Laid-Off Lawyer Tells Radio Station His Similarly Situated Friends Are Partying
Lawyer Jeff Steiner has been keeping his nose to the grindstone and doing volunteer work since he lost his job at a Charlotte, N.C., law firm last August.
Steiner told WFAE 90.7FM that he has not been treating unemployment like a big party, but he knows some people who are.
“I know people who haven’t done a thing literally since August and that will go out drinking seven nights a week till 2 a.m. every night,” says Steiner. “You know? I mean, it’s dumb.”
Online profiles identified Steiner as a capital markets lawyer at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, which announced layoffs of 96 lawyers in London, New York and Charlotte last July 30 in a second round of cuts.
Steiner is looking at his situation with a positive attitude. “You know, getting a job at a large, top-50 law firm these days is an absolute disaster,” Steiner told the radio station. “So you’ve gotta use this time to either reinvent your career path, or you can say alright, let me tread water for a year and a half or two years doing something I hate and hope that in two years there’s a position waiting for me.”
Another former Cadwalader lawyer taking a positive approach to unemployment is Sam Smith. He has used the time off to create a blog called Rate a Partner that allows users to anonymously critique partners at large law firms. “I’m a laid-off lawyer, so I have a lot of time on my hands,” he explained in an American Lawyer interview.
Hat tip to Legal Blog Watch.
