In a recent Boston Globe article, Juan Valdivieso, expected to graduate in 2009, discusses and highlights a growing number of soon-to-be graduates experiencing the effects of an economic recession. Juan was going to leave law school with an offer from the D.C. based firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. Recently, he received an email from the firm telling him that his employment had been deferred until 2010.
On the Cal Law blog Legal Pad, David Coleman, a Public Defender in California believes it unjust and counter-productive to place deferred associates in public defenders offices.
Reporters from American Lawyer Daily stopped by NYU School of Law during a hastily put together job fair for deferred associates. The results were mixed and there appeared to be a great deal of confusion among students and potential employers.
Some relief will be coming to New York State public defenders. Hidden deep in the State's budget is a provision to cap the amount of cases public defenders will see in any given year. The resolution is aimed at addressing the longstanding gripe public defenders have had with the legal system, particularly in New York. Recent reports suggest a public defender can see as many as 592 cases a year or 103 at the same time. Lawyers have argued that this directly impacts their ability to represent their client to the best of their ability.
This article in the New York discusses how Skadden Arps has taken a bold step in this troubling economy: offering $80,000 to all of its associates worldwide and a year off. One of the associates, Heather Eisenlord is planning on taking the year off to teach English in Sri Lanka or bring solar power to the Himalayas.
Joe Davidson, Columnist for the Washington Post, wrote a column on how the federal government is squandering opportunities in developing its workforce. "Uncle Sam" he comments, is constantly behind the times with cultivating, developing and ultimately hiring interns that come through the various federal government offices.
Eric Holder's recent appointments to the Department of Justice suggest he will work to bring on a new level of ethics compliance unforeseen in the last ten years. The Bush administration was accused of appointing political appointees to the DOJ; attorneys that are looking to defend the mantra of the administration rather than the rule of law or hold any ethical standards.
Newly unemployed lawyers, Obama campaign workers, policy directors, or people simply interested in working for the government now that Barack Obama is in office are working overtime to find a job with the current administration and its various cabinets.
Questions are rising about who exactly will cover the hidden costs of those new graduates who have been deferred from their law firms for a year. While many law firms have agreed to subsidize their these new lawyers upwards to $75,000, and the non-profit and public interest organizations are in many instances happy to take on the new staff, there is the issue of cost that still needs to be answered.
In an op-ed in the New York Times, Adam Cohen believes that with the recent economic problems facing the legal profession (deferred starts to newly associates, firm closings and the rising costs of law student debt), it may be time to re-configure the profession for the 21st century. Mr. Cohen believes that the on-going economic problems could force the profession to look at a lot of different professional issues they have not looked at in quite a while, namely salaries and they way clients are billed.
The Inspector General in the Department of the Interior has a tough job ahead of him. Earl A. Devaney, Obama's newly appointed IG for the Department of the Interior, is charged with catching any slip-ups, negligence and wrong-doing with the federal stimulus money. A particularly tough task given what has recently happened at AIG. The trickier part is that he has to try to do this before any of it happens.
What is being done to address the issue of immigration (both legal and illegal) in New York City? This New York Times article highlights…
The recession has presented many financial gray areas for law firms across the country and, by extension, 3Ls who were expecting to start at a…
Graduating seniors generally face great career uncertainty when they finish college. Now with the economic recession, more questions are arising as to what opportunities exist…
Rebecca Hamilton, a current fellow with Open Society Institute and HLS alum (2007), wrote an op-ed in the Boston Globe commenting on the potential positive…
On Law.com graduating students from various law schools reflect on a changing world economy and view the job market for private law firms, or public…
The reduction of the federal funds rate was viewed by many businesses, interest groups, and politicians as a good thing. A way to inject some…
The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released their 67-page report outlining cases of discrimination and…
For those law students who put their fraternity hazing rituals on their Facebook page or those who put revealing spring break to Cancun on your MySpace page, you might want to think long and hard about what exactly you should and should not reveal on your online social networking sites.
Kenneth Zimmerman ’88, former Chief Counsel to New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine and a current partner with the firm Lowenstein Sandler PC which has…
In times of economic turmoil and great uncertainty in the United States, many are turning to an unlikely source for employment: The Foreign Service. Because…