Legal sector cuts 1,100 jobs in May

June 11, 2008
Back to TopCommentsE-mailPrint
Looks like the legal profession is starting to feel the effects of the slowing economy. According to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. legal sector lost 1,100 jobs in May. That’s the third consecutive month of losses for the industry. But lawyers, clerks, paralegals, and others aren’t having just a bad couple of months. Overall, the legal services sector in the U.S. has cut 4,200 jobs in the last six months and nearly 10,000 since last year at this time.



What about Indiana? So far, the public sentiment seems to be that Indiana law firms aren’t reeling from the downturn in the economy like firms in Chicago, New York, or other larger markets. Indiana attorneys often tout the fact that national legal trends – especially the negative ones – don’t often happen here, are slow to happen, or don’t happen on the kind of scale that other markets see. Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development keeps records of legal profession job numbers, but only by year, so it’s hard to know how Indiana legal workers have fared this year.



Do Indiana attorneys just have their heads in the sand, hoping the dark cloud of job cuts will blow past Indiana? There may be some signs that Indiana isn’t immune to legal job cuts due to the economy. Indiana Lawyer reporter Rebecca Berfanger had several firms deny her request for interviews about whether their summer associate hiring has been affected by the state of the economy, which usually means there isn’t good news to report. Law firms rarely deny a chance to tout the positive happenings at their firms.
ADVERTISEMENT

Post a comment to this story

COMMENTS POLICY
We reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is obscene, profane, vulgar, racist, sexually explicit, abusive, or hateful.
 
You are legally responsible for what you post and your anonymity is not guaranteed.
 
Posts that insult, defame, threaten, harass or abuse other readers or people mentioned in Indiana Lawyer editorial content are also subject to removal. Please respect the privacy of individuals and refrain from posting personal information.
 
No solicitations, spamming or advertisements are allowed. Readers may post links to other informational websites that are relevant to the topic at hand, but please do not link to objectionable material.
 
We may remove messages that are unrelated to the topic, encourage illegal activity, use all capital letters or are unreadable.
 

Messages that are flagged by readers as objectionable will be reviewed and may or may not be removed. Please do not flag a post simply because you disagree with it.

ADVANCED SEARCH
Sponsored by
ADVERTISEMENT

  1. vagueness cannot challenged, so let's write all laws vaguely and throw the constitution out the window.Even if the court is operating under a particular law, if they don't it they will change it to their liking. What a joke!!!

  2. Two convictions becomes one conviction with exactly the same sentence, only it is not clear wheter or not that sentence will be 18 months, 120 months or 138 months. Actually if the guns were in a home, whether or not they were his, he is protected under the 2nd amendment. Jurors need to learn the law and the constitution before judging others. The cour5ts need to do this as well.

  3. With all due respect, Rick, I think you probably would be making a mistake by going to law school. The job market for attorneys is so saturated, you may well find yourself unemployed and with a lot of debt. You mention law would be a good supplement to your skills. True. But employers unfortunately don't value that. You will find that a law degree may well pigeonhole you into an attorney slot and limit career options. If you have a good job now I would hold onto that. As an attorney, you may well end up making less with the aforementioned debt.

  4. Jack, I was only responding to bill's comment of tying everybody in government together. I agree with you though, it takes one bad apple to ruin the bunch.. As in any profession. What's truly unfair is when somebody violates someone's trust and takes complete advantage of someone

  5. John’s comment is unfair. The majority of attorneys can be trusted. Unfortunately, all it takes is one greedy, unscrupulous, immoral attorney to jade the public.

ADVERTISEMENT