Big law layoffs: how long until you landed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:, it's glutted with attorneys who have never been able to find permanent jobs given the terrible market, and they have made this itinerant work their job. No one wants to be doing that. The money isn't sustainable if you have loans and need constant work and benefits; it provides neither. But temporarily, it works. Een better if you leave it off the resume. Can you tell I am bitter?

Agree. DH was laid off 6 months ago. Got a fair amount of interviewes early on but conflicted out. He is doing doc review now @ 50 per hour in foreign languages.

That's great and an interesting niche. The languages do pay off!

[Anonymous]

document review is not really great or interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:document review is not really great or interesting.

Better than nothing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's focusing on NY as well as DC (we both have siblings there) but its just so quiet. He's a 7th year corporate attorney. He worked in private equity specifically but also general finance related deals when things started slowing down. Both of us feeling like he will never work again but everyone he speaks with keeps encouraging him to keep looking...

Way too much capacity in the legal industry now. The financial crisis was like hitting a reset button. Unless your DS has his own clients, which is now expected of senior associate lateral candidates, he should either try to get an in-house job in the NYC area or change careers. It is easier for a law firm to lay off a 7th year and call it "up or out" than lay off a 4th year and call it a layoff.

Yeah, agreed with this. My 3rd-year DH is already busting his ass to bring his own clients in so that he's not vulnerable to layoffs.

Your DH does not work in Big Law. Big Law-caliber clients have zero interest in a third-year associate. Stop being smug to the clearly-worried OP.

Agree!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:, it's glutted with attorneys who have never been able to find permanent jobs given the terrible market, and they have made this itinerant work their job. No one wants to be doing that. The money isn't sustainable if you have loans and need constant work and benefits; it provides neither. But temporarily, it works. Een better if you leave it off the resume. Can you tell I am bitter?

Agree. DH was laid off 6 months ago. Got a fair amount of interviewes early on but conflicted out. He is doing doc review now @ 50 per hour in foreign languages.

That's great and an interesting niche. The languages do pay off!

Is that supposed to be funny?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - make sure he's also looking at smaller firms; there are good firms out there picking up biglaw former seniors bc those firms are busy -- however, they don't always use recruiters to hire so they're harder to find.

As for bringing in clients, easier said than done at some places. The rate structure is such that most potential clients don't use biglaw firms except for bet the house cases, however when a bet the house case comes along -- chances are that potential client wants a 50 yr old partner, not a 3rd or 7th yr associate; at least that's what's happening on the litigation side. I know certain firms are flexible in fee arrangements but some of the top ones aren't willing to let their seniors take on cases at discounted fees just to land a few clients -- prob. bc they don't want seniors establishing books of business bc then they have to figure out what to do with those seniors whose books may not be huge but large enough for them to "deserve" partnership.

+1 You can be an excellent lawyer and still have trouble getting access to the name clients as your own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It took my DH 13 months to find a job after being laid off in 2010, but I think the job market was worse then.

Are they letting him pretend he is still a paid employee there for the purposes of job hunting or is he out the door totally?

They gave him some time to do that. If you factor that in he's been out for ten months! Didn't help much obviously. Where did your DH land?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:, it's glutted with attorneys who have never been able to find permanent jobs given the terrible market, and they have made this itinerant work their job. No one wants to be doing that. The money isn't sustainable if you have loans and need constant work and benefits; it provides neither. But temporarily, it works. Een better if you leave it off the resume. Can you tell I am bitter?

Agree. DH was laid off 6 months ago. Got a fair amount of interviewes early on but conflicted out. He is doing doc review now @ 50 per hour in foreign languages.

The conflicted out thing really, really sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:, it's glutted with attorneys who have never been able to find permanent jobs given the terrible market, and they have made this itinerant work their job. No one wants to be doing that. The money isn't sustainable if you have loans and need constant work and benefits; it provides neither. But temporarily, it works. Een better if you leave it off the resume. Can you tell I am bitter?

Agree. DH was laid off 6 months ago. Got a fair amount of interviewes early on but conflicted out. He is doing doc review now @ 50 per hour in foreign languages.

The conflicted out thing really, really sucks.

Not understanding why an associate would get conflicted out. Can you explain?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:, it's glutted with attorneys who have never been able to find permanent jobs given the terrible market, and they have made this itinerant work their job. No one wants to be doing that. The money isn't sustainable if you have loans and need constant work and benefits; it provides neither. But temporarily, it works. Een better if you leave it off the resume. Can you tell I am bitter?

Agree. DH was laid off 6 months ago. Got a fair amount of interviewes early on but conflicted out. He is doing doc review now @ 50 per hour in foreign languages.

The conflicted out thing really, really sucks.

Not understanding why an associate would get conflicted out. Can you explain?

? Not sure what you don't understand. It doesn't matter if you are an associate or not. Under the rules of most jurisdictions, a conflict involving one lawyer is imputed to all lawyers in the firm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:, it's glutted with attorneys who have never been able to find permanent jobs given the terrible market, and they have made this itinerant work their job. No one wants to be doing that. The money isn't sustainable if you have loans and need constant work and benefits; it provides neither. But temporarily, it works. Een better if you leave it off the resume. Can you tell I am bitter?

Agree. DH was laid off 6 months ago. Got a fair amount of interviewes early on but conflicted out. He is doing doc review now @ 50 per hour in foreign languages.

The conflicted out thing really, really sucks.

Not understanding why an associate would get conflicted out. Can you explain?

? Not sure what you don't understand. It doesn't matter if you are an associate or not. Under the rules of most jurisdictions, a conflict involving one lawyer is imputed to all lawyers in the firm.

I'm not an attorney but I'm married to one, and have a number of friends who are. I never heard of lateral moves being affected by conflict. How could anyone make a move given the wide client bases and bumber of matters existing in big law firms? My understanding is that there are ways if working around it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:, it's glutted with attorneys who have never been able to find permanent jobs given the terrible market, and they have made this itinerant work their job. No one wants to be doing that. The money isn't sustainable if you have loans and need constant work and benefits; it provides neither. But temporarily, it works. Een better if you leave it off the resume. Can you tell I am bitter?

Agree. DH was laid off 6 months ago. Got a fair amount of interviewes early on but conflicted out. He is doing doc review now @ 50 per hour in foreign languages.

The conflicted out thing really, really sucks.

Not understanding why an associate would get conflicted out. Can you explain?

? Not sure what you don't understand. It doesn't matter if you are an associate or not. Under the rules of most jurisdictions, a conflict involving one lawyer is imputed to all lawyers in the firm.

I'm not an attorney but I'm married to one, and have a number of friends who are. I never heard of lateral moves being affected by conflict. How could anyone make a move given the wide client bases and bumber of matters existing in big law firms? My understanding is that there are ways if working around it.

Exactly. If they want you they make it work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:, it's glutted with attorneys who have never been able to find permanent jobs given the terrible market, and they have made this itinerant work their job. No one wants to be doing that. The money isn't sustainable if you have loans and need constant work and benefits; it provides neither. But temporarily, it works. Een better if you leave it off the resume. Can you tell I am bitter?

Agree. DH was laid off 6 months ago. Got a fair amount of interviewes early on but conflicted out. He is doing doc review now @ 50 per hour in foreign languages.

The conflicted out thing really, really sucks.

Not understanding why an associate would get conflicted out. Can you explain?

? Not sure what you don't understand. It doesn't matter if you are an associate or not. Under the rules of most jurisdictions, a conflict involving one lawyer is imputed to all lawyers in the firm.

I'm not an attorney but I'm married to one, and have a number of friends who are. I never heard of lateral moves being affected by conflict. How could anyone make a move given the wide client bases and bumber of matters existing in big law firms? My understanding is that there are ways if working around it.

Exactly. If they want you they make it work.

It depends on the size of the firm. If the prospective firm you are interviewing is small and can't wall you off from the matter, then you are conflicted out. If it's really blatant (as in the majority of the firm's case load is against the firm you were/are working for) it should be caught before an interview. Unfortunately, it isn't always.

[Anonymous]

There are ways to make it work, but not always. And sometimes clients cannot be persuaded to give waivers where needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - make sure he's also looking at smaller firms; there are good firms out there picking up biglaw former seniors bc those firms are busy -- however, they don't always use recruiters to hire so they're harder to find.

As for bringing in clients, easier said than done at some places. The rate structure is such that most potential clients don't use biglaw firms except for bet the house cases, however when a bet the house case comes along -- chances are that potential client wants a 50 yr old partner, not a 3rd or 7th yr associate; at least that's what's happening on the litigation side. I know certain firms are flexible in fee arrangements but some of the top ones aren't willing to let their seniors take on cases at discounted fees just to land a few clients -- prob. bc they don't want seniors establishing books of business bc then they have to figure out what to do with those seniors whose books may not be huge but large enough for them to "deserve" partnership.

+1 You can be an excellent lawyer and still have trouble getting access to the name clients as your own.

+2

Did anyone read the piece in the New Republic about BigLaw recently? One of the main points of the story was associates bringing in business and having it basically "stolen" by a partner.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113941/big-law-firms-trouble-when-money-dries#