"We never saw it like this just a few years ago, but now I've seen it first hand," said Ron Lieberman, a matrimonial lawyer the in New Jersey firm of Adinolfi & Lieberman in southern New Jersey. "There are too many lawyers and too few jobs. We just hired someone, but we didn't look very hard, and she was doing volunteer work."
He added: "I'm not sure it's going to get better any time soon."
The legal profession, like many others, has been downsizing. It's boosting productivity of current staffers, rather than hiring new employees, analysts say, and anyone newly hired is likely to be doing so at half the salary than that of a new hire just four years ago.
"The recession has really changed the dynamics of the legal profession," said Fred Cheever, the associate dean at Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver, who noted the school has had to cut its class size from 380 to 290 this past year. "Other schools are doing the same. It's a way to respond to the recession and the job market."
There are nearly one million people employed as lawyers in the U.S., and the rate of unemployment for lawyers is just around three percent.
That said, the legal job market has slowed dramatically. The U.S. will have a 7.3 percent loss in legal employment for 2013, according to Bright.com, a research group. The greatest loss of jobs will be in insurance defense attorneys, and in areas of employment and commercial real estate.
Going forward, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects nearly 74,000 jobs new lawyer jobs created in the U.S. over the next seven years. The growth is expected in areas including health law, intellectual property law, privacy law, and international law.
But American law schools will graduate about 44,000 students each year during that time, and in doing the math, that means six new lawyers — not including older graduates — will be fighting it out for just one new job.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Courtroom Drama: Too Many Lawyers, Too Few Jobs
Courtroom Drama: Too Many Lawyers, Too Few Jobs
Published: Thursday, 21 Mar 2013 | 12:01 PM ET
By: Mark Koba | Senior Editor, CNBC
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Tonya Constantine | Blend Images | Getty Images
Becoming a lawyer seemed to be one of those career moves that could stand up to any type of economic setback.
The jobs would always be there, as most people, it was assumed, would need a lawyer at some point in their lives—and a downturn in the economy would likely last no more than it took to graduate from law school.
That's no longer the case. Because of the recession of 2007-2009 and a still-struggling economy, the legal profession is under severe stress. Besides not having enough positions for current lawyers, there are too many upcoming law school graduates and too few jobs to employ them.
"We never saw it like this just a few years ago, but now I've seen it first hand," said Ron Lieberman, a matrimonial lawyer the in New Jersey firm of Adinolfi & Lieberman in southern New Jersey. "There are too many lawyers and too few jobs. We just hired someone, but we didn't look very hard, and she was doing volunteer work."
He added: "I'm not sure it's going to get better any time soon."
The legal profession, like many others, has been downsizing. It's boosting productivity of current staffers, rather than hiring new employees, analysts say, and anyone newly hired is likely to be doing so at half the salary than that of a new hire just four years ago.
"The recession has really changed the dynamics of the legal profession," said Fred Cheever, the associate dean at Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver, who noted the school has had to cut its class size from 380 to 290 this past year. "Other schools are doing the same. It's a way to respond to the recession and the job market."
There are nearly one million people employed as lawyers in the U.S., and the rate of unemployment for lawyers is just around three percent.
That said, the legal job market has slowed dramatically. The U.S. will have a 7.3 percent loss in legal employment for 2013, according to Bright.com, a research group. The greatest loss of jobs will be in insurance defense attorneys, and in areas of employment and commercial real estate.
Going forward, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects nearly 74,000 jobs new lawyer jobs created in the U.S. over the next seven years. The growth is expected in areas including health law, intellectual property law, privacy law, and international law.
But American law schools will graduate about 44,000 students each year during that time, and in doing the math, that means six new lawyers — not including older graduates — will be fighting it out for just one new job.
"We never saw it like this just a few years ago, but now I've seen it first hand," said Ron Lieberman, a matrimonial lawyer the in New Jersey firm of Adinolfi & Lieberman in southern New Jersey. "There are too many lawyers and too few jobs. We just hired someone, but we didn't look very hard, and she was doing volunteer work."
He added: "I'm not sure it's going to get better any time soon."
The legal profession, like many others, has been downsizing. It's boosting productivity of current staffers, rather than hiring new employees, analysts say, and anyone newly hired is likely to be doing so at half the salary than that of a new hire just four years ago.
"The recession has really changed the dynamics of the legal profession," said Fred Cheever, the associate dean at Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver, who noted the school has had to cut its class size from 380 to 290 this past year. "Other schools are doing the same. It's a way to respond to the recession and the job market."
There are nearly one million people employed as lawyers in the U.S., and the rate of unemployment for lawyers is just around three percent.
That said, the legal job market has slowed dramatically. The U.S. will have a 7.3 percent loss in legal employment for 2013, according to Bright.com, a research group. The greatest loss of jobs will be in insurance defense attorneys, and in areas of employment and commercial real estate.
Going forward, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects nearly 74,000 jobs new lawyer jobs created in the U.S. over the next seven years. The growth is expected in areas including health law, intellectual property law, privacy law, and international law.
But American law schools will graduate about 44,000 students each year during that time, and in doing the math, that means six new lawyers — not including older graduates — will be fighting it out for just one new job.
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