Bloomberg BusinessWeek has done many, many stories about the crisis in law and legal education. This week the cover story is Big Law's impending collapse. The accompanying video report also discusses the plight of law students and young lawyers. It places a chunk of blame at the door of law schools for "puffing" those employment stats.
There are numerous links contained within the online article linking back to their prior coverage.
Consider the reported plight of Ben Davidson, a Howrey alum:
Consider the reported plight of Ben Davidson, a Howrey alum:
“When Howrey imploded, it was kind of a shock,” says Ben Davidson, who joined the firm in 1997 and assumed he’d spend the rest of his career there. He attended law school at night at George Washington University while working as a patent examiner for the federal government. He had climbed the ladder to “income partner,” a designation in between associate and full equity partner. “An event like that,” Davidson adds, “forces you to ask, what are you doing as a lawyer and what are you going to do for the rest of your life?”
Those are questions that law school graduates expecting diplomas in the next few weeks ought to be asking themselves. A surplus of new talent means many won’t find the kind of well-paid positions that made the profession attractive. Many won’t find any job at all, at least not one that requires the J.D. they paid more than $150,000 in tuition to acquire.What do the Ben Davidson's of the legal world do for the rest of their lives? How will law professors justify their salaries when there are no Big Law jobs for them to compare their relative value to? What about the legal support industries such as Martindale and Westlaw and all the legal publishers who put out massively expensive books that only Big Law and law schools buy? What else will disappear as the bubble pops? English, History, Poly Sci and Philosophy majors?
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