentors eager to get you off an unpromising path [e.g. law] and onto a practical one [e.g. opening a dry cleaners or deli.].  One of them is Scott Gerber.  Here you can be introduced.

 

• You are no longer in the position of revering brandname law firms.  Just about every one has been shown, ether by those who sue them [e.g. "Nelson v. Jones Day"] or those who receive leaks from them [e.g. Abovethelaw.com], as having feet of clay.

 

• You can get the inside scoop on what goes on inside corporate law departments.  More work is being done there.  Aon Vice President and Chief Counsel - Litigation Mark Herrmann has a column on that subject in Abovethelaw.com.  Here is one of those. You may be using Herrmann's book "The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law" in your legal writing seminar.

 

FORBES: That's where jobless attorney goes for advice

The plight of The Jobless Attorney has spread from the usual media places like Abovethelaw.com and Careerist.com to the mainstream FORBES.  One woman whose search has, as it's euphemistically put, gone on too long, turns to Kate Griffin at FORBES for counsel.  The unemployed lawyer starts off with instructing Griffin not to recommend she work for free because all that pro bono work has already been grabbed by deferred lawyers.

Griffin dishes the platitudes, ranging from tell everyone you're looking to attend all the network events you can.  Of course, The Jobless Attorney is not going to get a job in law or probably any place else that way.  What could Griffin had said which might have got this woman working, earning decent money practicing law or doing something else?  Here are my thoughts:

• Expand the search to jobs and enterprises that can be started in which the skills learned in law school and the first law job can be leveraged.  Those could include some kind of analytical or processing work at highly regulated corporations like insurance, banking, or real estate.  Present yourself as an analyst or coordinator with a legal background.  Here is the talk on career transition which I delivered at the New York State Bar Association which had been published in VITAL SPEECHES OF THE DAY Download NYSBAtalkinVITALSPEECHESOFDAY.

 

• Look into the parts of legal practice where there is hiring.  That might include staff attorney work, contract work, and contacting firms in India about process re-engineering.  Working is better than not working because one job or assignment can lead to another one.  Sitting home waiting for a really good job usually results in remaining sitting home.

 

• Try a gimmick.  If it's a well-put-together scheme, there could be results.  On his blog, jobless marketing consultant Scott Avidon announced he would pay up to $25,000 for anyone who could refer him to an opportunity which resulted in a job.  Solid leads came in, including from top executives.

 

• Experiment with other kinds of career paths and how you apply for them until you get results.  In this new marketplace, there are no proven formulas to get work.  There are simply stuff to try today.  Today they may work but not tomorrow.

 

 

 

First Year Associates: Do you need a food taster?

Very few are straight out of law school.  More are from Def Land, that is the deferred associates from the Classes of long ago.  They are the first year associates in BigLaw.  Abovethelaw.com has issued a survey for them to fill out how they're faring.  Here it is.

For example, how were they treated by the powers that be, more seasoned associates, plain vanilla partners, and each other when they showed up for work?  How are things going now?  Is the organizational ethos one of eagerness to develop them into fine attorneys or a hunger to wash them out?  Have they been told explicitly how lucky they are to have a job with such a glut of talented lawyers from Ivy League schools?  Has anyone considered flagging down a cab and fleeing to a Buddhist temple in Asia?

Reflection: Somehow law doesn't seem much like a profession any more.

Law Hiring: It's about the bird in the hand, not in the bush

The legal media and the young lawyers and law students who follow it focus on any sign that hiring is improving. 

The latest example of that TEXAS LAWYER's Jeanne Graham reports that "four of the largest firms in Texas say they plan to hire more summer associates for 2011 than they did this year." Great. 

But those offers are not birds in the hand.  They, like so many deferred associates, could remain birds in the bush.  Should the firm's fortunes not continue to improve they could follow the now common practice of law firms's making offers and then not having those promises turn into jobs to report to for years or maybe never.

Until summers or associates show up onsite for work, get an ID badge, and a payroll number, they are not working.  The paradoxical issue here is that lawyers are trained in analysis, yet they so easily fall prey to magical thinking.

Def Land - Lawsuit, as expected, but unfortunately not clear-cut case

We knew this would happen: Some attorney is sent to Def Land.  Attorney remains in that limbo anticipating starting a job.  Then the job offer is rescinded. 

It happened.  As Elie Mystal recounts in Abovethelaw.com, U.C. Davis Law graduate Sarah Martinez filed a lawsuit against Howard Rice.  Here is a link to coverage in the ABA JOURNAL.  A lot of those in Def Land as well as legal theorists would be eager to see how this plays out.  Unfortunately, among the 11 alleged causes of action, which of course muddies the case, Martinez contends she was discriminated against because of her gender and Mexican ancestry.

Therefore, one has to conclude that it will take a more narrowly defined lawsuit from Def Land to address if law firms's actions in deferring an offer and/or rescinding it are in any way or ways illegal. 

Defland's many layers at DLA Piper

At DLA Piper, so many supposed entering associates have so many supposed deferred start days that they should be worrying plenty if any of them will actually be called to show up for work, get an ID badge, and be put on a payroll. 

In Abovethelaw.com, Elie Mystal does a noble job of accounting for the escalating number of deferred, their tentative day of work, and the compensation they might or might not receive while cooling their heels.  Many months ago, Mystal broke the code on all this.  He advised those in Defland to pull out all stops to get another offer.  This one, which had been deferred, was unlikely to morph into to an actual job.

By how things are shaking out at DLA Piper, Mystal seems to be on the money.  Yesterday, reports Mystal, DLA Piper called the Class of 2010, who had been hired but deferred, and told them that almost everyone is deferred until January 2012.  They said they [DLA Piper] 'expected' to give a stipend of $5K a month for pro bono work but didn't definitively confirm anything."

However, young lawyers should not assume they are the only ones being jacked around in this Darwinian marketplace.  Just about every professional I know has encountered such empty promises and brutal treatment, including on being paid on-time or ever.  It's been so bad that we have bit the bullet on paying Paypal's high service fees just in order to have 1) a way in which prospective clients must put a deposit as a sign of good faith, and 2) a way they can pay up at the 11 hour before we get mean-spirited, cunning, shaming collection agencies after them and begin discussing them on our blogs, tweets, and asides on Craigslist.

A bird in the hand is the only kind of bird to take seriously.  Two in the bush - well, those we come to be able to smell a mile away before we enter the business relationship.