The Red Velvet Lawyer

20,000  Page Views Friends, family, and colleagues: Another milestone reached!  Again with the help of  Brian Leiter , a top legal blogger, who linked to several of my postings this month.  I also need to thank the National Jurist and the ABA Magazine for picking up on the same story line about legal job equilibrium.

A Practice Life  I Can Hardly Imagine Yesterday, in the context of discussing new grads working in legal temp jobs, I said: Many of these document review jobs have begun disappearing as they move offshore or get done by computers that can scan, analyze, and report the data in ways not possible for easily-bored, human brains.    This shift is a small part of the  commoditization  of law jobs that Richard Susskind discusses in his book  Tomorrow's Lawyers . Commodity work will continue to lose value in the marketplace and the price for it will move towards $0.    When I read that book this summer, I realized that a recessionary economy was just one of the challenges new grads will face over the life of their careers. But, I will save that discussion for a later posting. This December 5, 2013 bl og posting  by Rohit Talwar discusses some of the "disruptive" legal technologies that new grads may face during their careers.  I look forwar

Law Grads in  Legal Temp Agency Jobs The ABA has picked up the story on job equilibrium that I started  here  and expanded this month  here ,  here , and  here . The first comment posted to the ABA article reads: "Low-paying, monotonous doc review jobs for everyone…the sooner the better!" In that story line, I promised to follow up on two concerns expressed by scambloggers about the JD Advantage jobs. I said: Scambloggers have expressed great concern about the number of graduates finding employment through legal temp agencies and as paid employees of law schools. The comment to the ABA article shows that this concern continues to exist. Analyzing the Data. What Data? So, how many grads, nine months out of law school, held positions as legal temps? I'm guessing most of these grads engaged in document review projects -- either associated with litigation discovery or transactional due diligence review. NALP first began tracking grads holding

ABA Blawgwhisperer Picks up  the Job Equilibrium Story ABA journalist Sarah Mui, of the Blawgwhisperer, reported December 6, 2013 on the job equilibrium story line, first appearing here on The Red Velvet Lawyer. The article  is entitled:  "When will law grads and law jobs reach equilibrium? Between 2015 and 2021, depending on who you ask." I want to thank my friends and colleagues for giving this story the attention it has gotten.   I largely attribute this attention to the coverage provided by Brian Leiter on his blog, Brian Leiter's Law School Reports , that he provided here and here . Thanks for supporting The Red Velvet Lawyer.   

Counting the Unemployed Here’s the next question?  Do we adjust the data predicting a job equilibrium as early as 2015 and as late as 2021 by accounting for law graduates who do not fall into the categories of "employed" grads?  These "unemployed" grads have: Enrolled in a full-time advanced degree program, like an LL.M; Are not working and instead are studying for the bar exam full-time; Are not working and not seeking employment (perhaps a new mom or dad, for example); or Are not working, but seeking employment. NALP first began tracking the ranks of the “unemployed” for the graduating class of 2003.   I continue to use the NALP data, despite Professor Merrit’s comment that it is off by a year when compared to the ABA data.  Again, I am looking for trends and averages.  I also like knowing both the total number of graduates and, more importantly, the number of graduates responding to the NALP employment survey. The second number

Jobs for Law Graduates in Banking, Finance, Technology, E-Commerce, Management Consulting, Government, Public Interest, Accounting  -- and  Yes -- as Legal Temps NALP describes a JD Advantage job as follows: It turns out that the JD degree prepares you for a variety of exciting jobs and careers. While many law school graduates go on to practice law, many others go on to play leadership roles in a variety of settings.  * * *   You will see that JD Advantage positions are jobs that do not require bar passage, an active law license, or involve practicing law in the traditional sense. However, in these positions, a JD provides an advantage in obtaining or performing the job. In fact, many graduates view entry-level opportunities with the federal government or in business/industry as a primary goal. There are many law-related positions for which a JD is a significant competitive advantage. At the same website page, NALP offers a series of video interviews