It's a tough time to be one of the recent law-school graduates - there were roughly 43,000 in 2009 alone with, perhaps, $250,000 in student loans - who are looking for work at a decently-sized law firm.
According to a New York Times article published earlier this year:
...Mr. Wallerstein and a generation of J.D.'s face the grimmest job market in decades. Since 2008, some 15,000 attorney and legal-staff jobs at large firms have vanished, according to a Northwestern Law study. Associates have been laid off, partners nudged out the door and recruitment programs have been scaled back or eliminated.
And with corporations scrutinizing their legal expenses as never before, more entry-level legal work is now outsourced to contract temporary employees, both in the United States and in countries like India.
As a result of law firms (and others, as we noted in a post on non-employees) trimming back their permanent labor forces, it is difficult to find a job at a medium-sized or large practice. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the growth in the jobs prospects for lawyers through 2018 is indeed expected to match the average growth-rate for occupations in general. However, the BLS also states that while the number of positions in law will increase, so will the competition from the tens of thousands of people who graduate from law school each year. As a result, many people - like those graduates described in the Times article - may not find jobs at firms.
This situation has resulted in many attorneys starting their own private practices either right after law school or after leaving a firm - and many of them are our clients, so we understand their situations!
If you want to open a successful private-practice, you will need to work hard, intelligently, and efficiently. And as we do for all of our clients, we use our three decades of experience to give advice to lawyers with personal or small practices as well as assist them with their business needs to work exactly in that way. In terms of general advice for new law firms and solo practitioners, these are some good resources:
In addition to knowing the general best-practices, there are specific services available for attorneys that our clients know well:
- Flexible office-space in Philadelphia is useful when lawyers are unsure how much room they will need in the short- or medium-term after starting a new practice. Will you have one client or ten the first month (or months)? How will you know how much space to have for client files and legal books on your specialty (or specialties)? What if you need a few paralegals for a month - where are they going to work? At the beginning stages of a new law practice - or any new company, actually - life is chaotic. By using flexible office space rather than locking yourself into a long-term contract, you can easily adjust as needed.
- Virtual offices in Philadelphia can help anyone - even a 24-year-old law-school graduate - look just as knowledgeable and professional as the partners at top law firms. When people with major life problems - whether personal injuries, tax problems that may land them in jail, or alleged criminal offenses - evaluate possible attorneys, they do not want any to see any hint of incompetence because so much is on the legal line. So, you want a legal practice that is as state-of-the-art and as professional-looking as possible, especially when most of your work as a sole-practicing attorney is done elsewhere. Virtual offices fulfill this need by providing items including a permanent mailing address, a phone number that comes with call answering, and high-tech meeting rooms that are available only when one needs them.
- Business-support services in Philadelphia allow new lawyers to leave all of the time-wasting, administrative work to someone else. When you are starting a new firm or private practice, you need to spend every minute finding clients and working for them. Every minute spent on anything else - Excel spreadsheets, answering phone calls, and so on - is a lost opportunity. Let a qualified team handle these things for you at a fraction of the cost.
Don't let the tough market for jobs at law firms fool you - there are always opportunities for bright, ambitious attorneys who decide, for whatever reason, to work as sole practitioners or at small practices. After all, if you successfully graduated from law school and passed the bar exam, you're definitely bright and ambitious. American Executive Centers can help with the rest!