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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Law - "The nation’s biggest law firms are creating a second tier of workers"

Catherine Rampell has the front-page story today in the NY Times. It begins:

WHEELING, W.Va. — The nation’s biggest law firms are creating a second tier of workers, stripping pay and prestige from one of the most coveted jobs in the business world.

Make no mistake: These are full-fledged lawyers, not paralegals, and they do the same work traditional legal associates do. But they earn less than half the pay of their counterparts — usually around $60,000 — and they know from the outset they will never make partner. * * *

[This is] part of a fundamental shift in the 50-year-old business model for big firms.

Besides making less, these associates work fewer hours and travel less than those on the grueling partner track, making these jobs more family-friendly. And this new system probably prevents jobs from going offshore.

But as has been the case in other industries, a two-tier system threatens to breed resentments among workers in both tiers, given disparities in pay and workload expectations. And as these programs expand to more and more firms, they will eliminate many of the lucrative partner-track positions for which law students suffer so much debt. * * *

“For a long time the wind was at the back of these big law firms,” said William D. Henderson, a historian at Indiana University-Bloomington.

“They could grow, expand and raise rates, and clients just went along with absorbing the high overhead and lack of innovation. But eventually clients started to resist, especially when the economy soured.”

Here seems a good place to note this story from Elie Mystal of Above the Law, who had a post late yesterday headed "Senator Boxer Keeps Pressure On The ABA." It begins:
I’m telling you, the tide is turning against the American Bar Association and the weakness the organization shows when it comes to regulating law schools. People are starting to figure out that major American law schools purposely mislead prospective students about post-graduate outcomes. People are starting to figure out that the ABA hasn’t done enough to stop this practice. And people are starting to try to hold the ABA accountable for its failure to hold law schools accountable.

It’s not just former and current law students who are demanding changes. Right now the ABA is dealing with a U.S. senator who wants action from the organization.

That’s right, Senator Barbara Boxer is once again urging the ABA to do its job….

Senator Boxer first put the ABA on notice back in March. In a letter addressed to ABA president Stephen Zack, Boxer asked the ABA for its plans for reforming the system that law schools are currently using to mislead students about post-graduate outcomes.

The ABA responded with the same platitudes we’ve been hearing for some time now. They’ve got a committee, suggestions are being made, they’re working on it.

Read these in conjunction with the May 17th ILB entry headed ""Indiana Tech to open law school"."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 24, 2011 01:29 PM
Posted to General Law Related