The legal services sector added 4,500 jobs in December, hitting an all-time high, according to seasonally adjusted and preliminary figures released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Sometimes in the past, a blockbuster term—like the one a year ago—is followed by a quieter one. But that was not true this year. It was another amazing year in the Supreme Court,” writes Erwin Chemerinsky, University of California at Berkeley law dean.
The legal services sector has added jobs for three months in a row, for a total increase of 8,400 jobs, according to seasonally adjusted figures released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
It’s December, and for many law firms that means it’s time to put on the party hats and try to have some fun. But a celebratory event like a holiday party can quickly devolve into drunkenness, inappropriate behavior and a litigation mess if law firm management isn’t careful, employment lawyers warn.
A federal judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, is asking his incoming law clerks and interns whether they have done anything—or belonged to groups that did anything—that could be construed as celebrating or condoning the “massacre perpetrated by Hamas in Israel.”
A law professor who has been teaching at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law since 1981 has filed an age discrimination lawsuit alleging that he is receiving less in base pay than “significantly younger less experienced counterparts.”
A second Polsinelli defendant is denying sexual harassment claims in a lawsuit filed by a former international corporate attorney at the law firm who claimed that she was “repeatedly hounded” for after-hours drinks and hotel meetings.
Polsinelli asserts that a former partner didn’t make allegations of sexual harassment until after the law firm decided to fire her for “lackluster performance.”
Nikia Gray, the executive director of the National Association for Law Placement, is asking legal employers to “stand firm” on their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion after the release of data showing that minorities from the class of 2022 fare worse in employment numbers.
Labor rights icon Dolores Huerta has simple but sage advice for attorneys: Get engaged in your community. “We need more attorneys to get involved in civic life and be out there with the rest of us, doing the work that we need to get people elected and to change the laws, do the advocacy that we need.”
The ABA Journal wants to host and facilitate conversations among lawyers about their profession. We are now accepting thoughtful, non-promotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors.