Tough all over
6 05 2010About 40,000 people will graduate from law school this month and next, and according to the Wall Street Journal, they face one of the worst hiring markets for new lawyers in a generation.
One of the problems is supply and demand. Law school enrollments and graduation rates have steady reasonably steady. But law firms and a host of other employers have cut hiring during the recession.
To come into practice in this environment is definitely hard.
When I graduated from law school in 1972, there were four law schools in this state–UVa, W & L, W& M, and T.C. Williams at UR. Since then, the number has just about doubled, but I don’t think the demand has. Coupled with the entry into what had been the practice of law (such as the title companies essentially taking over real estate closings), as well as al the websites and commercial kits available for people to “do it themselves,” it makes no sense to me to keep grinding out law school graduates to a market where there’s no room for them.