New York City Bar to Study Declining Legal Job Market and Offer Solutions
The president of the New York City Bar Association has appointed a task force to analyze the poor job market for law grads.
City Bar President Carey Dunne, who chairs the litigation practice at Davis Polk & Wardwell, tells Reuters and the Wall Street Journal that he hopes the task force will be able to offer some solutions. “This isn’t just a hand-wringing exercise,” he told the Wall Street Journal.
The task force will assess whether the poor jobs outlook is a result of temporary factors or a more permanent shift in the legal industry, Dunne tells Reuters. He identifies another purpose in the Wall Street Journal interview: Members of the task force will be exposed to others’ perspectives. Too much emphasis has been placed on BigLaw and top law schools, he said. “A different story needs to be told at the other levels of the market.”
The stories cite ABA data showing only 55 percent of 2011 law grads had full-time, long-term legal jobs.
Chairman of the task force is Mark Morril, deputy general counsel of Viacom and vice president of the New York City Bar Association, according to the City Bar’s 44th Street Blog. Members include four law school deans, the district attorneys of Brooklyn and Manhattan, leaders of legal services organizations, corporate legal counsel, and representatives from both large and small law firms.
