New lawyers face a tough job market

Posted Sep 24th 2007 7:30PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Law, Newspapers, Employees

A lot of readers will probably take comfort in this bit of news. According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required):

The legal sector, after more than tripling in inflation-adjusted growth between 1970 and 1987, has grown at an average annual inflation-adjusted rate of 1.2% since 1988, or less than half as fast as the broader economy, according to Commerce Department data.

Combine that with the substantial increase in the number of law school graduates, and legislative crackdowns on personal injury suits and soon, hopefully, securities class-action suits, and you have a tough job market for freshly-minted lawyers.

For all but top-tier graduates of elite law schools, it's been tough. According to The Journal, some graduates are taking jobs for as little as $20 an hour with no benefits -- Try paying off student loans with that!

While we are still a far way from following Shakespeare's advice to "First, kill all the lawyers," the market may be correcting the fact that we are producing more lawyers than we need. Part of the reason for the over-supply is the widely-held belief that lawyers make a lot of money, leading to a "law school by default" choice on the part of many students. But this created too many lawyers and now, it may not be as true as it once was.

Tags: careers, jobs, Law, Lawyers

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

9-25-2007 @ 9:22AM

dcs said...

I think this is a very important article for people to read. I've been hearing the same thing from my political science professors for a while now. We have too many lawyers. I believe it too becuase I see so many people every year preparing to go to law school. I can only imagine if all of them get into law school and make it out of law school...wow that adds up to too many lawyers. And really I myself do not think we have that many lawyer positions opened. This sucks because I can imagine the debt these people come out with and they really need to work and get paid very well in order to progress in their social status (for those who need to) and then to be able to get out of debt. Wow.
Nice topic for a blog. I wish you would have added a little more concrete information like how much lawyers make to reinforce your idea that lawyers do not make alot of money. Maybe some statistics of how many lawyers this country is reproducing. Keep it as a thought for next time.

9-25-2007 @ 11:57AM

Michael Pappone said...

Decent career advice; regretable cite to Shakespeare. http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html

The quote in question has been misused repeatedly by folks trying to poke fun (or worse) at the legal profession. In fact, the quote (from Henry VI, part 2, Act IV, Scene II, arises in the context of the musings of the anarchist, who suggests that the best way to let tyranny reign and individual liberties wither would be to eliminate those in charge of preserving our rights and freedoms, hence "kill all the lawyers." Understood in its proper dramatic context, we see Shakespeare (if only in this play; he has his own fun with lawyers elsewhere) is indeed recognizing the importance of the rule of law in general, and the role of lawyers in particular.