Feature Articles
The State of the Legal Profession
Hiring for 2010
Still, questions like these are of secondary interest to students, who usually want to know the answer to one simple question: Will I get a job?
“Georgetown is a Top 20 school that we actively recruit from and have historically recruited from,” said Henry Asbill (L’74), a litigation partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf. While the firm is being more cautious with respect to lateral hiring, it has no plans to diminish the summer associate program or, indeed, to diminish salaries. In fact, it made the same number of offers (10) to Georgetown Law students last fall for the 2009 summer class as it did for the 2008 class.
“The way I look at 2L hiring, if we offer them a job for next summer, they’re really not going to come here as associates until two years from now,” Asbill said last fall. “We’re really hiring for 2010, and the economic situation may be completely different in 2010 than it is right now.”
That’s a tradition some firms may be forced to rethink, since they know less about what their demand or practice areas will look like two years from now. Nannes says that he’s heard of some firms that have had to pull back offers recently because of that long lead time.
“There is an issue when firms are making summer offers in October for associate positions they want to fill 22 months later; in difficult economic times, that may cause firms to reduce their offers,” says Nannes. He notes that while this may indicate “a fertile area for change,” those changes may be less likely to come from the law firms themselves and more likely to be spearheaded by the National Association of Law Placement, which sets rules relating to offers of employment. A number of years ago, he says, judges set time guidelines for extending offers for judicial clerkships — because those offers were being made earlier and earlier in the law school process. “If a lot of 2Ls don’t get summer offers because law firms are being cautious, I think the law schools and NALP would be inclined to reach out to law firms to try to improve the process.”
Countercyclical
By January 2009, MacEwen was reporting in Adam Smith Esq. that “corporate transactions, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, securitization, structured finance, and even garden-variety asset sales and purchases are, by and large, without a pulse at the moment.” Still, many firms are finding ways to get around this. Douglas Woloshin (L’73), managing partner of Duane Morris, says that while areas that have historically been very strong in terms of billings have been affected by the financial crisis, other practice areas have been able to shoulder the burden.
“Fortunately, we’ve been able to utilize the time of the associates that have been working in those areas [corporate, securities, and mergers and acquisitions] in other practice areas, either in our trial practice group or our intellectual practice group,” Woloshin says.
And many lawyers anticipate an uptick in government-related work — regulation, corporate investigations and bailout monitoring — in connection with the financial crisis. Sharie Brown (L’82), a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C., office of DLA Piper who represents multinational corporations in financial fraud and bribery-related investigations, notes that the litigation and government enforcement growth in this area might not be as explosive as it was after the Enron debacle, but growth is still expected. “It appears that the financial crisis here and the corporate meltdowns in other countries will provide government agencies with opportunities to investigate possible fraud, bribery, false statements, and obstruction of justice,” she says.
Brown points to a Securities and Exchange Commission “open letter,” issued to CEOs of publicly traded companies in December, to remind them of the importance of maintaining their compliance programs in tough economic times. “Law firms that are well placed to address those issues for corporate clients I think will find that they are in what the office managing partners call a countercyclical practice area; that is, a practice area that isn’t in major decline because of the current financial situation,” Brown says.
Marlon Paz (LL.M. ’08), senior counsel to the director of trading and markets at the SEC and an adjunct professor at the Law Center, says that his division is indeed in the eye of the storm. The trading and markets division writes rules that it recommends for adoption by the commission, administers the rules that are already in place and also recommends action by Congress.
“These are interesting times. … Where it would [previously] take about a year to think of a rule, begin drafting it, research it, propose it, re-propose it, adopt it, get comments and so on, we have adopted some rules … from start to finish, in a couple of weeks,” he says.
And Paz’s division is actively trying to get good lawyers to assist them in addressing the economic issues — lawyers who ideally know their way around the financial world. For anyone looking to pursue this line of government work, it’s an exciting world, says Paz, who, along with Donna Norman (L’92), counsel to the director of enforcement at the SEC, teaches a course called the Regulation of Securities Professionals and the Securities Market.
“There are many folks who I work with who have been here at the SEC for two or three decades who haven’t seen the stuff we’re seeing right now,” Paz says. “This is the stuff I think we’re all going to be talking about for the rest of our lives.”
Assets
Despite the current economic downturn, many experts and lawyers are continuing to remain positive, saying that the longterm prospects of the legal market remain very good.
“I think it’s still a great time for young lawyers to begin practicing. Clearly there are going to be challenges in the near term and a period of adjustment, because some areas of practice aren’t going to be as strong as they have been in the past,” Ruyak says. “But we shouldn’t be too negative. This is also a time of new opportunities; and these practices will come back as strong as ever over time.”
Dufek notes that litigation, for one, is not going anywhere any time soon. “The law is the method for adjudicating disputes in the United States and I don’t see that changing, short term or long term,” he says. “Those who want to try cases and get very good at it will always find a place. This downturn will pass and the new regulatory, financial and business structures that will come out of the G-20 will be exciting and create opportunities for many lawyers.”
In the meantime, Georgetown Law students and alums are fully prepared to weather the challenges.
“Your Georgetown Law degree is an asset that will carry you through times like this, so [students] are in a great place,” says Bouquard, who adds that one of the greatest advantages in a volatile economy is the ability to call up classmates to find out how things are over at other firms. She also tells students who want to become corporate lawyers not to let the current situation sway them. “If you want to be a part of buying and selling companies and transactions that are historic, you have all the tools.”
