June 14
NAPLA Report, Part 1

I am really glad I attended NAPLA-SAPLA, tiring as it was. Aside from all those conferencing things like networking and catching up with old friends, I learned some awesome and informative lessons.

Jobs -- Going, Going, Gone!

The first "awesome" is in the negative sense - inspiring a bit of fear. It came from NALP, and is about the job market. It boiled down to some ugly truths about the job market.

The Past

There are apparently (as I understood the data) 138 "biglaw" firms (those having more than 700 lawyers).

At these, 12,000 people have been let go in the last 15 months -- 4600 lawyers and 7500 support staff.

There have been a total of 46,000 jobs lost, meaning that 34,000 people were let go from medium and smaller firms. (this includes both lawyers and support staff).

Much of the data reported is falsely optimistic.

Of the 2009 graduates (generously ballparked at 50,000):

• 3500 had jobs with deferred start dates
  • Some of these deferrals turned into non-jobs at a later date;
• Another 3,000 or so had part-time jobs; the same was true in 2008;
• About 10,000 had temporary jobs;
• And about 5,000 had opened solo practices. This number is usually more like 3,000.

This means that, if that data is cumulative (i.e., not counting the same people twice), about 30,000 of the 50,00 had "real" jobs, and 20,000 didn't.

NALP also reported 22% -- another 10,000 or so -- as seeking employment; they didn't comment on whether they were the ones with better jobs.

The Present

of the "Biglaw" firms (700 or more employees, which may or may not number 138 firms):

I'm stumped. As I started to type, most of my notes didn't make sense, and I hate being a rumor-monger. So let me give you the only clear number:

only 3% of the firms (I'm not sure whether biglaw or all) recruited last fall, as opposed to 42% in 2007 - that's one-fourteenth!

The Future

Another thing that was very clear is that the picture may not change.

• the number of billable hours was down 4%;
• the dollars in revenue were down 3%, so the law firms either charged more or had old bills collected;
• the dollars in expenses were down nearly double the decrease in revenue -- 5.6% as opposed to that 3% in the line above;
• as a result, the dollars in partners' salaries declined only .3%. that's one-tenth of the loss of revenue.

So imagine two pictures: in picture A, you have more lawyers, more support staff, more floor space, more supervisory duties, than in picture B.

In both pictures you make the same money.

Which would you choose?

Notes on Re-Applying

The session on underrepresented minorities really emphasized this point. A survey was done of minority applicants, the second time around.

5,000 applicants who had been denied at every law school to which they applied were surveyed. Two thirds gave up, and one third tried to figure out what they did wrong and applied again. Of the group that applied again, success correlated with paying more attention to which schools want you and who takes applicants with your GPA and LSAT score, based on LSAC Data, and less attention to US News rankings and peer chat boards.

The message is blatant: choose your schools wisely, apply widely, become a lawyer. Read blogs and rankings and look for glitter instead of a law school and end up with nothing.

There were a number of resources and web links suggested for disadvantaged and minority applicants, but I'll have to look them over a bit before I recommend them.

The Last Laugh

All of that is what I learned Wednesday and Thursday. Friday and Saturday I learned even more, so I'm saving it for my next update. But I will share the grand finale -- the applicants who got laughed at.

• Thereal joy of electronic apps is it makes it much harder to send objects:
  • No one liked the bag of walnuts with a note saying, "I'm nuts about your school."
  • The fake foot (a foot in the door) didn't go over real well, either.
• Electronic submission, however, does lend itself to a whole new level of creativity:
  • a pole dancer with a URL link to see her in action;
  • A "round the world garden gnome" wearing a law school's T-shirt, photographed from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Eiffel tower;
  • You tube videos of the street corner boys doo-wopping a school song;
  • A fully-illustrated comic book of the glory an applicant would bring to the school.
• As always, the best of the worst was the written word:
  • A parody of a rejection letter rejecting the rejection.
  • A one-act play, complete with staging directions, of an applicant's first day of school;
  • A story of performing CPR on a pet snake;
  • An anonymous letter accusing an applicant of blatantly lying on her application. A thorough investigation showed the anonymous author to be a boyfriend who didn't want his love life to leave town.
    • (On a side note, if you lie on your app while married, you may NEVER get divorced; spousal immunity dissolves along with the marriage, and your ex can rat you out.)
    • (On the same side note, be aware that if you apply as a transfer applicant to a school to which you previously applied, the old and new files will be compared.)
  • An essay "proving" the applicant is bilingual by having line-by-line dual translations (i.e., line 1 in Other language, line 2 translating same into English).
• But the winner was a pair of e-mails received by East Coast School.
  • E-mail number one sang the praises of Midwestern City, and requested an interview so the applicant could explain why attendance at Midwestern City was crucial;
  • E-mail number two humbly accepted the idiot of the year award, and asked if East Coast School gave interviews to applicants who want to apologize for their stupidity.

I learned a ton of other stuff -- financial aid, misconduct, fee waivers, changes in important LSAC services -- but that will all wait another few days. I'll try to get it drafted before I attend the DC Forum, so I don't overwrite the old data.

Look for me again around June 22nd!