One third of last year’s law school grads aren’t practicing law

Law Degrees in a Bubble

The law school class of 2010 is making news for all the wrong reasons. The budding legal minds who managed to find employment last year have set a new record--only 68.4 percent of them are in jobs that require them to pass the bar exam, the lowest share since the Association for Legal Professionals began collecting data.

Another 10.7 percent of the class of 2010 are in jobs that require or prefer a J.D., while 8.6 percent have jobs that require neither a law degree nor bar passage. The class' overall employment rate--for jobs in and out of the legal profession--is lower than it's been for any class since 1996, at 87.6 percent. So counting unemployed new graduates, the actual percentage of those in jobs that require bar passage is even lower, at 60 percent.

In 2009, almost 30 percent of law students said they expected to graduate with more than $120,000 in debt. Another 15 percent said they would owe more than $100,000.

 

That's actually a good thing if you think about it.

 

They have been outsourced... LPO Rate: $20/hr

Mumbai-headquartered Pangea3 has opened its first US-based service delivery office in Dallas, Texas, plans first reported by Legally India at the time of the legal process outsourcing (LPO) company’s acquisition by Thomson Reuters last year.

Mumbai-based co-CEO Sanjay Kamlani told Legally India that the choice of Dallas as a location was “pretty straightforward”.

“It’s probably not an obvious choice – people often think of South Dakota and West Virginia and things like that,” he admitted, “but our analysis and all the factors we required made it the obvious choice.”

“The primary driver was the availability of legal talent in that area, with a number of very good law schools in the Dallas area and also the international airport, and the centrality of that location for members the management team to get there easily.”

Lawyers were applying from across the US to work there, which was probably due to the location, he speculated.

The facility was a pre-existing Thomson Reuters office with 400 seats reserved for the LPO, said Kamlani. It is understood that only between 20 to 30 seats are currently occupied.

The primary reasons for onshoring were that some clients’ documents were legally not allowed to leave the US, so it was “very uncomfortable to say sorry, we can’t help you” to those clients because of the lack of onshore facilities, said Kamlani.

For Pangea3’s lawyers in India this would also create opportunities for senior managers to move to the US, according to Kamlani, although he added that the large majority of US staffing would be sourced locally.

According to a press release, the LPO suggested that the Dallas location would particularly be psychologically attractive to “customers who may be new to legal process outsourcing as a strategic alternative to doing tasks such as document review in-house”.

US-based co-CEO David Perla added in the release: “This is an exciting time for Pangea3, and this expansion in the United States only months after our acquisition shows the value of having a major player like Thomson Reuters in your corner.”

Having a delivery center in the US would allow the firm to staff work based on the “needs of the customer to a degree not possible before”, said Perla.

 

Well, it's like an MBA - better go to a 'top ten' school or just suffer with it like the rest of the masses.

 

Like any endeavor, there are "good" ones and "bad" ones. The third you're referring to may be in the latter camp.



As for the existing workforce, one day last February, it was so cold, I saw an attorney with his hands in his OWN pockets.

 

yeah as long as u go to a good school, u should be fine.
but low ranking law schools....better just save your money.

 

Well, it's like an MBA - better go to a 'top ten' school or just suffer with it like the rest of the masses.
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Or become a true capitalist and start your own business. With the cost of education at todays rates you may be better off to try to start your own business.

Fail rate of business is high but so are the fact that most MBAs and Lawyers never make 100k plus a year and the majority end up working in fields they did not study for, with Massive Debt.

I own a Digital Record Label, which has started to finally take off but it took 8 years.

I started my own consulting business and now "Sale" for a Global Private Equity Firm as a independent contractor.

I did enjoy and learn from my Jesuit Education but by no means did it guarantee me anything other than critical thinking skills.

Enlightenment, Entrepreneurship and Entertainment are my 3 Es in life now. Never again W2.