Tom,
CHANNEL 13 PBS - THE NEWS HOUR - WED - 4/8/09 - c. 7:35PM
The captioned segment highlighted HYDROBAD (sp?) - India's new high-tech sector.
An Indian woman Attorney [name/firm appear on camera], who apparently had just returned from ten years of legal practice in the U.S., was interviewed relative the recent opening of her Firm - QUIZ LEX (sp?) - in a building named SILICON TOWERS.
In essence she represented that five years of Indian legal education is the equivalent of an American legal education; that her employees make the equivalent of one-fifth of an American attorney performing similar work; and that the nature of their work is document review.
Perhaps you will consider contacting the local NY-based PBS affiliate - Channel 13 - to obtain a copy of the referenced broadcast package; request an opportunity to weigh-in on the issue and/or post a comment on THE NEWS HOUR web-site.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
92 comments:
What a fucking disgrace. I love the part about the legal training being equal to a JD. Such brazen lies.
Why on earth would anyone ever attend Brooklyn Law School, Cardozo, St. John's or any TTT law school?
What a lost, gutter profession law is. The ABA has given away the store!
I can't wait for the partners' work to drift off to India. It will be justice to see more biglaw firms close forever, their work commiditized and performed in a foreign land.
It happened to Ford, GM and many other companies in many other industries, now it is happening in the law.
Once again the myopic Baby Boomers are too ego-maniacal and stupid to see how their shallow, craven greed has destroyed the legal profession.
When corporations shift the work to India and other places, it will never come back. The legal profession is heading straight into the sewer.
Enjoy!
The LPO hype is a joke. Maybe they should interview all the agencies that recently have been opening offices here to recruit for doc reviewers instead of focusing on some woman in India who has a vested interest in making silly claims about her own business.
Thousands of biglaw associates have been laid off during the same period of time that the doc review has dried up here. That's because biglaw doesn't have enough work for them. That's not happening because of LPOs. It's happening because of the credit crunch.
11:50 - I suggest you go to Mumbai or other "booming" Indian cities. You will come to see otherwise.
Their "boom" is really our loss. Once again, it's not real growth, just a race to the gutter. Once their wages and living standards get too high, it will be shipped of to Africa.
Then they will blame America for
"taking their work".
So it goes.
Hudson Legal is currently staffing the following project:
Start date: ASAP
Expected Duration: Approximately a 1 month duration
Location: Midtown, Manhattan
Rate: Top rate of pay!
Requirements: Attorneys, law school graduates and/or translators with Japanese fluency are invited to apply.
If interested, please email your most current resume to LEGALJOBS@HUDSON.COM immediately.
In the Subject Line, please reference JAPANESE REVIEW.
11:54 I suggest you go to Mumbai to see that the streets there are not paved with gold if you are so stupid that you don't understand that the loss of work in the firms that has been caused by the credit crunch is what has caused the drop in demand for doc reviewers here. The work of the thousands of associates they have fired is not being done in LPO sweatshops. They don't need to supplement their workforce with contract doc reviewers when they have so little work they have to let go of so many attorneys and other employees. They are doing the doc review themselves nowadays.
12:03 - okay parrot, keep chirping the same tune. Repeating the same lie over and over again doesn't render it truth.
Hydrobad?! It's Hyderabad. Sheesh. Learn a little about Indian geography - you may need it someday.
mmmm.. curry is good... documents are everywhere...
mmmm.. click.. click.. click.. click.. click... click.. check out cnn ... click.. click.. check email.... click.. click.. wonder what JD will really be good for in 5 years... click.. click.. click..
mmmm.. practice eating curry... click.. click....
12:05 looks like you really are so stupid that you don't think the crash in the legal market is what is affecting doc review. Partners in big law are losing equity interest. Thousands of associates and support staff have lost their biglaw jobs. You can't see how widespread this is. You think its all about LPOs. You are so narrow-minded,so gullible and so wrong.
12:05 looks like you really are so stupid that you don't think the crash in the legal market is what is affecting doc review. Partners in big law are losing equity interest. Thousands of associates and support staff have lost their biglaw jobs. You can't see how widespread this is. You think it's all about LPOs. You are so narrow-minded,so gullible and so wrong.
Nope, in the last downturn we were all very busy from all of the anyalyst lawsuits. Remember Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and all of that? Now, nothing!
Now there are a few jobs, just look at all of the foreign language reviews. There's plenty of work going in India, just look at that video clip - they have over 200 "attorneys" in the Indian sweatshop and they are "turning down work".
The truth is quite obvious, when coupled with the lack of work in NYC. Agencies keep expecting a recovery, they troll for resumes, then start up one measly project here or there.
Back in 2007 Willkie Farr had three simultaneous, large scale docuument reviews ongoing, all paying $40 per hour and $60 for overtime.
Now, there is not one single project like this in the greater NYC area. NOT ONE!
And the projects that do start, are often at greatly reduced rates and restricted hours.
Yes, it's due to LPOs and outsourcing. I can smell the curry from here. The authorized practice of law continues.
2:25 PM - You sound like an LPO huckster, trying to pretend there is no work out there.
No, in the downturns the work increases! There is more litigation.
Sorry Babu, we're not that as stupid and gullible as you would like. We're on to you!
yes legal work is booming in India...booming being the operative word - as in pakistan bombs
More like crying for all of the contract attorneys that have lost their livlihoods.
I am in India. I am currently giving head to - mean heading up a project now.
I am in India. I am currently giving head to - I mean heading up a project now.
Hartford, Connecticut’s Robinson & Cole, which in March laid off 11 lawyers and 19 staff, has announced it is opening an office in Providence, Rhode Island.
The Providence office will employ an additional three lawyers, and is expected to expand in the future.
Robinson & Cole LLP is a 164-year-old law firm with offices in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Florida and Rhode Island.
Quinn Emanuel held layoffs at their Los Angeles office.
Rumor: More Stealth Layoffs at Willkie Farr
According to sources in the blawgosphere, 20 staffers at Willkie Farr & Gallagher were laid off in January, and around two dozen employees were invited to leave last week. It is unclear if any of those said to have been laid off were lawyers.
Vedder Price Lays Off 9 Associates
Nine lawyers from Chicago-based Vedder Price are vedder, vedder upset to have been laid off. The firm blames a downturn in litigation work. The 258-lawyer firm let go eight in Chicago and one in New York. Established in 1952, Vedder Price is a general practice law firm with three offices in Chicago, Washington DC and New York.
Townsend and Townsend Lays Off 16 Lawyers, 45 Staff
San Francisco-based intellectual property firm Townsend and Townsend and Crew has laid off 16 attorneys, 45 staff. From the memo: …Townsend today has joined so many other AmLaw 200 firms and implemented a reduction in force. This is the most painful decision any of us has ever had to make at this firm…
OH Shaadddddupppp!!!!!
For decades, the American legal community has eaten out of the hands of its corporate masters, and has done the bidding of Corporate America. The American legal profession has assisted with outsourcing, downsizing, shitsourcing, discriminating, exploitation of workers, busting of unions, terminating employees without cause, creating fraudulent securities and fake investments, helping big corporations avoid taxes and practice usury and loansharking, and generally helping them increase their stranglehold on the American people.
Now, when Corporate America is finally turning on the American legal profession, threatening to outsource now not just the work of doc reviewers or even associates, but the work of partners themselves -- the entire portfolio of business of multinational law firms -- outsourced forever to permanent, cheap-labor law firms in India -- NOW, the American legal profession finally gets a conscience, and wants to oppose this trend.
Pitiful.
9:59 - link? It would be great news if biglaw finally got on board against outsourcing.
Then, the ABA would get on board and stop this nonsense once and for all.
I think the doc review jobs have gone to India. $6, or $7 an hour for doc review cannot be competed with even by under utilized biglaw associates. Cheaper just to have them sit around. I do not see biglaw been able to use its usual billing method to be able to charge that low a rate. After all, $6 an hour is lower than the minimum wage so they would devalue their very business if they did that. No one would ever pay their inflated rates again. If BMW sold cars for $10,000 would anyone consider it a luxury brand?
It certainly appears that way. There is no other reason for the complete collapse of the doc review job market and the literal halving of the rate.
It's not hard to deduce what's going on here. It has nothing to do with the credit crisis and everything to do with outsourcing.
But the ABA approved, so go for it.
You people are toxic.
its coming back a little, ive been called for 3 jobs in the past month...
Remember, it's not the jobs you see being lost to India, but the jobs you never see at all.
Anyone else heard from these guys, anyone actually interview?
Thank you for your interest in registering with Merrill Brink
International. The schedule is now filled for this recruiting session
in New York, but will be sure to keep you in mind for upcoming
opportunities and will contact you when we have another project
available or when we are conducting registration interviews in New York.
I am based in DC, but will be staffing projects in both DC and NY.
Regards,
Vanessa
Vanessa Vidunas, Esq.
Director of Multilingual Staffing
Merrill Brink International
1325 G Street, NW
Suite 200
Washington, DC 20005
Vanessa.Vidunas@merrillcorp.com
Direct: (202) 879-8490
Office: (202) 879-8400
Cell: (443) 370-6585
Fax: (202) 955-6121
Thanks for the info, 10:43.
How about this one....
Hudson Legal is currently staffing the following project:
Start date: ASAP
Expected Duration: Ongoing project
Location: Midtown, Manhattan
Rate: Top rate of pay!
Requirements: Attorneys admitted in any US jurisdiction that possess the following:
* At least 3 years law firm practice in an associate capacity
* At least 2 years of pharmaceutical experience
* French fluency a plus
If interested, please email your most current resume to LEGALJOBS@HUDSON.COM immediately.
In the Subject Line, please reference PHARMA REVIEW.
To the shit-head posting Hudson projects:
The people that Hudson actually wants to staff for these projects will get the posting by email: have you ever heard of a "listserv"?
This is probably the same shit-head posting the BigLaw layoffs. Odds are 2-1.
To the dick who is posting the layoff,
Stop wasting our time. You man enough to fight?
If not stop or gonna get you.
Indians poop in the river enough said
...and Baker & McKenzie laid off 2,745 lawyers today.
All their other jobs have been outsourced to a small village in southern Bangladesh, where they are being done by barefoot attorneys squatting on mounds of mud and water buffalo feces, typing on $60 solar-powered laptops provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. These attorneys are licensed to practice in Dhaka and are being paid 0.4 cents an hour.
It's called Globalization, man... Get with the program!!!
10:35
Yeah, and there's also more postings. The catch is that since there's been no (or very little) temp work, I've been interviewing for full time positions. By the time the temp market picks up, I'll probably be working full time again. Looks like my care free lifestyle may be coming to an end. Oh well. It had to happen sooner or later.
http://www.jdunderground.com/thread.php?threadId=34067
Another day in the sunshine @ the Robert Half/Bloomberg project.
They apparently brought the work back from India, because the work product was so poor. Naturally, it pays half the market rate.
another great one from robert half the pay.
craigslist today: shawn treadwell posting (from strategic) starts monday 35/hr
I think what we're seeing is a lot of the agencies are scrambling run ads and collect resumes, not for actual projects, but just in anticipation that the market will pick up soon, and they want to be well-positioned to bid quickly on contracts. That's why you have all these generic-sounding resume collection ads that don't mention specific projects.
I think there must be a few projects out there, but they're staffed by A-listers. Some of the foreign langauge projects seem to be adding staff also. I saw one in DC where they don't even require bar admittance.
I'm also seeing postings for permanent positions and have had call backs on resumes I sent out like months ago.
The mass layoffs at biglaw have also decreased.
So there's a positive trend.
My guess is that you'll see a lot of work popping up all at once. There's a lot of work that still needs to be done, but wasn't critical (which is the type of work temps do -- anything important goes to the associates), so it's been put on hold. Once the firms get funding, they'll start this work. I think a lot will depend on what happens with the market this week.
If it rallies, the temp market will improve.
1:17
Where do you want to meet? How about a park. Come alone, no gun or knife, and I will fuck you up.
Hi everyone, I'm Biff Billingsworth, an A-Lister... Cravath just flew me from Frisco to Toronto for a six-week project here... They're putting me up in the penthouse of the Four Seasons... champagne brunches, and work starts at 12:30 every day... Pay is $60 an hour plus some fabulous bennies... Nothing beats being an A-Lister... Off to Tokyo in June.... Toodles!
You guys have to stop this hostility.
7:30pm,
Why stop the hostility? After all, that's what lawyers do best.
With more and more of the doc review work being sent to India, the next trend will be biglaw hiring new first-years in India instead of in the US. These will be "overseas associates", and will be paid 1/4 to 1/3 what Stateside associates would make, to do the same work.
The best part about it is that, since they're in India, they don't have to be barred so they can literally practice law in ANY state of the US. So, for instance, Wilson Sonsini could have an overseas associate draft a contract overnight for a client in Pittsburgh and have it ready the next morning, when the client starts work. Next, the associate could advise a client in Washington State about a banking matter, and then advise clients in Southern California about a corporate merger.
Biglaw is even working behind-the-scenes to change court rules around the US so that these overseas associates can make "virtual appearances" in court, using cutting-edge internet teleconferencing technologies.
This essay from a lawyer of tommorrow published in the Connecticut Post. Wonder if it's part of his application package?
Applying for law school not much fun
Connecticut Post Staff
Updated: 04/10/2009 09:27:00 PM EDT
I've learned that the older I get, the more I'm doing the same thing.
In middle school, my parents and I went through the process of applying to high school. I grew older and wiser and four years later I was undertaking the same process applying to colleges. The progression was long and tedious, but gratifying.
Both times I felt like I made the correct decision and my life has gone well as a result of my choices.
Now I'm four years wiser, and again, the older I get, the more I find myself doing the same thing. I am beginning the pursuit of further schooling -- law school.
I thought I was done with the rigors of school admissions once I arrived at Pepperdine University from the Hopkins School in New Haven. Now the opportunities I've been graced with here have opened new doors for me and that means all the joys of applications again.
The best part of the journey is, I even get to enjoy the standardized tests once more. Terrific.
But while I take an inventory of my life, my classes, resume, extracurricular activities and work experience, I realize that no matter what, I've already won. I don't need an LSAT score or a personal statement to tell me what I've accomplished. I'm going to law school; whether it is on the west or east coast, or somewhere in between is up to fate.
What I've learned is that school and one's education are what you make of them. High school and college are times I'll treasure, but all the fun and experiences
that have shaped me into the person I am are as much a result of my personal effort and growth as they are with the environment in which I accomplished those things.
In applying to law school, I'm not worried about meeting new people or learning new things. That's a given, but I'm not going to allow myself to stress about my future law school. No, I'm saving the stress for trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life once I'm out of school. Now that should be fun.
Thomas Lambert of Fairfield is a junior at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. E-mail: ctteens@ctpost.com.
Pepperdine may be a fun place to hang out for four years of surfing and partying, but the law school is expensive and not very highly rated. A degree from Pepperdine *may* get you a largelaw job *if* you graduate summa cum laude and your daddy slips his cousin, the hiring partner, 20 grand.
Plus, Pepperdine U. and Pepperdine Law push Religious Right dogma, right-wing politics and conservative economics. None other than Ken Starr was employed there as a dean and professor. That tells you a lot about the school.
Nope, in the last downturn we were all very busy from all of the anyalyst lawsuits.
___________________
There was no credit crunch then. Economic downturn isn't the same thing as doc review dry spell. The reason it has been so bad is the credit crunch that has led to thousands of attorney and other jobs being slashed at law firms. That has nothing to do with the meager amount that is in India. We are not immune from the credit crunch. The doc review suddenly disappeared at the same time the firms started making the cutbacks. We are only extras. There is no way that they are going to give the bulk of their doc review work away to anyone when they have so little work that they have to fire associates, paralegals and tons of other employees. If there was not a single document being reviewed in India, they wouldn't hire temps to do doc review when they don't have enough work for themselves. The India thing is little more than hype. There are only a few stupid enough to risk going there. All you have to do is look at the what is happening in the large law firms to know that the legal market has had a genuine crash and that's what this is about.
Pangea3 link on the Indian legal education system... very interesting.
http://www.pangea3.com/legalblog/
Seems the Indian lawyers are qualified after all. And with more and more big firms concerned about cost-cutting and bottom-line results in the downturn, clients are turning to global recruitment firms like Pangea3 for efficient "rightsourcing" solutions...
In today's increasingly interlinked world, a byte of data can be sent from Boston to Bombay in a billisecond. All the more reason for smart investors to recruit qualified candidates abroad for their legal staffing needs.
12:09 - sorry they are unqualified. US jusrisdictions require JDS or some even LLMs.
This qualifies as more lies and hucksterism by LPO providers.
Keep dreaming, Babu.
1214 -
The "JD" degree was just something that was cooked up in the US. It appeared here first, when US attorneys got jealous that their MD counterparts had doctorates, so the US attorneys lobbied to change the standard law degree from the LL.B and the LL.M to the JD.
Currently, the only other place the "JD" degree has caught on to any degree is in Australia. The UK doesn't use the designation "Juris Doctor" for it's standard law degree, and no one would argue that the Brits are slouches at law or legal tradition.
Doesn't actually matter what the Indians call it. They could call it a "ZKS" degree for all we care -- whatever makes sense in their language.
The point is that until/unless you have actually stepped foot inside an Indian law classroom, and witnessed firsthand what the quality level of legal education is over there, you don't know JACK SHIT about the Indian legal education system, and your pronouncements about how they don't require a JD is a bunch of parochial twaddle.
Get a life and explore the world, please. India is a country of about 1 billion people, with a 3000+ year old culture. Yes, they have a very high rate of poverty, but they also have a very well-educated professional class who are not intellectual slouches. Please stop thinking all the world revolves around the USA and everything American.
That's a very naive and childish mindset.
By the way, I'm against outsourcing of US legal work too, I just posted the 1209 post as a joke. But I still hate it when people belittle the Indian legal system just because it's India. That's just dumb.
12:25 no its not the Indian leglal system we dump on, I am sure its just fine for India. The issue is the fact that Indians think they can practice U.S. law while not being barred anywhere in the U.S., which is not legal. That is THE issue.
Is that simple enough for you Mr. high quality highly educated Indian guy?
You don't get to claim that because Indian legal education is high quality that you are exempted from all of the laws of the U.S. in regards to meeting the requirements for practicing law here.
You must sit for and pass a U.S. bar exam, which is what is required if you want to practice U.S. law. If you don't do that, and you try to practise U.S. law, then you are a fucking criminal. Simple?
I am sure your high quality Indian education has provided you with the ability to understand that if you break a law, you are a criminal. Get it now?
Sheeesh. Dumb ass.
2:31
You must have taken some good drugs last night to come up with that nonsense.
Virtual apperances. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Amazing that so many posters here are stupid enough to waste their time worrying about the negligible amount that is being done in LPO sweatshops. Reality check. There is no way that we are all going to have work while law firms are laying off thousands of associates and even partners are taking hits due to lack of work at biglaw. You have to be a total idiot to think that while that is going on we will be unaffected.
The only reason for hiring us for doc review projects to begin with was that the associates had too much work to do it. Now there isn't even enough for the the associates to stay employed so they don't need extras. Never since doc review projects began has there been a situation like this at biglaw. That is the difference.
I have been thinking about how I ended up here. Why do my opportunities seem squashed? Let's face facts- even before the downturn, I did not feel like the industry was headed in the right direction. I am not really interested in discussing India because it's not important to me. This is more of a look at what to do going forward rather than returning to the same issues over and over again expecting a different result. If you keep doing that, you are going to go insane (assuming you aren't already).
Many recent lawyers, including myself, are ignorant of the legal industry and its history.
I admit I was ignorant. It was only the comments here in the last few months that pushed me to research the topic. I consider this an important lesson for whatever I do in the future- namely do my due diligence.
I thought megafirms or mega document reviews were always the norm for the legal industry. I was wrong.
"In 1980, the 250 largest law firms in the country averaged only 95 lawyers. By 2001, however, that average had risen to 417.1 and the growth was much greater among the largest of the large firms. Indeed, by 2001, the 20 largest firms in the U.S. averaged 1,220 lawyers, and there were 12 firms in the country with more than 1,000 lawyers."
Indeed, the average was larger last year.
My lesson learned is that I entered an industry at the wrong time in history. We are facing long term structural problems with employment.
The industry has shifted structurally a great deal within this decade. Some of that is pressure from foreign sources, but most issues are related to structural shifts internally within the U.S. legal industry.
The lesson learned is that megafirms- that seem like they were always the case are in fact a recent development of the last 10 to 20 years seeking to address shifts in the greater economy. Incidentally, this is why when you talk to older lawyers they have no idea, because they entered a fundamentally different industry.
The one we enter is mor inflexible than the one that existed before the mid-90s. The risk is greater that we will not suceed. The rules favor this structural disadvantage- including the rules of ethics regarding small firms advertising.
Additionally, document reviews were not always the norm on the scale we see them. Most really large scale document reviews began in the late 90s, or more specifically 1998/99. There were some reviews prior to this, but not enough to sustain a cottage industry.
One source defines these shifts in the legal industry as a move from"personal representative" paradigm to a more business-oriented "counselor/advisor" paradigm. This shift has serious implications for the structure of law firms.
We see that structural impact in many ways. Document reviewers are lowest on the totem pole, and, therefore, some assume these shfits are related to us.
One person here mentioned correctly that law firms retained huge numbers of associates- much more than they apparently required in bad times. This is where we are right now.
The downturn in the economy because its a credit crunch is accelerating apparently a flaw that was already there. That flaw being that law firms are overstaffed.
This is why you are seeing first year associates being fired and law law firms either pushing back or eliminating new recruitment programs. It was poor management on their part.
What the bad economy did was to bring home the issue that there are too many attorneys being pumped out. Eliminating all outsourcing today would not change where we are. This is not a defense of the outsourcing. I think it's wrong. It is an attempt to understand the structural issues we face.
The existence of big law actually is partially responsible for this issue. The big firm salaries I w ould wager partially expalins why law schools felt they could charge tuitions of 30 and now 40 k a year and the illusion that law could sustain a large number of graduates.
This is the equivalent of too many buying houses they could not afford. I know now that I could not afford my legal education.
My point is that I think we have all be living on borrowed time, and did not know it. We made money, but it was an illusion because the chimera of megalaw firms is not real. The chimera of a stable legal industry is not real.
Like with derivatives in the mortgage securities markets, the force that megalaw firms exerted the legal market has been greater than it's actual number of lawyers employed. We are familar with the bifurcated bell curve regarding salaries. But this distortion also affects law schools, temporary agencies and, yes, doc reviewers. This cottage industry was never the natural state of the legal industry. It was a recent development.
Assuming that people here are 100 percent right about outsourcing- I don't see that changing.
12:25 - India high quality education? Give me a break!
Like the average dump where Indian kids go to law school is better than ABA accredited law school?
Silly, silly arguments. Indians are not even studying the American legal system, they're studying the INDIAN legal system.
It has the same value as basket weaving in regard to the US Legal system.
Again, it's just an endless stream of lies, mischaracterizations and outright shilling. We're arent buying it.
I guess since doc review is being done in India for pennies on the dollar, no need to keep associates around to do it.
The partners still bill out their markup. The associates better wake up or their jobs will permanently gone. I've heard the trend is now to hire "temp associates".
Be afraid boys and girls, be very afraid. You're witnessin the dismantlng of the legal profession.
It's going straight into the "slumdog" gutter.
"One person here mentioned correctly that law firms retained huge numbers of associates- much more than they apparently required in bad times."
All companies do this. If you were at IBM, 1/3 of the people would be sitting around basically doing nothing or pursuing relatively worthless objectives.
"This is why you are seeing first year associates being fired and law law firms either pushing back or eliminating new recruitment programs. It was poor management on their part."
No -- it's the financial crisis. They're doing the same thing in other industries. However, it's felt more in the financial industry and legal industry closely related to the financial industry, i.e., big new york law firms. The big firms are also using this as an excuse to remove dead weight. They'd rather have a bunch of attorneys between years 3-5 working for them.
"The big firm salaries I w ould wager partially expalins why law schools felt they could charge tuitions of 30 and now 40 k a year and the illusion that law could sustain a large number of graduates."
I agree with half of this statement. The prices for the TTT law schools are a complete rip-off. On the other hand, I think law can sustain a large number of graduates under normal circumstances. Until the collapse in Septmeber, I could do whatever I damn well pleased for months on end and come back to find a high paying doc. review in a short period of time. Once I found out about more specialized reviews, it got even easier to make more money in a short period of time. It was also pretty damn easy to find a small/mid-size firm job.
"In 1980, the 250 largest law firms in the country averaged only 95 lawyers. By 2001, however, that average had risen to 417.1 and the growth was much greater among the largest of the large firms. Indeed, by 2001, the 20 largest firms in the U.S. averaged 1,220 lawyers, and there were 12 firms in the country with more than 1,000 lawyers."
Yeah but there were a lot more mid-size firms back in the day. Big firms gobble up successful small/mid-size practices. Plus, they opened offices globally and started to employ local lawyers (we'd consider them paralegals).
Anyway, don't wig out and do something crazy like getting an MA in education or trying to become a nurse. This crisis will pass and things will get back to normal. However, an MS in comp. sci. or EE might be worth it.
1:38
Think my prediction is dubious, eh?
Check this out...
http://www.eveningtribune.com/archive/x1382803666
Don't know if anyone here knows about this.
Also, some people here may know about how HMO lobbies in a few states (including Mass) won changes in regulation of doctors, to allow outsourcing of certain cognitive medical work, such as reading of X-rays and other radiograms.
In Boston's Brigham & Women's Hospital, lots of radiographic films are now being read by Indian radiologists over the internet, and the hospitals and HMOs have successfully bypassed laws that previously held only US-licensed physicians could do this work.
It's only a matter of time, then, that Indian attorneys in India (or, say Nigerians in Nigeria, Chinese in China, etc.) are teleconferenced into US courtrooms to make virtual appearances on behalf of US clients...
Don't think there aren't people right now pushing for this? Naive.
7:07
HAHAHAHAHAHA
So, they're going to let unlicensed Indians represent clients, but at the same time prevent attorneys licensed in another state represent clients.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Of course, the big push is on to end the dominance of biglaw. Once this titan is felled, then NYC will be ghost town.
Can you imagine, biglaw firms permanently downsized and Wall Street effectively cut by 40% (and sent to NC and CA)?
NYC is heading straight into the gutter. Time for the rats to start leaving the sinking ship in favor of Snake Pleskin types.
The corporations gain more and more control of the economy (and policy) each year. If they want to outsource, they will get it.
Game over for the USA, we're gutting our professions containing many of our highly trained professionals.
What's going to be left? We don't need that many wind turbines. Besides as soon as we develop that industry, they'll outsource it to the slumdogs.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It's good that you can laugh about it. Last time I checked, laughing still wasn't banned in unemployment offices.
It's called gallows humor, or whistling past the graveyard, or pooping in Babu's curry.
I can't help myself. Your post is utterly ridiculous.
I also read the article you referenced. There's big difference between witnesses appearing for hearings electronically and attorneys representing clients at a trial.
6:55
I wrote,"In 1980, the 250 largest law firms in the country averaged only 95 lawyers. By 2001, however, that average had risen to 417.1 and the growth was much greater among the largest of the large firms. Indeed, by 2001, the 20 largest firms in the U.S. averaged 1,220 lawyers, and there were 12 firms in the country with more than 1,000 lawyers."
You responded, "Yeah but there were a lot more mid-size firms back in the day. Big firms gobble up successful small/mid-size practices. Plus, they opened offices globally and started to employ local lawyers (we'd consider them paralegals)."
These larger institutions are not creating additional productivity. Ironically, the smaller sucessful firms may have. This increased productivity may also have meant more jobs.
There might have been more opportunities for lawyers to break into substantive legal work in a greater number of midsized firms than there are for them to break through the stagnant bureacracies of big law.
It is ironic that you mention IBM. It was IBM's bureacratic structure that open the door for new innovators like Microsoft because IBM could not see the new opportunities. In fact, were it up to IBM, we would still be in a really bad state technologically speaking.
The big law firms have so shifted the markets that it ultimately devalues all degrees-not just lower tier schools. The law firms are not just firing lower tier school lawyers. They are firing associates from tier 1 schools.
Yes, the economy is bad. Yes, there is a credit crunch. Yes other businesses are facing similar problems.
My point is that these things are only symptoms of systematic business decisions. Just like the bank managers decisions created systemic issues that will not en any time soon.
Those decisions will only make the practice of law harder and harder as a profession because the institutions are too big and too influential. This structure only occured in the last 10-15 years. My point is that hopefully midsized firms will begin to pop up more. This would mean perhaps greater real opportunities.
732
The destruction of big law means potentially more substantive jobs for us. It's short term pain, but perhaps long term gain. Think about the projects you go on right now- how many layers are between you and the decision makers? Ina small company and firm- maybe you would have the opportunity tos tand out. Maybe they would need agencies less. Biglaw is only advantageous to big corp. Not to anyone else.
8:04
At first blush, it seems to be a "big difference", but it's the very same principle at work, and part of the same continuum of thought.
Today, it'll be convicts and witnesses in criminal cases. Tomorrow, it'll be their attorneys.
There really is no difference because they both involve credibility in front of the court. After the corporations take advantage of this crack in the door, they'll bust it wide open and ask for "virtual appearances" by counsel. Next thing you know, international counsel will be called in and there'll be snap pro hac vice decisions made. And finally you'll end up with a blanket carte blanche for all of 'em.
Exact same principle.
Right, but as biglaw is gutted, the work goes to India, not to you. People hate lawyers. If they can commoditize and offer the work around for the lowest bidder, they'll do it. Hence the rise of outsourcing.
It won't be going to many (if any) of us. Midlaw may get increased influence, but until the floodgates of outsourcing are closed, it will be a race to gutter. Midlaw also means lower salaries and increased competition with outsourced firms.
You have failed to see the paradigm shift well under way. The real need to is STOP OUTSOURCING immediately. Then we can protect our profession from ghetto-ization.
You all laugh, but look around you.
Pepperdine's campus is beautiful...so are the broads.
815
I am interested in playing out your paranoid fantasies. I am discussing what we can discern given what we know. I can also think of many reasons why you are wrong just in terms of human behavior, but what would be the point? Your post is self contradictory- people hate lawyers so they are going to hire foreign lawyers? Okay. Right.
incidentally- outsourcing is the game of big firms, not small ones. Your one size fit all answer does not work with smaller firms. I will leave it to you to figure out why.
They can hire an authorized "attorney" for pennies on the dollar. They hate US attorneys, so don't care if they go jobless.
Before US lawyers had a monopoly. Now, increasingly, we don't. Soon there will be no legal profession to speak of. Yet the ABA keeps cranking out 40,000 new grads per year, when the market is contracting. Many of these grads have over $100,000 in non-dischargeable student loan debt.
So US attorneys are not sympathetic class, e.g. perhaps the Michigan auto worker.
8:33 - you have a flawed argument. If you say "you'll leave it to me to figure out why" means that have no reason whatsoever.
I call your bluff, powder puff.
837
I was being sarcastic because I knew you would respond the same way no matter what I said. Thanks for not disappointing.
There have always been opportunities (until recently) to get a job at a small/mid-size firm. Sure, you're not making the dough you would at doc. review, but you're learning something and doing interesting work.
Plus, you're certainly making enough to live on while you gain experience. The salaries are more or less comencerate with entry level IT, and better than entry level non-computer jobs.
One other thing to consider, doc. review can be somewhat smoke and mirrors. You get stuck working long hours you have no control over and then sitting around doing nothing for a while (currently - like months at a time). Plus, you always remain at the bottom of the totem pole. You can have 3 years of good work under your belt, but if you tick off some first year associate or permatemp at a new job, and they think up a crazy reason to fire you. Big problem. The agency you were working for could care less about your years of good work and you're blacklisted. And there you are with no experience and nothing to put on your resume than a temp agencies name.
907
You state some of the reasons (esp. the smoke and mirrors) that I am hoping that more midsized law firms will rise up to replace the big law business model of the last decade.
Yeah, but my point is there are (and were a lot more) jobs at these places available.
It's not so much that more mid-sized firms are needed. There are a sufficient amount. The catch is that one has to apply to them and be willing to take a hit in salary compared to doc. review. Networking also works wonders.
There has structurally not been enough work at midsized firms. That's the whole point about trendlines over the last 2 decades. I may wrong, but the point is that it's not as simple as wanting a job at midsized. They had to have enough business to create enough jobs. It's also a matter of sheer numbers. If you go to check, there are not many truly midsized law firms.
11:18
The problem faced by American midsized law firms is the exact same problem faced by American biglaw, and for that matter, most American corporations including GM, Chrysler, Citigroup, Motorola, IBM, the NY Times, etc.
It's what I call "the Crisis of the American Corporation" and the cause is greed and a feudalistic mentality by the owners, directors, partners, or big shareholders.
The fact is that it's part of American culture for owners to run companies as "extraction enterprises", like giant drilling machines whose first and only function is to enrich the people at the top as much as possible, while exploiting those at the middle and bottom, and raping those on the outside, including customers.
When these big or midsized law firms can't survive, it's because the partners have locked into place a financial arrangement where they profit to the max, and where associates and other employees are treated as expendable fodder, either marginal profit-centers or marginal loss-leaders, depending on fluctuations in the economy.
No wonder this model isn't sustainable and is coming apart at the seams, not just in American law, but American manufacturing, banking, media, etc.
11:28
Thank you for the intelligent response. I agree entirely with your analysis. However, I think a move back to midsized firms is a necessary step toward a reversal of the trendline of bigger and bigger ponzi schemes that drives wealth from the middle to the top. It is the size that allows what you describe. Smaller firms would have a harder time playing such games.
It's the question that began with "too big to fail" with the banks in the fall of 2008. It is the question that the Obama administration is ignoring under Geithner. It's why I do not trust them anymore.
I read the following article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print
If something is too big to fail (or too big to create real productivity and wealth for the maximum number of people possible), then it's too big to exist. Capitalism exists to serve greatest wealth generation for the maximum number of people, and not just to funnel money to the top.
Instead, what we have are the Russian oligarchs or reactionary trend lines of feudalism.
I am hoping against hope for a reversal of trendlines. For a path out of the right wing laissez faire b.s. of the last 30 years since the Reagan reactionary revolution that started this. Not that he's to blame alone. Where would any of us be without the Clintonian neoliberalism that completed Reagan's fantasy of deregulation and destabilization. You are right to say that we see this across industries- from banks to media comglom. The later are so big that they can barely make a profit. They also are too big to exist.
I do not for a second think midsized firms are the end of the discussion regarding the right kind of capitalism to help the American middle class.
It is rather a concious choice by the system that alludes to the fundamental question you raise of the super-wealthy bleeding the U.S. economy dry.
It is the hope of a re-orientation of how we view wealth and growth that I want to happen. I am not saying it will. Just that if it does happen it would be a positive trendline.
Many of us were damned to fail not because of law school rankings, but because fo the system and industry into which we entered.
I should point out none of this means we should not fight for our own goals (even in this type of capitalism). My point is that this type of capitalism makes sucess exceptionally hard.
" My point is that this type of capitalism makes sucess exceptionally hard."
should read
" My point is that this type of capitalism makes sucess exceptionally hard versus other more socially driven capitalistic systems."
That's a self-defeatist attitude. You've already given up.
Look. All you have to do is find an entry level job and stick it out for a year. Then, you can lateral somewhere better or they'll give you a raise. Defer the loans.
Personally, I'd keep deferring the student loans until I make enough money to pay them off. Slaveing away in doc. review hell to pay off a school that ripped you off is stupid.
138
You miss my point. I am doing what I need to move forward. We are just discussing systemic trends. Not what I am going to do personally. You should not equate one with the other. I do not. The point of understanding systemic trends is not to give up, but to go forward based on the reality of what the system is rather than what I would like the system to be. There is nothing pessmistic or defeatist about understanding the world around because I am not going to stop simply because this world exists.
The days of, "just take a job for a year and make the best of it" are over. There is no career track for the vast majority of attorneys. Even the gilded associates have now been dealt the hammer and undersand what we lowly serf document reviewers have known for a number of years - we are all just fungible parts in the machine.
It's true, that the craven greed of the Baby Boomers knows no bounds. They have laid to waste vast sectors of the economy. Law is the next to go "pop".
These people just use the corporations as their personal feeding troughs, so they can live like Robber Barons. The problem is that they are NOT Robber Barons, they are just third rate and ponzi schemers siphoning off cash at the expense of living standards of millions of Americans.
@11:28 - here's another example of an extraction industry
http://suddendebt.blogspot.com/2009/04/debt-mining-industry.html
Is Graduate School a Cult?
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2004/06/2004062801c.htm
Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/01/2009013001c.htm
click... click... click.. click... i need to stop bitching... click... click.. click.. something else has got to be better... click..click.. click.. get of my ass and do something about it.. click...click.. click.. click.. so tired from clicking all day that my mind and energy are exhausted by the end of the day.. click.. click.. click.. click... go home...eat.. watch tv for an hour..go to bed.. wake up.. click.. click.. click.. click.. this document is a fax cover page.. click.. click...
focus on the half full part of the glass... the sun will shine somewhere..
click..click..click
"Today, it'll be convicts and witnesses in criminal cases. Tomorrow, it'll be their attorneys."
I know that most people who post here wanted corporate jobs, but this shows a lack of understanding of the criminal justice system that's abysmal even for this crowd. Did you even read the article? "The goal is to cut down on transportation costs of moving inmates to and from the jail for routine court matters" - and the operative word here is "routine." Defendants already often waive their right to be present at scheduling conferences and other matters where their lawyers don't need their input. In a lot of counties, the jail is in the same building as the courts, so transportation isn't an issue. In the counties referenced in the article, that's clearly not the case.
Criminal work is about as outsourcing-proof as any legal work can be. Clients will always need to meet with their attorneys face to face, confidentially. The attorneys will always need to be able to investigate, and they can't do that from another continent. Nor will juries ever be able to hear evidence, assess the credibility of witnesses, and then deliberate with each other by electronic conferencing. There are already problems with jurors using technology to disobey the admonitions against discussing the case before it's over and doing their own research. If anything, the trend is going to be toward placing greater limitations on the use of technology in ways that may adversely affect the rights of criminal defendants.
If you'd had the brains to choose a field of law that isn't headed to India, you'd know all of this.
Recession causing lawyer layoffs at big firms
Apr 13 01:11 PM US/Eastern
By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer Comments (25) Share on Facebook
FILE - In this March 5, 2009 file photo, Antone Dias joins a line of hundreds...
Karla Cortes, an out-of-work lawyer from Puerto Rico who lives in Washington,...
Tim Brown, a lawyer from Washington who lost his job, attends a seminar...
WASHINGTON (AP) - In America, there are always people to sue or contracts to negotiate, right? Apparently there aren't enough.
The recession is taking a steep toll on the legal profession, an industry long seen as immune from the ups and downs of the economy. Trying to weather the financial crisis, the nation's largest law firms are laying off attorneys and delaying the hiring of others.
More than 3,000 lawyers have been laid off in the first three months of 2009.
"A lot of people go into the law because it's one of those professions where you're always going to have work. There aren't typically big layoffs," said Samuel Smith of Charlotte, N.C. "Realistically, I don't think people saw this coming."
Last summer Smith was working at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft while flirting with job opportunities at a few other firms. But in August, Smith was laid off as the economy soured. The firms that earlier had been interested were now reluctant to hire.
"I'm still looking for jobs," said Smith, who launched http://www.rateapartner.com, a Web site that links to legal business news articles and allows lawyers and clients to anonymously rate law firm partners.
Just how bad is it out there?
The Labor Department said the number of unemployed lawyers jumped 66 percent last year to a 10-year high of 20,000.
The first time this year that three consecutive business days passed without one of the nation's top law firms announcing job cuts came in mid-March, according to the Web site Lawshucks.com. They have counted 3,149 lawyer layoffs—just in the big firms, just in the first three months of the year.
The New York City Bar Association, for the first time in its more than 135 years, is offering career counseling services to lawyers between jobs.
Law firms are delaying the hiring of final-year law students, who normally are brought on a year in advance of graduation. Law students graduating with jobs this spring are being paid to delay their start date. Some are being told there will be no work until later in the year, maybe in 2010.
So many would-be lawyers are facing this situation that Volunteer Lawyers for Justice, a group that trains volunteers to provide free legal assistance to low income clients, held a "Deferred Associates Job Fair" in Newark, N.J., for graduates looking for temporary work while waiting for permanent jobs to come through.
For some Americans, there's not much sympathy for lawyers who are suddenly jobless.
They make more money than the Average Joe, with the nation's million-or-so employed lawyers averaging $118,280 in 2007, or $56.87 an hour, according to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And the number of out-of-work lawyers is minuscule compared with the manufacturing sector, which had 945,000 unemployed workers last year, or the construction industry, which saw more than 1 million jobs disappear in 2008.
But those careers don't require four years of college plus a degree from a law school that costs about $70,000 to attend.
"My computer is about to die with the amount of resumes I've sent out," said Tim Brown, 32, of Alexandria, Va.
Brown was laid off from his job working on franchise law for the National Auto Dealers Association on March 26 and has sent out hundreds of resumes. The response?
"'We've received your resume. Thank you very much,'" said Brown, who made April's loan payment but is concerned about May.
Karla Cortes, 33, lost her job as a Nature Conservancy attorney in November, only two years after graduating from American University's law school.
Money is now getting tight, said Cortes, who attended a George Washington University workshop on getting a legal job in the tough economy. "I hope to find a job soon," she said. "Otherwise, I will have to return to Puerto Rico because my savings will be depleted."
Tommy Wells, president of the American Bar Association, said the increase in lawyer layoffs is partly the legal industry's fault.
In the past, large law firms diversified by having lawyers work in areas such as bankruptcy and litigation that could support the corporate and mergers-and-acquisition work when the economy soured and vice versa, he noted.
"Firms probably got a bit out of balance in terms of their practice areas and put a lot of resources into areas that unfortunately are not nearly as active as they were a few years ago," he said.
The economy is being blamed for entire law firms going under.
In Philadelphia, WolfBlock, which has been in business since 1903 and has more than 300 lawyers in several states, is "unwinding" in preparation for closing. Partners blame the banking crisis, the recession—especially in the firm's core real estate practice—and lawyers and clients bailing as the writing on the wall became clearer.
In New York City, Thacher Proffitt & Wood, in business since 1848, survived the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; it had offices in the World Trade Center and lost none of its more than 300 lawyers and support staff. But it couldn't survive the bad economy and closed in September.
Fanni Koszeg, 34, of New York City, lost her job at Thacher in April 2008. Koszeg thought she would take the summer off and maybe go back to work as a public interest lawyer.
"That was very naive of me," Koszeg said. "Now, all of the other law firms have been laying off hundreds of lawyers."
It has been more than a decade since the market was this bad for lawyers, said David P. Landau of Klein, Landau and Romm, one of the nation's oldest continually operating legal search firms in the United States.
"We'll come out of this, we always do," said Landau, who has been recruiting lawyers for more than two decades. This recession, he said, "is a little deeper. It may take longer."
___
On the Net:
Lawshucks.com's list of major law firm layoffs: http://lawshucks.com/layoff-tracker/#ytd-chart
Law.com's list of major law firm layoffs: http://www.law.com/jsp/tal/PubArticleTAL.jsp?id1202425647706
Help for lawyers in the bad economy: http://new.abanet.org/economicrecovery/default.aspx
NEW YORK TIMES, NY REGION, APRIL 12
Heather Eisenlord, 36, works in Skadden’s banking group. She would like to use her year off to teach English to monks in Sri Lanka and possibly help bring solar power to parts of the Himalayas.
comments (269)
Sign In to E-Mail
Print
Reprints
ShareClose
LinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMy SpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalinkBy SUSAN DOMINUS
Published: April 12, 2009
This year may be a disastrous one for the global economy, but it’s shaping up to be one of the best that Heather Eisenlord has enjoyed in a good long while. Granted, that might not be saying much: For the past five years, Ms. Eisenlord has been an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a notably grueling place for a lawyer to work.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Times Topics: Susan DominusReaders' Comments
Share your thoughts.
Post a Comment »
Read All Comments (269) »
But even by more stringent standards of fun, the coming year looks pretty good. Ms. Eisenlord, 36, who works in Skadden’s banking group, will be buying a plane ticket that will take her around the world for a year, and she’s been stocking her apartment in Brooklyn with Lonely Planet travel guides.
Although she’s not yet sure exactly what she’ll be doing on her trip, she has some ideas. She would like to teach English to monks in Sri Lanka and possibly help bring solar power to remote parts of the Himalayas. She’ll probably hit 10 to 15 destinations around the world, most likely practicing not-for-profit law wherever she can be helpful.
The best part of all: Skadden is paying her about $80,000 to do it.
For a sixth-year associate at a New York law firm, $80,000 isn’t exactly competitive pay. But for someone cruising around the world, doing good wherever she sees fit and, let’s face it, probably hitting a beach or two, the pay is excellent.
Only in a financial world turned upside down would an arrangement like this one make sense. Looking to cut costs like everyone else, but not prepared to lay off associates, Skadden has chosen instead to offer all of its associates — about 1,300 worldwide — the option of accepting a third of their base pay to not show up for work for a year. (So far, the partners have no equivalent arrangement.)
The company is helping associates find pro bono work, and is encouraging them to do so. But the lawyers could also spend the year catching up on every episode of “Top Chef” that they missed during the boom years, or traveling around the world, “all of which is O.K. by us,” said Matthew Mallow, a partner at the firm. Other firms have adopted similar strategies, but Skadden’s program is unusual in that it has no pro bono requirements.
As of Friday, about 125 associates had expressed interest. “I think it’s fair to say that the numbers are in excess of our expectations,” Mr. Mallow said.
Only at a corporate law firm would the managers underestimate employees’ interest in taking a year off from the grind for what most of America would consider a small fortune.
Not everyone could cover monthly living expenses on a third of one’s pay, and naturally some skeptical lawyers grilled the partners about job security. If there are layoffs in a year, they wondered, is it really possible that the lawyers who’d been defending trees in British Columbia wouldn’t be disadvantaged, compared with the lawyers who’d been slaving away on contracts in Midtown?
Not only were the lawyers assured that their time away wouldn’t hurt them; in some ways it would be protective: If there are layoffs while they are away, they will be immune.
So far, the majority of the lawyers are looking for worthwhile legal work, Skadden says, to keep them as competitive as possible; but yes, some will take the year off to spend time with their children or look after a sick relative. Someone’s planning to wrap up his Ph.D., someone else is looking into legal work for a news organization, and another associate will be joining Ms. Eisenlord on her round-the-world adventure.
Ms. Eisenlord says she fully intends to go back to Skadden after her trip, and will be eager to return to the work she loves and the co-workers she admires. It’s possible that after a year teaching monks English, installing solar panels in the Himalayas and working on human rights in developing nations, she will come to the conclusion that there is no more fulfilling life than the one she has spent in corporate law.
But maybe she will have some kind of revelation. If there is any silver lining to this financial catastrophe, it’s that business as usual has come to a grinding halt. Sometimes it takes getting thrown out of the office to notice there is a life outside.
Already, Ms. Eisenlord seems to be making some sort of transition. Has she been getting any work done lately as she anticipates this thrilling new trip?
“No comment,” she said.
Spoken like a lawyer — but a lawyer on the verge.
E-mail: susan.dominus@nytimes.com
Correction: An earlier version incorrectly referred to the the aim of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom's policy, which seeks to prevent the layoffs of associates. The firm has laid off other employees.
This week in law firm layoffs:
Brownstein Hyatt: 15 lawyers, 22 staff
Chapman and Cutler: undisclosed lawyers
Quinn Emanuel: 10 staff
DLA Piper: estimated 32 lawyers
Willkie Farr & Gallagher: 24 undisclosed
Vedder Price: 9 lawyers
Townsend and Townsend and Crew: 16 lawyers, 45 staff
Bracewell & Giuliani: undisclosed staff
Baker & McKenzie: 38 lawyers, 86 staff
De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek: 90 staff
Clifford Chance: 10 lawyers
Winstead PC: undisclosed lawyers
Bricker & Eckler: 9 lawyers, 19 staff
William Fry: 17 staff
Shipman & Goodwin: 5 lawyers, 21 staff
Total: 144 lawyers, 310 staff
Bomb Mumbai. Bomb Calcutta.
Bomb Pangea3.
wtf
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123999231588529683.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
Delta Air Lines Inc. said Friday it has stopped using India-based call centers to handle sales and reservations, making it the latest U.S. company to decide the cost benefits of directing calls offshore are outweighed by the backlash from customers.
Delta said it stopped routing calls to India-based call centers over the first three months of the year. Customers had complained they had trouble communicating with Indian agents, the airline said. Last month, Chrysler LLC said it would move its customer-service center back from India.
"It is fundamentally cheaper to do it in India, but there's also the question of whether it's better to do it cheaper or better to do it better in terms of the relationship with your customers," said Ben Trowbridge, chief executive of Alsbridge Inc., a Dallas-based company that advises on outsourcing.
Call-center representatives in India earn roughly $500 a month, or about one-sixth the salary of their U.S.-based counterparts, he added.
Delta's move also reflects the need for airlines to streamline their sales and reservation operations as customer-call volume dwindles amid the ongoing recession. And, as layoffs mount in the U.S., it could be a smart public-relations move for companies to cut their outsourced business before eliminating payroll positions.
The Indian outsourcing industry has been struggling amid the global economic slowdown and growing protectionist sentiment in the U.S. American customers account for more than 60% of Indian outsourcers' revenue, and the industry has seen its growth come to an essential standstill as the U.S. economy slowed.
Earlier this week, Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies Ltd., India's second-largest outsourcer by revenue, gave a dismal forecast for the fiscal year that began April 1, saying it expected revenue in dollar terms to be as much as 15% below a year earlier.
Last week, SLM Corp., the student lender known as Sallie Mae, said it would return to the U.S. 2,000 jobs it outsources in India, the Philippines and Mexico. The jobs, mostly call-center and information-technology positions, were recently moved overseas as part of a plan to trim 4,000 jobs from the company's overall U.S. payroll of 12,000 employees.
Delta was one of a handful of carriers, including U.S. Airways Group Inc. and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, that sent parts of their telephone-based sales and reservation duties offshore earlier in the decade as they scrambled to cut costs after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when demand for travel plummeted.
Delta isn't pulling back from the use of all foreign call centers. It will keep some Jamaica and South Africa centers, which haven't generated such vociferous complaints.
"The customer acceptance of call centers in foreign countries is low," Richard Anderson, Delta's chief executive, said in a recorded message to employees. "Our customers are not shy about letting us have that feedback."
U.S. Airways said it is reducing the number of calls it routes through call centers in El Salvador and Guatemala. "We're finding call volume to be down right now so are able to bring more calls on shore," Valerie Wunder, a U.S. Airways spokeswoman, wrote in an email.
And United said earlier this year it is also moving some India-based phone work back to the U.S.
Write to Paulo Prada at paulo.prada@wsj.com and Niraj Sheth at niraj.sheth@wsj.com
I was stupid to go to Brooklyn not Pepperdine,at least I would have got laid by the bouncing blonde sluts there looking for a lawyer.
Post a Comment