The AP reports, “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 hiring.” According to the Labor Department, “the number of unemployed lawyers jumped 66% last year to a 10-year high of 20,000.” Also, “more than 3,000 lawyers have been laid off in the first three months of 2009.” Meanwhile, “law firms are delaying the hiring of final-year law students,” and those “graduating with jobs this spring are being paid to delay their start date.” According to Tommy Wells, president of the American Bar Association, “the increase in lawyer layoffs is partly the legal industry’s fault,” as firms didn’t maintain their diversity in areas that do well in poor economies, like bankruptcy and litigation. Meanwhile, “for some Americans, there’s not much sympathy for lawyers who are suddenly jobless,” due to their high salaries and “minuscule” number of jobless lawyers “compared with the manufacturing sector.”
From the American Association for Justice news release.
