This morning’s New York Times reports that law schools around America are systematically inflating grades in order to make their graduates more appealing during this unprecedentedly bad job market.  This development provides a definitive answer to the question that has, at one level or another, been on the mind of everyone in the legal industry: is there nobody at the helm?  Are the so called leaders of this profession completely bereft of constructive thoughts for how to extricate us from this mess?  The answer is apparently yes.

It doesn’t take a dean of a major American law school to figure out the flaw in this logic.  If every school raises its average GPA by .33, then the national average will also go up by .33, and everyone’s back where they started. Aside from its futility, the aspect of this idea that is most irritating is simply how small minded it is.  The nature of demand for legal services is changing – the writing is on the wall.  Consumers want different kinds of services delivered in different ways for less money.  An appropriate response from law schools would be to design curricula that teach students about things like law office technology, firm economics, unbundled services, legal process outsourcing, etc.  An appropriate response from law schools would be to admit fewer students in the hopes that by lowering future supply in the labor market, the remaining supply might reunite with demand at a happy equilibrium.  An appropriate response from law schools would be to convene a conference to deliberate the role and limitations of ethical restrictions in the modern economy.

In other words, there are lots of appropriate responses, but raising grades is not one of them.  That is simply childish, and it evinces a serious vacuum in the thought leadership of the profession.

- Richard Komaiko

Advertising and marketing have always been huge open-ended questions for businesses: what portion of my money used on marketing is actually allocated effectively? What advertisements are/will really reach my intended target market? Unfortunately, the success of a marketing campaign in its totality isn’t usually directly measurable. As social networking begins to evolve and become more commonplace, entrepreneurs are becoming more and more convinced of its effectiveness and necessity—both in personal and professional spheres. The most important part of the new marketing: it’s free. It’s a guaranteed way of reaching millions of people with the click of a button. It allows prospective clients to interact with the business before entering into a formal relationship. Companies are then able to gauge what exactly people are looking for as their interactions through these sites express their interest.  For “newbie” entrepreneurs, this article covers the basics of social media sites and their use as a marketing tool. One great suggestion is to link your twitter updates to your Facebook in order to reach a wider audience. These social media sites are not only usefulness in terms of businesses, but also in promoting the self. It is of the utmost importance that the information given out is both professional and polite; this will no doubt affect job offerings in the future. For a more personal perspective on the social media sites, Barbara Beauchamp discusses the importance of Linkedin in the corporate world.

For those of you who are waiting on patents or are planning on filing one, here is some very interesting news from the US Patent and Trademark Office.  An expedited patent process – I guess it was only a matter of time.  While the PTO isn’t saying how much this expedited process will cost, it sure seems like a good idea for some companies/entrepreneurs.  Is this something you would consider?  Let us know!

Ameet Sachdev reports that a prominent activist is taking aim at the legal publishing industry.  Carl Malamud, the activist that gained prominence in the freedom of information movement, most notably for his campaign to make SEC Edgar filings free to the public, is launching a new crusade to make all statutes, regulations, judicial opinions, and other legal materials publicly available for free.  Several months ago, we reported on Google’s decision to enter the legal publishing industry.  The issues raised by Google’s entrance into the industry are reinstated and underscored by Malamud’s activities.

In a world where original source materials are available at no cost, it’s not clear how Westlaw and Lexis will generate profit.  Corporate spokespersons respond that their indexation and linking of materials adds considerable value, and this value added (rather than the source materials themselves) is what subscribers are really paying for.  As an avid user of Westlaw myself, I can attest that this is absolutely true.  But as an avid user of Google products, I can also attest to the creativity and intelligence of Google engineers.

It’s only a matter of time before Google engineers in the fields of search and natural language processing devise a way to replicate this value added service in an automated fashion.  The question that should be on the minds of Westlaw and Lexis are: when this day arrives, what can we offer that lawyers will pay money for?

For many of us, it’s the words we dread to hear, the words we never think that WE would hear.  Yet, it happens, especially in this economy, it’s not your fault.  But, now that you’ve been laid off, what do you do? The first step after getting laid off is to file immediately because benefits are paid starting at the date you file your unemployment application.   To file is simple and easy in the state of Illinois, visit here and it will guide you through the appropriate steps.

Something else to keep in mind is that you may not have been legally terminated.  In the rush to terminate employees, many employers may not have followed proper protocols.  In California alone, many attorneys are seeing a rise in unlawful termination suits.  If you think that is the case, seek legal advice from a lawyer.

What has been your experience? Did speaking with an attorney help you?  Tell us about your case and perhaps we can help!

Not to be a downer, but with the economy still struggling to ramp up employment and investment, it’s not looking good for anyone looking for employment, including highly trained professionals like lawyers.  With the possible exception of bankruptcy law, this has affected every practice area, including conveyance because there simply are not many transactions happening.  And it’s not just newly minted lawyers, as more seasoned lawyers are either getting laid off or asked to go on leave for a fraction of their normal pay.  Nor is this trend localized, just check out this article about lawyers in Greece!

MSNBC recently published an article with more exact statistics on legal employment, and it’s not exactly rosy.  So what can you do?  Unfortunately, there’s no easy solution, but we think the name of the game is to tread water until things get better, which they will.  That means getting experience any way you can – find ad hoc legal jobs, start a legal blog, work for free, try paralegal – you never know what these can lead to and it will look good when you can point to relevant experience when interviewing with future employers even in the toughest of times.  Where can you do this?  Of course, The Lawyer Market can be a great resource for you, but check online and set a schedule for yourself, say three to four hours a day looking on craiglist, etc.

For those starting their own practice, marketing will be key.  While there is a trend towards online marketing, don’t forget that traditional in face marketing and networking still works best, as this article from Entrepreneur shows.

For those lawyers that are looking for work, check us out and contact us.  We can use your help!  Share your stories, write your comments about the site, tell us what we can do to help you.

We recently wrote a post about potential loan forgiveness for recent law school grads going into public sector.  Currently, that bill is languishing in the senate, but nevertheless still on the table.  Well, Northwestern Law School has apparently taken that initiative one step further and is offering to wipe out law school debt for graduates that go into public sector.  This is not unlike some of programs that exist at business schools that forgive loans for alumni going into non-profit.  We wonder if more schools will follow this trend, and if public service will become more popular with graduates.

In other news, even with the job market languishing, more people are applying and entering law schools than ever.  As of Wednesday, Cornell law school applications is up 52%! We know school applications are usually an inverse of the health of the economy (less jobs means more people wanting to spend that time in school), but that is pretty ridiculous.  This article from Smart Money predicts the lawyer market to be even more competitive by 2013.  If the application trend continues, it may be even more competitive than Smart Money predicts.

Finally, here’s a very interesting read on the paradigm shift happening in the legal market.  It’s an interview with Ron Friedman, a leading authority on practice support for lawyers.  He thinks that we are also headed towards greater integration between technology and law.

Here is an article from the Chicago Sun Times on a potential boon for recent law school graduates who go into public law.  This bill would allow law students who go into the public sector relief from debt incurred to attend law school.  While the bill is languishing, we will keep you updated if this goes anywhere.

Dick Durbin

In other news:

Local Chicago firm Much Shelist intends to remain a small firm in the face of conventional wisdom that larger law firms are more successful.

Class action lawyers scored a rare victory in winning a case for undercharging.

As we look at where the legal market is headed in 2010, here is an article from the ABA journal about 2009. It appears that we are truly at a crossroads for the legal field. More than 12,000 lawyers were laid off in 2009, while almost one third of all law school graduates expect to graduate $120k or more in debt.

As a result, we have law school graduates, even from the very top schools, competing for an ever diminishing job base burdened with debt.  The result?  Many lawyers are forced to go into solo practice.  But is this really a bad thing?  For clients, a large base of “more qualified” lawyers willing to work smaller cases obviously bodes well for those of us who can’t afford million dollar lawyers.  But for graduates, it’s an incredible chance to gain top end experience in private practice.  In solo or small firm law, there’s certainly no room for associates to simply do busy work.  Everyone has to cover for each other, which means that you’ll be asked to do things that you may not get the chance to do at a large firm, much earlier in you career.  Sure, the monetary compensation may not be there, but think of it as some additional investment in your career.

Finally, here is some interesting advice from two Chief Justices on solo law.  Interesting that law is more and more evolving towards how many other business operate.

In this economy, we need to find savings where we can. For those lawyers interested in the power of the web to minimize costs, look no further that the virtual law office.  This concept, integrated with some traditional legal tools, can greatly increase revenue while minimizing cost.

Here is an interesting article about some of these services from lawyerist.  An interesting note about being careful with some of the ethical concerns that lawyers should be careful with.  Some companies have had issues with this.  Needless to say, The Lawyer Market is aware of these and have designed our process to fully comply with them.