The Ginger (Law) Librarian

An associate professor of law at Seton Hall Law School has an interesting take on the commentary surrounding legal sector employment stagnation. According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, law firms employed about 90,000 more lawyers and about 80,000 more paralegals in 2014 than at the start of the survey in 2001. At the same time, law firms shed 180,000 to 190,000 legal secretaries, other legal support workers and their supervisors. As a result, [commentators] have mischaracterized a decline in the fortunes for low-skilled support workers at a time of expanding opportunities for highly educated workers as stagnation for all. Law firms have sharply upgraded the education level of their work force, increasing the number of workers with graduate degrees by 100,000 and those with bachelor’s degrees by 30,000. At the same time, jobs for those with one year of college or less have shrunk by 125,000. Those who say law firms are going through “structural change” may b...

Student loans are confusing. They are particularly confusing for law graduates when nearly 85% of law school students graduate with $100,000 or more in debt . We started with Income Based Repayment (IBR) that allows borrowers to pay back their student loans based on their income. Then we moved to IBR coupled with Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) for borrowers who took out loans between 2007 and 2011 and work at a 501(c)(3). This allows graduates to pay based on their income and after 10 years of repayment while working at a non-profit, the rest of the debt is forgiven without a tax burden. For those not working under PSLF but utilizing IBR, the terms were adjusted to allow borrowers to limit repayment to 15% of their discretionary income and have any remaining balance forgiven after 25 years of repayment with a tax burden on the amount forgiven. Then in 2012, the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) program was created so that graduates could limit their federal loan payments to 10...

It appears that the ABA has quietly dropped the limitation that full-time law students only work up to 20 hours per week. Before the latest iteration of the ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools, this was the pertinent standard: Standard 304 . COURSE OF STUDY AND ACADEMIC CALENDAR (f) A student may not be employed more than 20 hours per week in any week in which the student is enrolled in more than twelve class hours. For 2014-2015, Standard 304 is now Standard 311 , and there is no mention of the 20-hour work limit. If you are interested in working, beware that while the ABA seems to have dropped the limitation, law schools may still impose the restriction through the honor code. If your law school does have a 20-hour limitation, you may want to discuss it with the powers that be and notify them of the change in the ABA Standards. And although you may be able to work more than 20 hours per week while going to law school full-time, it may not actually be advisab...

Library Babel Fish (aka Barbara Fister) alerted me to a recent NYTimes article discussing college for a new age. Joe Nocera of the NYTimes recently profiled Kevin Carey and Carey's new book, "The End of College." “'The story of higher education’s future is a tale of ancient institutions in their last days of decadence, creating the seeds of a new world to come,' he writes. If he is right, higher education will be transformed into a different kind of learning experience that is cheaper, better, more personalized and more useful." A telling quote from the book: "You don’t need libraries and research infrastructure and football teams and this insane race for status,” he says. “If you only have to pay for the things that you actually need, education doesn’t cost $60,000 a year.” It's not a new criticism that universities have gone beyond the necessary to the lavish, which ups the cost for all. But libraries? Really? Libraries are more in line wit...

The ABA Journal posted an interesting article about the value of a law degree. "[T]wo researchers who previously concluded that the present value of a law degree is about $1 million more, on average, than the value of a college degree" are now concluding that a bad economy has a relatively small impact on lifetime earnings. The researchers conclude that "[g]raduating from law school in a bad economy has a relatively small impact on lifetime earnings relative to graduating with a bachelor’s degree, according to a preliminary draft research paper by the researchers, Rutgers University economics and business professor Frank McIntyre and Seton Hall University law professor Michael Simkovic, a visiting research scholar at Fordham University’s law school." They find that "[t]hough unemployment levels at graduation affect pay for the first four years, particularly in boom times, the impact fades as law graduates gain experience, according to the new paper ( avail...

The ABA Journal recently reported on young lawyers who utilized a  law-school incubator program and are now finding success on their own. As mentioned in previous posts , law schools have been using the incubator concept "to jump-start the careers of young lawyers going into solo or small practices." As Yogi Patel put it, “[t]he incubator gave me the time to find my identity as a practitioner and get to the point where you are without fear that you won’t be able to pay the rent next month." And "[n]ot having the pressure of overhead costs allowed Patel to focus on building the business so that when he left the incubator, he already had some clients and income. One of the most valuable parts of being in the incubator program was meeting other lawyers at networking events." Another success story is Michelle Green who "was among the first to complete the incubator program at Chicago-Kent College of Law, which requires applicants to have a business pla...

In recent years, there's been a push to get more attorneys to underserved rural areas. As I mentioned in April 2013 , "[n]early 85% of law students graduate with $100,000 in debt, and it is nearly impossible to service that type of debt by offering low-cost legal services in rural areas." Like South Dakota's stipend to get lawyers to its rural areas, a small town in North Dakota is doing something similar. The ABA Journal reported that "Wishek, [ND] took the unusual step of offering to pay for office space and other business expenses if a young lawyer agreed to move to town. The city got two: Cody Cooper and Mary DePuydt, a married couple who both finished law school in 2013 and moved to Wishek from the Twin Cities in April. They planned to set up separate law offices to avoid potential conflicts of interest." Wishek's offer to pay for office space and other business expenses was just one thing that lured the attorneys to town. "The two were ...

NPR reported on a cool new alternative lending service available at some public libraries. "The public library systems in New York and Chicago won funding from the Knight Foundation to experiment with the idea of hot-spot lending. Both say they hope the move will help them expand Internet access among low-income families." As the New York Public Library's pitch reads, "'[b]ecause many Americans find themselves unable to afford quality Internet at home, they are caught on the wrong side of the digital divide.' This chasm presents an obstacle to participation in America's $8 trillion digital economy and deprives the Internet of contributions from these individuals." With so many people unable to afford Internet at home, "[g]iving patrons — particularly those who are low income — the ability to 'check out' the Internet seems a simple solution to improving Internet access across the country, particularly if the program expands beyond t...

The Michigan State Bar's Economics of Law Practice Survey was released in July 2014. " The survey is conducted every three years and the results are used daily throughout the state in courtrooms, law firms and by lawyers in all occupational areas. As referenced by the Michigan Supreme Court in Smith v. Khouri, it is the primary resource used by trial courts to determine attorney fees. It provides the benchmark for more than 50 specific fields of practice by geographic location. Survey results also contain data about salaries, benefits, hours worked and job satisfaction for attorneys in non-private practice occupations, such as those working as in-house counsel, in government service, non-profit organizations, academia, legal services and more." The survey has two practical objectives : To provide timely, relevant and accurate information to inform and guide the practical management decisions of Michigan attorneys To track and illustrate changes and trends within...

There is a new article in the Journal of College and University Law by Kaela Raedel Munster called A Double-Edged Sword: Student Loan Debt Provides Access To A Law Degree But May Ultimately Deny A Bar License  that makes the case that student debt might affect Character & Fitness. From the article:  “Misconception or not, lawyers are perceived as wealthy, well-to-do, educated professionals with the means to make their student loan payments. This perception, however, may not be consistent with reality. Consider the following hypothetical: Lauren, a twenty-six-year old woman and recent law school graduate, pursued a legal education after achieving academic success in her undergraduate studies. In deciding whether to attend law school, Lauren relied on statistical reports that described recent graduates' employment and salary data, financial assistance, and ability to pursue a meaningful career upon graduation. Lauren decided to enroll at an American Bar Association (“A...

Thomson Reuters Legal Solution's blog recently posted  tips on how to survive in this legal market. According to the blog, "[t]he question isn’t so much whether [conditions for new grads] will improve as much as it is when they will improve. Lawyers will always be needed, but currently, the supply of new lawyers has completely overtaken the demand.  But law school enrollment is at its lowest levels in 40 years, so the market is currently in the process of correcting itself. Nevertheless, since it may take a long time for the legal job market to recover – but your bills aren’t going to wait – you may need to figure out how to keep your head above water in the meantime." The blog goes on to offer tips for the tough legal market: Don’t let your legal education collect dust Be tenacious Network All great advice. And the notion of not letting your legal education collect dust is very important. To that end, Findlaw's blog posted 99 Things to Do With Your JD, Bes...

The ABA Journal recently reported  that "President Barack Obama has signed an executive order expanding a 2010 law that capped student-loan repayments for newer government-backed loans at 10 percent of the borrower’s monthly income." Obama cited "his own experience with law school loans paid off just 10 years ago. The goal is to implement the expansion in December 2015, after new rules are drafted." Under the current rule "the 10 percent cap, part of the Pay as You Earn program, is not available to those with older loans. Monthly payments are based on a sliding scale, and any remaining balance is forgiven after 20 years of payments, or 10 years for those in public service jobs . Pay as You Earn is more generous in its loan caps than a different Income Based Repayment program that currently applies to all borrowers with federal student loans. IBR caps payments at 15 percent of discretionary income." As Obama said, the problem is that "higher educ...

The ABA Journal  recently reported on the outcome of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar council's comprehensive review of law school accreditation standards. "The council approved five of the six remaining proposed changes in the standards. The only proposed change in the standards the council didn’t approve was one that would have eliminated the current prohibition against granting academic credit to a student for participating in a field placement program for which the student receives compensation ." Why would the council continue with the prohibition? "[A] majority of the council sided with critics of the proposed change, who fear that allowing students to be paid for a field placement program for which they receive academic credit would undermine the academic focus of the experience." "All of the proposed changes in the standards—along with a host of others approved by the council in March—will be reviewed by the ABA Hou...

Huffington Post recently ran an article discussing a new law school: UNT Dallas College of Law. Judge Royal Furgeson, the founding dean of UNT Dallas College of law, says that the school will have an  " unconventional ethos — to cultivate lawyers as public servants. The method? Eschew national rankings, deflate tuition, welcome the 'rejects' and teach real skills. 'We want to train lawyers that want to be lawyers for the right reasons,' Furgeson says." While some believe that there are too many lawyers, "'[t]he legal industry has never been able to offer sufficient resources to the poor, [Judge Furgeson] says, and neither has it properly served the middle class or small businesses. The profession needs to come to grips with the fact that we’re not providing legal services to a vast majority of our people,' he says. 'You think of how many people are struggling out there, how many people are working at the margins. Something bad happens to ...

InsideHigherEd reported on the University of La Verne College of Law's tuition restructuring. La Verne might be the "first law school to stop offering discounts to the top students it wants to attract." "Instead, the Southern California law school will charge all students a flat price of $25,000 a year. Before, its sticker price was $39,000, but many students didn't pay anywhere near that much. Its 127 students actually paid an average of about $25,000 a year, but the students with the highest test scores paid less. Overall, its discount rate -- the share of tuition charges the college forgoes in the form of scholarships -- was 46 percent." "La Verne's dean, Gilbert Holmes, said discount pricing, which colleges use to reward both low-income students and high-achieving students, can widen gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students because the students who are most likely to succeed and make more money after law school graduate with the l...

There are changes brewing for Public Service Loan Forgiveness . " The president’s fiscal year 2015 budget includes a number of the reforms, such as a new loan forgiveness threshold for borrowers with high levels of debt and a cap on Public Sector Loan Forgiveness. It closes a loophole that allowed married borrowers to exclude their spouse’s income from the IBR calculation. And it uses the savings generated by the proposals to expand access to IBR." The big question is whether these changes will apply to existing borrowers or future borrowers. "The department of education seems to suggest that under the president’s budget proposal, the PSLF cap would only apply to new borrowers." A wise soul decided to ask the Department of Education directly: "Will the Proposed PSLF cap ($57,500) only apply to New Borrowers after July 1, 2015 (and those who opt into the new program)? Or to all borrowers? Or all borrowers that use PAYE as a repayment plan ? This has be...

Senator Meekhof recently introduced SB 743 in Michigan to change the membership of the State Bar of Michigan from mandatory to voluntary. The Bill would: "No longer require that individuals pay a periodic fee for continued membership in the State Bar, require that individuals who designate themselves 'attorneys or counselors' be licensed to practice law in Michigan, and require that all individuals who practice law in the state do so in compliance with the requirements of the Michigan Supreme Court." As of 1/23/14, the Bill has been referred to the Committee on Government Operations. The Bill comes after recent scrutiny of the State Bar when it urged mandatory disclosure of those financing judicial campaign ads. "Republican Sen. Arlan Meekhof of West Olive says the bar association has become more 'political' and not all lawyers agree with its actions. Meekhof said Thursday that the bill's intent isn't to let attorneys' off the hook ...

The NYTimes ran an article recently profiling a lawyer's journey to personal bankruptcy. The article starts out with a prescient, "[a]nyone who wonders why law school applications are plunging and there’s widespread malaise in many big law firms might consider the case of Gregory M. Owens." To offer some background, "[t]he silver-haired, distinguished-looking Mr. Owens would seem the embodiment of a successful Wall Street lawyer. A graduate of Denison University and Vanderbilt Law School, Mr. Owens moved to New York City and was named a partner at the then old-line law firm of Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood, and after a merger, at Dewey & LeBoeuf. Today, Mr. Owens, 55, is a partner at an even more eminent global law firm, White & Case. A partnership there or any of the major firms collectively known as 'Big Law' was long regarded as the brass ring of the profession, a virtual guarantee of lifelong prosperity and job security." ...

It is well known that Benjamin Franklin said, "the only things certain in life are death and taxes." Although this is still true, I would add student loans to the list -- at least for most of us. Especially since 85% of law students graduate with $100,000 of debt. Now that tax season is upon us, the federal government has teamed up with TurboTax to spread the word about student-loan repayment options . As the Chronicle of Higher Education reported , "[s]tudent-loan borrowers filing their taxes through TurboTax this year will be encouraged to enroll in an income-based repayment plan, the Departments of Education and of the Treasury are expected to announce on Friday. As part of the White House's efforts to raise awareness about income-based plans, the Obama administration has reached an agreement with lntuit Inc. to include a banner on its TurboTax tax-preparation website inviting users to learn more about their repayment options. When borrowers click...

The National Law Journal is reporting on the continued decline of female associates since the recession. "The percentage of women associates at law firms fell for the fourth straight year, even as the percentage of minority associates continued to rise. This year, women accounted for 44.79 percent of associates, down from 45.66 percent at their peak in 2009. By contrast, the percentage of minority associates rose from 8.36 percent in 2009 to 20.93 percent in 2013." Although the decline may seem slight, the author notes that it is a red flag because the associates will feed the partner pool one day. "While the percentage of women partners, small as it is, has continued to grow each year, sustained incremental growth in the future is at risk if the percentage of women associates continues to inch downwards." The legal profession needs to figure out why more women are foregoing the associate track. "It could be because some women are deciding not to pursue la...