Associates
Nearly 30% of Lawyers Surveyed Fear Firing
Posted Jun 26, 2008, 06:42 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Updated: The fear factor is spreading throughout major law firms, as lawyers who are unable to meet their billable hour goals are wondering if their jobs are secure.
That’s the implication of two June surveys by the legal recruitment firm Lateral Link.
They found that nearly 30 percent of lawyers are afraid of losing their jobs and 26 percent don’t think they will make their billable hours goals in the coming months. Most of the respondents who identified their workplaces in the surveys worked for Am Law 200 law firms, and most appeared to be associates.
The numbers have jumped since December, when only 10 percent reported job fears and 19 percent said they would not make billable goals, Lateral Link spokesman Aven James told ABAJournal.com in an e-mail.
Fifty-two percent of lawyers responding to the June surveys indicated that work is slow, a slight increase over December when the number stood at 49 percent. The situation is even worse for lawyers working in corporate law. Sixty-nine percent in that area reported work is slow, compared to 58 percent in December.
T.J. Duane, a principal of Lateral Link, says the surveys highlight a change in the job market. For the last 15 or 16 years, "law firms never laid off attorneys. A law firm job was about as safe as you could get," he told ABAJournal.com. But in the last six months, major national firms are laying off lawyers. They are saying, "We just can’t afford to have the attorneys, and it’s not performance-related.”
More than 1,300 lawyers responded to the June survey questions about how busy they were, and 777 responded to questions about fear of losing their job. The surveys weren't restricted to associates, although the large majority of responses came from lawyers in practice eight years or less.
Survey results were collected on Above the Law and from members of Lateral Link, which describes itself as a full-service, elite legal placement firm and a professional network for lawyers from the top law schools and firms. Associates who find a job through Lateral Link's website are paid up to $10,000.
Thirty percent of the survey responses came from lawyers in New York and 15 percent from Washington, D.C., where 28 percent and 22 percent, respectively, said they won’t make their billable goals.
The hardest-hit area may be Charlotte, N.C., where nearly 47 percent of the respondents indicated they won’t make billable hours. However, only 3 percent of the survey responses were from Charlotte lawyers, making the survey results for that area less reliable.
Duane's advice for associates who fear job cuts can be summed up in two words: "Work hard."
"Now associates need to be more proactive about going out there at their firm and finding work," he said. "And I think they need to be very mindful of their work product and very conscious of turning in the best possible work product they can, particularly if their hours are low.”
Updated at noon to include comments from T.J. Duane.
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Comments
Posted by Michael - 3 months, 1 week, 3 days, 12 hours, 50 minutes ago
"Work hard”??? And, how does one do that if there’s no work to do?
(And, don’t give me the ‘marketing is work’ baloney line. Pretending as if a young associate in a BigLaw firm can work the phones and suddenly fill his or her plate with 1800-2000 hours in lieu of the rainmaker who couldn’t manage it for the firm is absurd.)
Posted by Hooey baloney - 3 months, 1 week, 3 days, 12 hours, 8 minutes ago
Selection bias. Lawyers with work to do don’t waste billable hours responding to headhunter surveys.
Posted by Gazinnia - 3 months, 1 week, 3 days, 9 hours, 58 minutes ago
"T.J. Duane, a principal of Lateral Link, says the surveys highlight a change in the job market. For the last 15 or 16 years, “law firms never laid off attorneys. A law firm job was about as safe as you could get,” he told ABAJournal.com. But in the last six months, major national firms are laying off lawyers. They are saying, “We just can’t afford to have the attorneys, and it’s not performance-related.”
Hey TJ, remember 2000-2002. Internet bubble burst ? You might have read about it. It was kind of a big deal. Cooley actually had the cajones to admit they were economic layoffs while every other big law firm did the same disingenuous “performance-based” layoffs.
Note to self: Find someone other than Lateral Link that actualy understands law firm hiring and retention.
Posted by doug - 3 months, 1 week, 3 days, 8 hours ago
Everyone in a job dependant upon the ecomy fears firing. Big firms which have gotten fat off of big clients and unlimited legal budgets should be afraid. Small firms are even in bigger danger
Posted by BG - 3 months, 1 week, 3 days, 3 hours, 47 minutes ago
Gee, I have more work to do than hours in the day to do it. Guess that is the curse of not working for biglaw and charging a rate your clients can stomach. I am having absolutely no problem meeting my billing requirements and don’t foresee this changing at any time in the near, or distant, future.
Posted by Matt - 3 months, 1 week, 2 days, 9 hours, 25 minutes ago
This is completely irresponsible journalism. This survey was an internet survey open to everyone. Besides the obvious selection bias problem, there is also the problem that non-lawyers could fill the survey out. What was the margin of error? Oh wait, there wasn’t one because its not a real survey.