Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Entire Legal Profession Is On The Verge Of Imploding
Business Insider ^ | 04/21/2013 | Steven Harper, The Belly of the Beast

Posted on 04/21/2013 2:39:58 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

When I applied to law school in 1975, the nation was recovering from a severe and prolonged recession. Even so, I always assumed that I’d be able to make a comfortable living with a legal degree, although I didn’t think that practicing law would make me rich.

Three and a half years later, I became a new associate at one of the nation’s largest law firms, Kirkland & Ellis. It had about 150 attorneys in two offices, Chicago and Washington, D.C. My annual salary was $25,000, which is $80,000 in 2012 dollars. There were rumors that some partners in large firms earned as much as ten or fifteen times that amount; by any measure, that was and is a lot of money.

The unlikely prospect of amassing great wealth wasn’t what attracted me to the law. Rather, I saw it as a prestigious profession whose practitioners enjoyed personally satisfying careers in which they provided others with counsel, advice, judgment, and a unique set of skills. Mentors at my first and only law firm taught me to focus on a single result: high-quality work for clients. If I accomplished that goal, everything else would take care of itself.

Today, the business of law focuses law school deans and practitioners in big law firms on something else: maximizing immediate profits for their institutions. That has muddied the profession’s mission and, even worse, set it on a course to become yet another object lesson in the perils of short-term thinking. Like the dot-com, real estate, and financial bubbles that preceded it, the lawyer bubble won’t end well, either. But now is the time to consider its causes, stop its growth, and take steps that might soften the impact when it bursts.

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Society
KEYWORDS: lawyers; legal; tuition
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-62 next last
To: aMorePerfectUnion

Ban law shows that show lawyers as the saviors of everything, making law look like a better profession than business, science, engineering or real trades.


41 posted on 04/21/2013 4:36:57 PM PDT by tbw2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

This retired lawyer wouldn’t mind one iota.


42 posted on 04/21/2013 4:49:49 PM PDT by RIghtwardHo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gorush

> The FDA has prohibited sales of Viagra to Attorneys...apparently it just makes them taller.

LOL


43 posted on 04/21/2013 5:22:29 PM PDT by jsanders2001
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Patton@Bastogne
U.S. Lawyers (by the millions) supported the usurper kenyan for president ...

***

Do you have a source for this assertion?

I'm asking because it appears that you have fallen for the media stereotype of lawyers. I'm sure criminal defense and civil plaintiff attorneys may have voted for the Kenyan, but most of the attorneys I worked for over the years were civil defense attorneys and they were all conservative.

44 posted on 04/21/2013 5:25:51 PM PDT by fatnotlazy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: fatnotlazy

I began as a legal secretary in 1983, but that title and that job no longer exists. When I switched firms a few years ago, I was in for the shock of my life. All of a sudden I was a “legal assistant,” doing paralegal type work I’d never done before in my career. Legal secretaries are quickly becoming a thing of the past, if they’re not already extinct. On the plus side (for me), the job is more interesting. On the minus side, it is enormously more anxiety ridden.


45 posted on 04/21/2013 5:29:27 PM PDT by freepertoo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: fatnotlazy
U.S. Lawyers (by the millions) supported the usurper kenyan for president ... ***

Do you have a source for this assertion?

I'm asking because it appears that you have fallen for the media stereotype of lawyers. I'm sure criminal defense and civil plaintiff attorneys may have voted for the Kenyan, but most of the attorneys I worked for over the years were civil defense attorneys and they were all conservative.

Look here:

Lawyers / Law Firms: Top Recipients

In 2012, $28 million to Obama, $14 million to Romney.

Even worse, in 2008, $48 million to Obama vs only $10 million to McCain.

In 2012, $20 million to Democrats in Congress, $12 million to GOP.

Overall, $89 million to Democrats, $42 million to GOP.

Of the top 20 recipients, 18 were Democrats, 2 were Republican. (http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?ind=K01&cycle=2012&recipdetail=M&sortorder=U

46 posted on 04/21/2013 5:45:13 PM PDT by Mannaggia l'America
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: Amendment10

Actually, FDR failed in his attempt to “pack” the Supreme Court with additional New Deal-friendly justices. The Senate must confirm appointments then as now, and his subversive scheme was too much even for the Democrat controlled Congress of the late 1930’s.

Doesn’t diminish FDR’s record as an enemy of the Constitution, and at which LBJ nearly succeeded decades later.


47 posted on 04/21/2013 5:46:13 PM PDT by elcid1970 ("The Second Amendment is more important than Islam.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: EDINVA

The firms are getting rid of older personnel period. Cheaper to hire some youngin’ for practically nothing than pay a big salary plus benefits to someone with more experience.


48 posted on 04/21/2013 5:46:16 PM PDT by fatnotlazy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
The unlikely prospect of amassing great wealth wasn’t what attracted me to the law.

Riiiiight.....reminds me of a stripper I once met who said she's only doing it to pay for her college tuiton while she works on her PhD in psychology.....

49 posted on 04/21/2013 5:51:25 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (This space for rent)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: freepertoo
At the last firm I worked for, the secretaries are now assistants of some sort. A friend who still works there is now an “Overflow Assistant.” Basically, she's a stenographer doing work that others can't get to. She is also now working 35 hours a week vs. 40 hours a week up till earlier this year. My guess is that she will be part-time thanks to Obamacare or maybe canned altogether.
50 posted on 04/21/2013 5:56:39 PM PDT by fatnotlazy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: fatnotlazy

Hiring stats are actually showing the opposite. Employment is up for 50+, down for everyone else.


51 posted on 04/21/2013 6:05:49 PM PDT by JCBreckenridge (Texas is a state of mind - Steinbeck)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: Alberta's Child

I’ve had some recent experience with the legal “profession,” and I’m shocked at how marginal and mediocre these people are. I’m talking about legal documents with misspelled words and poor English, failure to appear at court hearings on behalf of a client, etc.

________________________

This has been going on a while. Some real sick puppies go into law.

In my area, a law degee and two bucks will get you a cup of coffee. OUr local law school churns out so many of them, it is a joke.

and the little stupids thought that they wouold be in some 80’s legal drama lookalike law firm.

I have always thought the best gotcha for the lawyer industry is to make them provide free services at the same rate and levels as doctors. Free care no matter what with 24 hours staffed legal clinics that could turn away no one. and oversight that would critique their performance and threaten lawsuit if they lost the cases.


52 posted on 04/21/2013 6:06:53 PM PDT by Chickensoup (200 million unarmed " people killed in the 20th century by Leftist Totalitarian Fascists)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: elcid1970
Actually, FDR failed in his attempt to “pack” the Supreme Court with additional New Deal-friendly justices.

Yes, FDR made a fool of himself with his plan to state the Supreme Court with pro-big federal government justices, a plan which failed.

However, Constitution-ignorant voters re-elected FDR enough times that he was able to nominate an activist justice majority who saw things his way.

53 posted on 04/21/2013 6:18:13 PM PDT by Amendment10
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
From the article...”Today, the business of law focuses law school deans and practitioners in big law firms on something else:....Maximizing Immediate Profits for their institutions.”

Well dah!....Even waitresses now have to “sell” and process so many tables to “qualify” in maintaining their employment... Customer service is “limited” to a time frame. Move them in and move them out.

Same in Retail Establishments using ‘hand helds’....they have to process a certain percentage of checkouts, on their shift, to “qualify” for how many work hours they will be scheduled for. The less you process the less working hours you will get.

Customers/Clients are now sought , not to be of service to, but to keep the numbers rolling...

54 posted on 04/21/2013 6:19:25 PM PDT by caww
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fatnotlazy

And you don’t have to be “Old”...they just have to make more money than the “newbees” will work for. Anymore it doesn’t appear to matter if you are very good at what you do...they bring in a young pup and expect you to train them with what you’ve spent you’re life learning!

I only tell them what they ask...never offer to “help” them take my job!


55 posted on 04/21/2013 6:24:15 PM PDT by caww
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: DanMiller

RE: As I recall, and I may be off by a few hundred dollars, it was about $3,000 per year, including room but not board. Obviously, that should be adjusted for inflation when comparing it with current costs.

_____________________________________________

According to this INFLATION CALCULATOR:

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

What cost $3000 in 1966 would cost $20940.16 in 2012.

I’d like to see a really good Law School that charges only $21,000 a year today.


56 posted on 04/21/2013 7:06:53 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: fatnotlazy

Good and valid request. I do believe, however, that the trial lawyers most always vote for the libtards, but the same cannot be said generally of others.


57 posted on 04/21/2013 7:28:30 PM PDT by SgtHooper (The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: SgtHooper
The term “trial lawyers” has strayed from its original meaning, and you can thank the media for that. Any attorney who tries cases is a trial attorney, but the media uses the term when they mean plaintiffs’ attorneys and criminal defense attorneys only. Most people don’t know that, so they think erroneously that it applies to all attorneys and that’s not the case. Lazy, sloppy journalism or maybe it’s deliberate.

I worked for lawyers for 35 years, principally for defense attorneys in civil litigation. Contrary to the media image, they were all upstanding and honest. And as I said before, they were conservatives.

58 posted on 04/21/2013 7:47:15 PM PDT by fatnotlazy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: BlueStateRightist
I view most attorneys as wrenches in the spokes of progress and freedom.

More like parasites draining the life out of their hosts.

59 posted on 04/22/2013 12:01:18 AM PDT by LoneRangerMassachusetts (The meek shall not inherit the Earth)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: OldMissileer

This is sad for the honest lawyers. Both may soon be unemployed.


60 posted on 04/22/2013 12:19:22 AM PDT by The_Media_never_lie (Actually, they lie when it suits them! The crooked MS media must be defeated any way it can be done!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-62 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson