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The Killing Floor*

In light of the slaughterhouse that appears to constitute today's legal market (add OMM to the list?), I have a few more thoughts on the matter since the previous post.

The L&W deferral appears to be directed at LA/NY. Other offices, you need something like a prospectus outlining your goals for the time off (so is that a "no" to "catching up on 'Lost,' '30 Rock,' 'Arrested Development,' and 'The Wire?'").

Someone asked if this presents firms "lower" down the food-chain with an opportunity to upgrade to say former L&W or Orrick associates. I did some thinking on this and asked around a bit. Tentatively, I don't think so. Some of the explanations offered, which make sense to me, are that these smaller shops tend to have the type of clients where having the top talent will not necessarily allow you to increase your billing rates. So there is not much of an up-tick. On the other hand, they are used to working with their associates who by their third year are heading into court and managing their own cases. The laid off L&W associate? Lucky to have taken a depo. Apart from that, the layoffs appear to be transactional heavy. And I just cannot see anyone hiring any transactional lawyers--even if you get rid of your own crop. Bottom line, a lot of small shops are getting tons of resumes and just tossing them aside.

A commenter asked (starting at 3/2/09 at 10:12) why SF/Cal? The response to McWho is right. Sorry McWho but it's not just the concentration of a few banks in SF (and BofA hasn't really been in SF for about 12 years now). The bigger problem is the dependence of emerging techies on available credit. This generated a lot of legal work ranging from VC agreements, IPOs, and lots of other fancy stuff that I do not understand. None of that is happening right now. Can you imagine if Google was trying to raise money to get off the ground today? We'd all be using Lycos!

*"Don't let the name fool you, it's not really a floor at all- it's more a series of grates that allow loose meat to fall through."

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on March 03, 2009 (boomark / email).