Ouch! It hurts...
...but every recession has lucky people too. To save you hours of watching cable news and reading, here's a snapshot of good news and bad news on the legal profession in Canada and around the Common Law world:
- IN THE CROSS-HAIRS: with companies trying to pare their legal budgets between 6% and 35%, the #1 target for general counsels is...
- THANKS BERNIE: a freakish confluence of circumstances, including the Madoff scandal, is allowing top rates for UK regulatory lawyers to hit a stunning USD1,440/hour. That's professional athlete territory, only now it's being paid to people with minds.
- FAMINE IN IRELAND: hundreds of unemployed solicitors. Bleak prospects. All that remains is for the potato harvest to fail.
- TRANSACTIONS: law firm mergers up 33% in the US. This, though, is an indication of nothing definite. Mergers ideally result in "efficiencies of scale", with a real-world meaning of fewer bodies doing the same work (we each had 2 doing the work of 1.5. Now we can have 3 doing the work of 3) or "economies of scope" (you do this, we do that, let's merge and cross-refer).
- RED SKY AT NIGHT OR IN THE MORNING?: major US law firm posts record revenue of $668 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009, up 2.2%.
- SALARY FREEZES: by a major US law firm.
- PAY CUTS NOT TERMINATIONS: a major US law firm institutes $17,500 pay cuts, others may follow. Required measure for the entire US economy?
- THE COLD EQUATIONS: the problem simplified. (apologies to Tom Godwin)
- THEN COME THE TERMINATIONS
- "DEFERRED EMPLOYMENT" IS NOT DEFEAT: a peptalk to grads facing an economic wasteland.
- BOOM TIMES
- LAW FIRMS FIRING: especially US firms, unsurprisingly.
- BUT LAW FIRMS HIRING: in Canada, apparently mostly in bankruptcy and litigation.
- AND BLACKBERRY DEFIES RECESSION: attaboy! Any good news is very good news.
Times are always interesting.
Have a great week,
Chris Graham
