Ride the Lightning

Legal Industry Lost 64,000 Jobs in April

June 9, 2020

Attorney at Work had a very interesting post yesterday entitled "Silver Lining from Law Firm Layoffs: Reinvent Your Career." The title certainly caught my interest and author Dave Galbenski did a nice job of making the medicine go down with a spoonful of sugar – and some good ideas.

But what really rocked me was a statistic from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: The legal services industry lost 64,000 jobs in April alone. That's the first time I've seen that stat.

Like Dave, I hope that a lot of lawyers will be rehired. But also like Dave, I remember the period following the Great Recession when we had a "jobless recovery" – while the GDP rebounded, it took a painfully long time before jobs came back.

It is well worth reading where the opportunities lie. Remote working itself presents an opportunity – we have learned that we can practice law remotely – and that may allow you to get jobs that didn't exist before in areas of practice expected to do well – lots of litigation stemming from the pandemic, transactional work, bankruptcy and employment issues. And the clients don't care where you do the work – just that you do it well and for a fair price. Law firms, with little other choice, have embraced their remote work force. We may be looking at the dawn of true "telelaw."

As Dave notes, to reduce outside legal spending and reduced fixed overhead costs, corporate legal departments are using individual lawyers to serve in temporary roles — called secondments (I have never heard that term!) — to supplement in-house resources at a variable expense. At least it's way to keep gainfully employed.

There is much more of value in the post, so be sure to read it carefully. We are all in a brand new world but some are adapting faster to the new norm. It's a good time to jump on the early adopters train!

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
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