Tom,
With the recent sanctioning of outsourcing by the ABA and the virtual collapse of the entire document review attorney job market, I thought you would find the following letter which was recently posted on JDUnderground interesting.
"Things really must be bad for Brooklyn Law School students because I got a special letter from Joan King begging for alumni to provide job listings. I don't want to retype the entire letter, but here are some excerpts:
'At Brooklyn Law School, we are very fortunate to have such loyal alumni.' (um, is she talking about Sharianna?)
'...the Career Center is working as creatively and energetically as possible...' (i.e. we are finding new ways to cook the books.)
'Project-based/contract listings are always welcome.' (in order to create the illusion of employed BLS grads.)
'We take great pride in making the best matches between employers and students...' (BLS to bottom 90% of class: We have your tuition, now drop dead.)
'Many of you are engaged in alternative or quasi-legal practice' (e.g., ditch digging, toilet cleaning.)
'Needless to say, some of you are experiencing your own job search issues' (i.e. we admit that BLS degree is detrimental to your career.)"
Did any other BLS grads receive this letter? Thoughts and comments?
The ABA's decision to sanction offshore doc review has come back to bite Joan King's ass. Her charade is being exposed, and her books can't be cooked anymore. Maybe I should send a job listing for someone to clean my apartment for $50 every other week (NY bar admission required)."
http://jdunderground.com/thread.php?threadId=32680
129 comments:
I have friend who has a law degree from a Third Tier law school in Massachusetts, and he passed the bar. He worked in doc review a couple of years, but the projects dried up late last fall.
He is now working as a counter clerk at a mom 'n pop pizza joint in Boston, and is about to get laid off, because the owners have defaulted on their lease.
He would much rather be working as an attorney, and graduated 40th out of 125 in his class. He has applied to the Boston Police and Fire Departments, but tells me there is almost no chance of getting a job there.
At least he speaks Spanish. He's thinking of moving to Venezuela to volunteer as an English teacher for Chavez' revolution.
VIVA CHAVEZ!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W3aHJwIfJY
"He's thinking of moving to Venezuela to volunteer as an English teacher for Chavez' revolution."
When he winds up defaulting on his loans, that will wind up being a great outcome for the American taxpayers who helped invest in his education.
Maybe al-queda training camps should become eligible for federal stafford loan funding.
Better video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCkMUYyml50&feature=related
VIVA CHAVEZ!!!
SOCIALISM IN THE USA NOW!!!
I invested in 7 years of higher education, and for months I haven't been able to land a rinky-dink temp job, or a job at Target or Starbucks for that matter. I can't afford health insurance and I am about to be tossed out on my ass.
If this is capitalism, bring on the socialism.
FDR's unemployment check is the only thing that is allowing me NOT to have hunt squirrel in Central Park.
The best thing to do for many unemployed American lawyers who are shut out of even subsistence-level occupations here in the States (because we're "overqualified") is to move to a Third World country and work as a teacher or something, or join the Peace Corps. There are some places you can move -- a Pacific or Caribbean island -- that might actually afford a comfortable living, physically and spiritually, if not financially.
or move to Mumbai and review documents. Oh wait, they won't hire Americans.
"He's thinking of moving to Venezuela to volunteer as an English teacher for Chavez' revolution."
When he winds up defaulting on his loans, that will wind up being a great outcome for the American taxpayers who helped invest in his education.
Maybe al-queda training camps should become eligible for federal stafford loan funding.
____________________________
Don't even joke about it 10:11. There are plenty of morons who would love to see our money go to al-queda. The boomers trashed our educational system; now our universities are like training camps for al-queda supporters.
OP I assume you're talking out Suffolk. Great, that's my rank just about and i just graduated rom that hole. glad to see what I have to look forward to.
Saying, "If this is capitalism, bring on the socialism," is like saying "If we have an economic downturn, bring on the fascism."
10:25 u go first, we'll be right behind u.
Back in November Cardozo sent out a similar email. Basically requesting/begging alumni to post to a job board and consider 3L resumes. In a nutshell: the financial apocalypse prompted OCS TO DO THE VERY BARE MINIMUM THAT FUCKING OCS SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOING FROM DAY FUCKING ONE.
Seriously, how can they look themselves in the face when they knew that for years that the vast bulk of their students were getting NO assistance, and then in the face of absurd financial failure, pretend that doing the BARE MINIMUM is some fantastic gesture.
OCS: Please. Drop. Dead.
10:32
Yup.
10:35
I bet you did a really bang-up job on the LSAT.
"Sharianna"?? It's alway we sisters and brothers that get the shaft. White folk better off than us.
"Sharianna"??
There needs to be some background provided here. Sharianna was some nut who got banned from JDUnderground after she spammed the board for over A YEAR regarding how Joan King ruined her life.
10:47 you are the unfortunate product of our ruined educational system. You are too uneducated to understand that what you support is dictatorship.
10:25
Unfortunataly, peace corps takes 6-12 months until you start. By that time this whole mess will have blown over, or everything will be so screwed up it won't matter how much money have in the bank or what kind of degree you have, and you'll be much better off here than there.
Try and relax and find some kind of work to get you through this. You must have some markatable skills.
This recession won't last forever. 6 months ago people were bitching about lack of car service and that they could "only" make 50K working at a small law firm. It's not that your degrees are useless, the problem is this is a serious recession and the corporate work is drying up.
Also, for what it's worth, you won't be doing doc review forever. After a while most people decide to get a real job and move out of it. As long as you're under 45, eventually something will work out as long as you keep trying.
11:04
Hmmmmm, let's see.
What's better, living under a failed capitalistic system with failed education, failed health care, hundreds of thousands of unemployed lawyers begging and scrounging for work, 700,000 jobs lost every month, college loan scams, millions of home foreclosures, two imperialist wars going on concurrently, billions being shoveled to Israel and Saudi Arabia....
Or living under an admitted benevolent authoritarian former paratrooper who wears a red shirt, provides health care, food, and education to all citizens, and still allows people to criticize him and hold massive protests against him?
Is anyone else trying to get out of the legal industry completely? Just curious.
well hopefully soon that nasty horrible person will be out of a job. She is soooo full of it, and so self-righteous, and so self-entitled, this would be an appropriate first step for her punishment for the harm that she has been a part of.
I hope she goes to jail, I hope she loses everything, and I hope she comes to know the misery that she has caused so many over so many years.
That letter was a joke, when I was at that school she was a vile nasty unprofessional harpy from the first time I met her, and she never did ANYTHING for ANY one who was not in the top 10% other than to tell people its their responsibility to get a job, and tell you where the fax machine is. Thanks Joan, I could have gotten that at Kinkos for a whole lot less money...
Oh, and Brooklyn Law School has also been under investigation for student loan fraud as well. How do I know? My lender told me, that hows.
You want to help grads Joan King? Give them their fucking money back. Only then will God consider forgiving you for what you have done.
11:30 If you can equate Israel (a nation formed as a safe haven for Holocaust survivors when the rest of the world - except the Dominican Republic turned its back on them) with Saudi Arabia, you truly are a sad example of the ruins that has been made of our educational system.
Your inability to get that Chavez is a dictator only further proves the point.
11:43 well put.
11;30 Chavez is anything but benevolent, granted he is not as bad as some would have us believe, but Venezuela's poverty rate is actually going up, and he puts people in jail who disagree or criticize him, and if a business does not want to obey his price controls, he "nationalizes" your business and you lose it all, regardless if you could even earn a living on his price controls. He is not the answer. That would be like putting Joan King in charge of an entire country.
11:40 with the economy so dismal, where else is there to go? Everything else requires experience we don't have in a very competitive environment.
Someone on the last thread suggested going back to school. Anyone feel like going back to college to get a different degree?
Did any other BLS grads get that letter?
I thought the offshoring was kind of debunked already. No?
I was buying the offshoring theory. Not anymore. I think it is the economy and that law firms who lack the usual amount of work are giving the doc review to junior associates. I don't think the outsourcing is nearly as big a deal as some think.
All of you Chavez Cornholios, even he won't take your failed lawyer asses.
Sorry, you are useless even to the totalitarian leader of a failed pseudo socialist state.
You are just capitalist pawns, mwah mwah mwah!!!
First they outsourced the textile workers' jobs, but I didn't say anything, because I wasn't a textile worker.
Then they outsourced the manufacturing jobs, but I didn't care, because I wasn't a factory worker.
Then they outsourced the call centers, but I didn't care, because I wasn't a telephone service representative.
Then they outsourced the IT jobs, but I didn't care, because I wasn't a computer geek.
Now they've outsourced the legal jobs, but there's no one left to defend my job, because all the lawyers (with the exception of the ones in biglaw) are poor or unemployed.
Sullivan has been giving our work to junior associates. There must be other firms who are doing the same.
If getting a law degree was such a bad idea why would anyone try going back to get a different degree?
I asked about going back to school for something different. I don't want to spend the rest of my life around this industry.
12:01
We will work in the fields for Chavez and the Revolution.
You forget that Che Guevara, a medical school graduate, incited a Revolution. And when he moved to Cuba to join Fidel, he voluntarily took time out to work in the sugar fields, for the greater good of the Revolution and the People.
We will have jobs in Venezuela. While you are sitting here in the rotting, decaying US living out of your grounded SUV and looting canned food from an abandoned WalMart, we will be already be established down there, living in state-subsidized country homes in the tropics, teaching English to beautiful senoritas.
Then you'll be begging to join us, but we will puff on our cigars and say, "Who? You? Yankee stay home!!!"
12:06 You should go there. Then you would finally get a glimpse of what dictatorship is really like.
Re Big Law
If you read other blogs, like Above the Law, you would read daily lay off reports like this one:
"We can now report that Orrick will let go approximately 100 attorneys and 200 staff. The cuts will affect all offices and all practice groups."
http://abovethelaw.com/2009/03/orrick_layoffs_300.php
This site is mostly engaged in pessmistic fantasies, in which somehow what's happening with us is divorced from what's happening with the rest of the legal industry. Reality check: If they don't have work for the 160k a year associates, why do you think they would have work for temp attorneys?
One of the reasons I am trying to change the subjec here to other options is that I don't believe the outsourcing issue is relevant. I think its the same paranoia that I would see temps engage on projects.
Why go to get another degree. Who wants more student loan debt?
The next big thing to expect is a lot of the temp firms will be going belly-up.
As Larry King used to say, "You heard it here first, folks!!"
12:10 is right. The outsourcing myth has been fed by panic without reason. The whole legal market has been collapsing. There is no way that temps could be immune from that.
12:13 many of the temp firms do way more than staff doc review. Many are parts of corporations that do non-legal as well as legal staffing. Doc review is not there sole means of support.
12:18
But a lot of 'em are just plain old legal temp staffing firms that may have nominal business in other fields, or often none at all.
Expect to see a major contraction of that industry. There are too many firms, and not enough work, in it right now. It's called "overcapacity".
Expect to see possibly some consolidations at the top, and a number of smaller legal staffing agencies fall under the truck, as projects continue to dry up.
12:21 any guesses as to which will go first?
1212
What do you get by temping the rest of your life? You and I do not share common values. My belief is that I have one life. There is no second go around once this one is over.
At some point, I want to mitigate my losses by moving to another career rather than sucking off the exhaust fumes of this industry because I am too afraid the next one won't work out like this one.
So I am asking questions to see what others are doing (just to be energized from positive people in my situation) rather than bitching about the same thing over and over again. You do what you want. I will do the same.
Don't know, but my guess is some of the smaller ones that are overextended as far as having too much staff, too many branch offices, too many overhead expenses, etc.
I also got Joan King's letter today. I used it as a pooper scooper when I took my dog out.
11:40
I'm not necessaraly trying to get out, but I'm broadaning my job search.
I'm also getting set up to do the virtual office thing. Seems to me if corporations want to save money and sacrifice quality by outsorcing, maybe they'd prefer to save money and get reasonable quality by using an attorney working from a virtual office.
12:21
I would expect the larger ones to dry up before the smaller ones. The smaller firms have a lot less overhead; there aren't two floors of prime manhatten real estate with computers just sitting there with no one using them.
12:22 - just another LPO troll. Babu I invite you to move to NYC and go to law school. Joan King at Brooklyn Law School will save a spot for you. If not, Deans Matasar or Hobbs will gladly welcome you to their schools.
You will need to fork over $150,000 for the pleasure of earning your JD in wonderful Brooklyn or glamorous Newark, NJ.
There are plenty of exhaust fumes for you to inhale, so you will feel right at home.
12:22 it's just that after all the false promises of law school I don't feel like I have a reason to believe going back to school would lead to more than another worthless degree. What looks good now may turn out to be just as worthless as law school later. What then? Another degree?
Leaving the country is not the answer. The depression is starting to hit the rest of the world. Mexico , for example, is quickly becoming a failed state. The drug cartel wars in the Mexican border cities is beginning to make Fallujah look like Candy Land.
12:28
But it's becoming dirt cheap in a lot of these places. Once Ukraine and Eastern Europe tank you can live there on a few dollars a day. The only problem is that there may be wide scale civil strife, but what the heck? It keeps things from getting boring.
12:27
But the bigger staffing agencies have bigger networks of regular clients, so if some clients bail, they'll still be able to attract and keep enough to survive the recession.
The smaller agencies, though, have a much smaller client base and less wiggle room. Losing one major client could destroy one of these small agencies.
12:28
I've got news for you, if Mexico actually becomes a failed state, within five (5) years, that is the end of the USA as we know it.
The US will intervene militarily in Mexico making Iraq look like the St. Patrick's Day Parade. If civil society breaks down in Mexico, we won't have thousands of illegal immigrants jumping the border every month, it'll be millions.
I'm with 12:33. If things keep going the way they are, the smallest are most likely to go. The best recruiters will be picked up by the larger agencies.
Maybe some of the smaller agencies will be bought out.
There are too many agencies that do to little anyway. Of course, if business picks up again, new ones will be born.
It's a waiting game. The work will eventually return, it's merely a matter of when. Like any business, agencies that are lean and have access to loans and capital infusions will survive. It's survival of the fittest time.
1228
I think part of the problem with my getting JD degree is that, frankly, speaking for myself I did not a) know how to research the subject and b) decided on it by default (I am of the "oh, I can write and debate so I should become an attorney" crowd). I am not saying leap into something else. Just considering the idea. I want to remain open to everything right now and research it.
I find that this is more useful than trying to figure out this industry. I think many of the problesm are structural problems that even in good times will not go away with the legal industry, including the personalities involved. Most of the people in this industry are toxic.
At the end of the day, that's my consideration. I agree that there is no magic bullet. I am not seeking one. Just something better than remaining in the same place feeling 'stuck.'
It is a waiting game. That is supposedly why Hudson is only taking non-admitted J.D.s for the 6 month project it is staffing. Hudson supposedly thinks that there will be much more work for us in 3 - 4 months and that admitted attorneys would jump to those better paying projects.
12:47 I think the difficulty is that what looks good now may turn out to be glutted later. I'm not convinced more school is the answer. As you say, there is no magic bullet.
So Hudson is betting on the markets unfreezing in 3 -4 months? Interesting.
1251
I am on the fence so I definitely see your points as being true. This is just a question mark for me right now. And, the reality is that whatever I decided to do (even if it's school) I am not going to go to some expensive program- cheap is my catchword for school (if I decide to do it).
I have to think Hudson probably knows more about what's going on than we do.
12:48
What if you just tell Hudson you're not admitted?
What the fuck are they gonna do, check with all 50 state bars?
Fuck it, if I want a job with Hudson, I'd just walk in there sit down, put my feet up on the recruiter's desk, and say, "I voluntarily renounce my bar membership. Now give me that fuckin' job. And quick 'cause I gotta go take a shit!"
Soooo...besides speculating if the revolution may or may not be happening, anybody have insight as to defaulting on private loans?
Is the worst they can do garnishment if you have no other assets (or your domicile is protected as a 'homestead')? Would I just be looking at a trashed credit score and potential wage attachment?
I don't think more education is the answer. Getting the JD is a huge waste for most of us, to waste more time in academia is probably not the answer. The only exception would be for a community college certificate or accelerated teaching certification. But laboring for another degree will just compound the problem.
Cheap would definitely be the way to go for more school. Cheap and as fast as possible. I've thought about it too but I just feel so badly burned already. Looking for other ways is a good idea though. There's no denying that.
Hudson is a good agency. You can't not be admitted one second and then suddenly tell them you are admitted when they have something better than the $20 or so they are willing to pay non-admitted JDs.
Speaking of getting another degree, a friend of mine is not an attorney, but has:
1) A M.S. in Public Health from an elite private Southern university.
2) A M.S. in an IT field from a very prestigious east coast private university
3) A Master's in Health Care Administration from a top midwestern state school
4) His fourth and final masters is an MBA from the FOURTH ranked program in the country
And he has been unemployed for almost 2 years, except for some VERY spotty freelance work. In 2007, he had a web start-up which tanked in the summer of 2008. He lives in Silicon Valley and literally has almost given up looking for work.
So it's not only us attorneys who get the shaft.
And by the way, he's lamenting the fact that he didn't go to law school.
1258
We think a like on the education. It would have to be cheap and also fast. Nothing over 2 years.
I hate to break it to you, but this recession isn't ending anytime soon. Even the most upbeat of economists aren't predicting a turn around until 2010. Expect a massive student loan crisis in the beginning of next year. The only reason the crisis hasn't hit yet is because people are still living off of deferments and forbearances.
Expect default rates to spike. Hopefully, the gov't will then look into the shady practices of people like Joan King.
1:02 you should tell him to start following this blog, maybe it'll at least cheer him up about not going to law school.
Why is he in Silicon Valley for healthcare innovation? Especially with obama's healthcare IT stimulus, I thought the industry for HIT was elsewhere other than Silicon Valley. That would be like me saying I want to do biotechnology, but living in NYC when Biotech is more likely to be found in Boston.
California is DEAD. There is no work here. California makes the rest of the country look like the land of milk and honey.
103 is right about the student loan industry. The market was also based on easy debt that has since been commodized. The market for the bundle of student loan debt is essentially dead right now. So, if people start defaulting that's another housing bubble in the making.
We mainly have to figure out how we are going to survive for maybe another year with the economy as it is now. Maybe our business will pick up before then, but there is a good chance that it will take that long. This is crisis management.
1:06
California always goes into recession last, and comes out of recession last, and usually experiences one of the deepest troughs (except for Michigan and Ohio, which are in virtually permanent recessions).
The government is going to step in deeper and deeper to provide relief.
All the temp attorneys who frequent this blog should start a "virtual law firm", a national firm with one slick website. Everyone uploads his bio, we market it as a national multistate firm.
Instant biglaw. We take almost any kind of transactional, civil lit, PI or criminal matter, and we all work from home until we can afford to open our first office somewhere.
Hudson isn't hiring unadmitted JD's because they are expecting work to pick up for admitted JD's. They are hiring unadmitted JD's because they are cheap.
Why hire an admitted JD and pay them $35 an hour, when you can convince a client to pay $19 an hour and pocket the difference?
1:06
You're right, he should be in Boston, DC, or San Diego. I've told him about this.
Hudson can't pocket the difference. That's not how it works. Supposedly they are afraid that halfway through the project other agencies will be offering admitted attorneys $35 and they will jump.
It's that crummy HHR project that Tom wrote about year's ago. It may be a different project, but "Satan's Workshop" is back in business.
Geography of a Recession:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/03/us/20090303_LEONHARDT.html
I'd go to the HHR project, no matter how bad it is. Can't though, I'm admitted. Why didn't I just become a paralegal? They seem to be the only ones who can get work.
Can we become paralegals? How long does that take?
65 Broadway is back in operation? Holy shit. Hell resurrected.
Hell or homeless? Non-admitted JDs get a choice, we don't.
We should at least get a chance to swap our JDs for paralegal certificates.
1:30
I got news for you. If you have a JD or are an admitted attorney, the vast majority of law firms, big or small, and staffing agencies, won't even consider you for a paralegal job.
There are experienced paralegals who make $80-90K or more, while first year attorneys from non-prestigious schools are now taking jobs for $40K. And they're lucky if they'll be making $70K in three years, while paralegals who don't have the debt and aren't licensed attorneys are often making double their salaries, buying luxury condos, summering in Martinique, and laughing at these poor sucker JDs.
An industrious temp JD could always just leave the JD off his or her resume, and say they did doc review work since paralegals do that work too if this is truly your goal. But, that would require chutzpah.
We should go around the country instigating people to commit random torts, to stimulate the market for attorneys.
I've sometimes wondered if you can RENOUNCE a degree and a bar admission.
I don't mean just leaving it off your resume, but write letters of renunciation to the school and the state bar.
Can you give back a degree? Just say I don't want it anymore. Or at least, you can have it back for a specified period of time.
This would open me up to a lot of paralegal and even administrative jobs.
Attorneys really enjoy finding ways to avoid hiring attorneys.
Joan King never met a Stafford, Perkins, or GradPlus loan that she didn't like.
You can retire from the practice of law but that doesn't mean you'd be accepted for paralegal work.
1:45 - They probably wouldn't care. After your last loan check clears, you could drop dead for all they care. All these diploma mills care about is the next incoming class of lemmings.
You can change your registration status to retired and not pay the attorney registration fee but that doesn't mean you'd be any more welcome into the happy world of the paralegal than you are now.
I am a BLS grad and I would GLADLY take the job to clean your apartment every other week. I am unemployed, and every other college friend of mine who bombed the LSAT and avoided law school altogether is doing 100x better than I am. I feel scammed by BLS's phony recessionary bullshit PR campaign, and I hope Joan King rots in hell.
Relax, there are solutions to make it through the depression. What you need is to acquire a skill that's in demand. I have a few suggestions:
1. Become a scientist/pharmaceutical expert
2. Join our military
3. Become a tech guru
4. Become a bilingual foreign language expert (this will also land you review gigs on top of it all!)
5. Become a doctor or nurse (people still get sick even in a recession)
6. Become a teacher
7. Pick up a vocational trade (hey, at least the debt isn't outrageous)
If you'd rather not make such proactive steps to turn your life around you need to pray to God every night that the partners and associates (included the newly minted and incoming ones) further up the food chain will find work again, so their wealth will trickle down to us like it used to. BLS students need to rally outside King's office and force her to go from door to door in Manhattan and do whatever she has to do (lobbying for new hiring criteria? Offer to perform other personal favors?) to convince the big firm partners to hire more BLS grads.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/business/04dead.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/business/04leonhardt.html?hp
I had a gig at HHR. It wasn't bad. And the lady that hires the people was not mean, like this board says she is. The associates who ran the project were decent.
BLS is only the canary in the coal mine, the tip of the iceberg. It's the most obvious example of hype in NYC, the market most glutted with underemployed wannabe biglaw lawyers. The scrutiny will spread to other schools, like New York Law, St. John's, etc., and then start spreading out of the NYC area.
Basically what these law schools are selling is "subprime" law degrees, and the market will blow right open, just like the subprime mortgage market did, and then totally implode. Right now these law degrees are insanely overvalued, and their market value will plummet until the demand disappears and many of these schools fold.
It's school like Carbozo, BLS and Seton Hall have greatly inflated their grads' opportunities for success. If there were no student loans available, they would be out of business.
Talk about a house of cards! Do we really 10+ law schools in metro NYC?
To be sure, we only need three. After Fordham, they are all TTT.
10:51
And now, there are effectively no student loans available, so these schools' admissions departments are panicking.
Hell- I've been trying to get work as a sub, but even that requires a stupid certification.
Good, let's hope these dreamcrushers will be closed soon. I suspect however, that they will remain open somehow.
11:40- Hell, yeah. But go where? The two 'big' industries are teaching and nursing. Large groups of children and the sight of blood both scare me, so I'm pretty much screwed.
1:02- If your friend has given up looking for work, what's he doing for income? Hopefully he's got a sugar mama- or daddy if he plays for the other team.
There are plenty of loans available. They are all guaranteed by the federal gov't. The only loans that have dried up are bar exam loans which aren't federally guaranteed. Joan King will have plenty of money coming in to keep her scam going.
Here is the letter from BLS:
Dear Graduate,
As you will no doubt remember, looking for a job is not fun in the best of times. Can you only imagine what it is like for our students and graduates this year? At Brooklyn Law School, we are very fortunate to have such loyal alumni. Many of you list job opportunities with us, or are very generous in offering advice to students and graduates. But unusual times require unusual measures, and so we are taking the liberty of reaching out to you with a special message.
Although the Career Center is working as creatively and energetically as possible, current circumstances require an “all hands on deck” approach. The Career Center needs all of the job listings you can provide. These include summer or part-time internships for students, entry-level positions for recent graduates, and lateral positions for more experienced graduates. Project-based/contract listings are always welcome. Please feel free to call Joan King or Camille Chin-Kee-Fatt at 718.780.7963 for assistance with your listing. We take great pride in making the best matches between employers and students or graduates.
Many of you are engaged in alternative or quasi-legal practice. Examples of this include compliance/risk management, human resources, contract administration or claims analysis. We want you to know that many graduates express interest in using their lawyering skills in non-traditional practice. Moreover, increasingly, our students come to us from all parts of the country and often seek to return home after graduation or for the summer. So please let us hear from you no matter what you do or where you are.
To post immediate openings, please go to www.brooklaw.edu/career/empjobintro where you will find several listing options. And don’t forget to call for personal attention if desired!
Needless to say, some of you are experiencing your own job search issues. We want you to know that the Career Center is staffed with eight attorney-counselors and an employer relations associate who are available to assist you. Do not hesitate to reach out to the Career Center for assistance with your own search.
Thank you in advance for your loyalty to Brooklyn Law School.
Sincerely,
The Brooklyn Law School Career Center
and the Office of Alumni Relations
Here are some choice comments from folks on JDUnderground:
"I would respond by telling her the Mustang Ranch out in Nevada has openings for her female alumni."
"It's a desperate plea to raise the percent of 2008 grads employed. The veneer is now being ripped off, revealing to all the truly abysmal shell game they have been playing.
As long as there was doc review, they could pad the statistics sufficiently to keep the school afloat. Now with the work evaporating in NYC, I would imagine that there are many, many unemployed BLS 2008 grads.
Joan King's bunker must be a very unpleasant place these days."
"The parts doc review, "alternative careers" and admission that alumni are experiencing "job search issues" demonstates to me that she ackowledges that a BLS degree is worthless for the majority of grads and that they will never practice law."
"NYC doc review was the life blood for the BLS career statistics. BLS's NYC location gave it a significant advantage when it came to tier 2 law school career reporting.
Come reporting time, if any graduates were unemployed, Joan King could simply get on the phone and push the kids into a 2 day temp gig, and claim that they were working in biglaw, pulling in over a hundred grand a year. It was almost as ingenious as the Valvoline Dean's NJ court clerkship racket.
Joan King must REALLY be desperate if she is finally admitting that graduates are having issues."
"The ABA's decision to sanction offshore doc review has come back to bite Joan King's ass. Her charade is being exposed, and her books can't be cooked anymore. Maybe I should send a job listing for someone to clean my apartment for $50 every other week (NY bar admission required)."
"Joanie is only admitting that BLS grads might be having job
issues because she and BLS now have the cover of the shitty economy to use as a scapegoat. Like many of the delusional legal lemmings that post on this site she and BLS can use the ruse of blaming the economy and even ridiculously speculate that when the greater economy picks up then so will the TT grads' fortunes in lawland.
But the death of NYC doc review does present a difficult problem for the likes of Joan King, BLS, NYLS, Carbozo, Seton Hall and even half of Fordham in that they can't count as many doc reviewers as being employed in biglaw.
The shitty economy is both, at the same time, further exposing the scam that is law and acting as camoflauge for that scam.
In weighing the situation, I feel that the balance has tilted in favor of the further exposing of the lawschool and legal "profession" sham. The truth is spreading faster every day despite the efforts of the delusional, the wicked and the pro-law trolls. There is just too much misery being reported now by too many different types of legitimate and underground sources. Too much anecdotal and true evidence. Thank god."
"It Not The Economy Stupids!
Its the "profession"! The recession in lawland for most greatly precedes the recession for the greater society by YEARS! The current economy just takes the wool off of the lawschool scam and the law schools are feeling the heat! Now they try to use the economy as cover. After tons of law grads have been hurting for years it only now that schools like BLS try to PRETEND THAT THEY CARE?
Quit deluding yourselves. The "profession" is a sham and is rotten to the core for most."
"Sharianna was right all along. All those trolls that attacked her at the height of the boom, claiming that Joan King's stats were legit should be ashamed. Joan King is nothing more than a SPINNING CHARLATAN. Like Madoff, it only took an economic downturn to uncover it."
"Yes, it's true. Now that the economy has tanked, BLS can no longer hide the clever ruse they've playing. If there's any good to come of this economic collapse, it's that these scams are being exposed.
Those trolls could never be ashamed, as they have absolutely no shame. They are ruining thousands of young peoples' lives, all the while lining their pockets. They know that the majority of their grads are screwed and don't care. They never cared in the first place. JK is just trying to cover her ass now, plain and simple."
Amen, hallelujah, and allah akbar
Does anyone know any way for an admitted attorney to get accepted as a paralegal?
Meanwhile, over at Above the Law, they are pointing out that OMelveny & Meyers has let go of 90 perm attorneys, and Dewey a huge number as well.
Meaning it's going to get worse before it gets better.
Uh oh kids, the "after-scammers" are now popping up. An "after-scammer" is someone who preys on already-scammed victims by offering to "help" them recover their lost investment or principal. For instance, if you wire money to a Nigerian lottery scam and lose it, you may get an email shortly thereafter from a private investigator or "lawyer" who claims he can recover you money. Said "investigator" is nothing of the sort, he is merely piggybacking on the original scam and taking additional money away from you!
Quite brillant really, since someone stupid enough to fall for the intial scam is probably dumb enough to get taken again. As PT Barnum said, "there's a sucker born every minute."
Here is a new version of an old scam: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/lgl/1060076492.html
Don't be fooled. As many older posters will tell you, there was a company called "Legal Authority" operating back in early 2000s that offered this same schtick. They cliamed to have a "list" of employers who sought TTT grads without top grades and journal, etc. They offered a resume service and to do mailings for you that were "targeted" at firms that would want to hire a gutter-sucking TTT grad.
Needless to say, it was a scam. Their "secret job listing" was a 1989 Martindale directory at the public library. They slapped shitty typo-filled resumes together, printed them out on newsprint, and sent them to a few places from the Martindale directory (half of the firms were defunct or the solos were no longer in practice etc.)
Tons of people complained about them to the BBB and AG etc, and I believe they were shut down (after fleecing God-knows how many people out of 600-1000 bucks.
So don't be fooled by scams like the craigslist link. There are not, and never have been, any jobs for new TTT grads other than doc review and lowlife ID and PI paying 30 K. That's it
If you look at resumes from firms there are plenty of TTT grads working in specialized fields. Patent for example.
Which firms 3:18?
Wow- the thing is, I'm so desperate at this point, I probably would have been suckered by that ad if I hadn't read this blog.
Patent is a specialization in which there are a not many applicants who can do the job. Ironically, however, even with that I find agencies still play the status game although firms directly do not as much. You can say go to the PTO for 2 years and get into most firms in the coutry in patent.
In other words the TTT status only matters because the supply of lawyers with the same generalized qualifications far outstrips the demand for general practice attorneys.
Patent, however, being a specialization does not have the same level of supply. Specialization is where it is at if you want to find another way out of the trap.
Status, in other words, becomes less important. It is still important depending on the area of specialization (an EE grad with a law degree from the bottom law school will get a job at a big firm because there are few electrical engineering grad), but less, especially if you are flexible about geography.
There are other areas like this. Also, when you look at law firm websites- are these younger attorneys or older? The fact is the legal industry in the last 10-20 years has shifted a lot on its axis. There was a lot less stratification before big firms became megafirms, etc. I tend to see a lot more diversity in legal education with earlier generations of attorneys. There is still status, but not as much. This kind of makes sense because size in any sense means less connection and more impersonal. This translates into its harder to break through because there are more barriers to the actual human side that would allow the non-traditional applicant a chance.
Incidentally, one of the reasons why nationalization of banks matter is that hopefully they will strink them down, and that this will become the trend across business sectors. The trend before was huge mega firms. As this trend reverses, this hopefully will allow the human element to creep back into the picture. Remember- these megafirms like we see now did not exist 10 to 20 years ago.
I'm a 2001 BLS graduate and received the letter via email. Here is the entire text:
Dear Graduate,
As you will no doubt remember, looking for a job is not fun in the best of times. Can you only imagine what it is like for our students and graduates this year? At Brooklyn Law School, we are very fortunate to have such loyal alumni. Many of you list job opportunities with us, or are very generous in offering advice to students and graduates. But unusual times require unusual measures, and so we are taking the liberty of reaching out to you with a special message.
Although the Career Center is working as creatively and energetically as possible, current circumstances require an “all hands on deck” approach. The Career Center needs all of the job listings you can provide. These include summer or part-time internships for students, entry-level positions for recent graduates, and lateral positions for more experienced graduates. Project-based/contract listings are always welcome. Please feel free to call Joan King or Camille Chin-Kee-Fatt at 718.780.7963 for assistance with your listing. We take great pride in making the best matches between employers and students or graduates.
Many of you are engaged in alternative or quasi-legal practice. Examples of this include compliance/risk management, human resources, contract administration or claims analysis. We want you to know that many graduates express interest in using their lawyering skills in non-traditional practice. Moreover, increasingly, our students come to us from all parts of the country and often seek to return home after graduation or for the summer. So please let us hear from you no matter what you do or where you are.
To post immediate openings, please go to www.brooklaw.edu/career/empjobintro where you will find several listing options. And don’t forget to call for personal attention if desired!
Needless to say, some of you are experiencing your own job search issues. We want you to know that the Career Center is staffed with eight attorney-counselors and an employer relations associate who are available to assist you. Do not hesitate to reach out to the Career Center for assistance with your own search.
Thank you in advance for your loyalty to Brooklyn Law School.
Sincerely,
The Brooklyn Law School Career Center
and the Office of Alumni Relations
Here's one from my 4th Tier Toilet School:
Dear Alumni,
You all know how tight the legal job market is right now. Perhaps you remember (even in good times) your struggle to get that first break as a law student or new graduate. We have hundreds of students enrolled right now who are brilliant, eager, and understandably a little anxious about their own prospects in this uncertain economic climate. They need your help!
The Career Services Office welcomes your job postings (full-time, part-time, student, attorney, paid or volunteer, big or small), as always. We also would appreciate knowing if you would be willing to have a student shadow you, meet with you for an informational interview, attend a networking function as your guest, help with an article you're writing or that other non-billable work that's piling up, or otherwise continue to gain experience and exposure in any way, shape or form. To help out with any of those things (or more), just email Nancy Lochner, Director of Career Services at cso@hamline.edu or call her at 651.523.2470.
Thank you for supporting Hamline law students! (And remember, if you are looking for opportunities or need assistance yourself, the Career Services Office is also here for you)
I received that BLS letter.
My first thought was: "Jeez - things are REALLY bad!"
My careers service office slammed me with emails and phone calls as the deadline for stats for the ranking approached. The message were funny "you must be employed, how else are you paying your bills?" When I wrote back I was unemployed, they sent me an email with some links, including monster.com. Awesome.
I got the BLS letter and filed it exactly where it belongs. In the garbage!
I graduated in the top 25% at BLS in 2001 and at the time thought I had done well. What I found out was that no one in career placement gave a damn whether I got a job or not.
I went on to NYU to earn an LLM in Tax Law and found out what a real career services office is supposed to look like. They have consistently been available by phone and for personal meetings to assist me in my job searches.
Yes, it's rough out there, but if you are out out the top 10% at BLS it always will be. If you are thinking of attending BLS, my advice is to think long and hard about what you will really get for your money. If at all possible try to get someone else (employer or scholarships to pay for it). I can't recommend this school.
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