The National Law Journal's 2011 NLJ 250: Largest Law Firms Employ Fewer Lawyers than in 2008

The National Law Journal's 2011 NLJ 250 Shows Largest U.S. Law Firms Now Employ 9,500 Fewer Lawyers Than in 2008.

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Apr 25, 2011) - ALM's The National Law Journal today published the 2011 NLJ 250, its annual list of the nation's 250 largest law firms, which documented the second consecutive year of headcount declines among the top law firms in the U.S.

[Law Firms on] the NLJ 250 [list] collectively employed 9,567 fewer lawyers in 2010 than it did in 2008, a decline of nearly 8 percent in [direct-hire lawyer] headcount, with the 10 largest firms in the U.S. alone losing more than 1,000 lawyers last year.  This is just the second time in the 34-year history of the NLJ 250 survey that the nation's largest law firms [collectively] have experienced a net reduction in employed lawyers for two consecutive years.

The NLJ 250 appears in the April 25^th issue of the newspaper and is also available online now at http://www.nlj.com/

[Lawyer] "Headcount continued to spiral at the biggest firms in 2010, and the impact was even deeper than we had initially expected," said David L. Brown, editor in chief of The National Law Journal. "The NLJ 250 is thousands of lawyers smaller than it was just two years ago."

According to Brown, the Top 10 law firms on the 2011 NLJ 250 are:

1		Baker & McKenzie		3,738
2		DLA Piper		3,348
3		Jones Day		2,502
4		Hogan Lovells		2,363
5		Latham & Watkins		1,931
6		Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom		1,859
7		White & Case		1,814
8		K&L Gates		1,763
9		Greenberg Traurig		1,721
10		Mayer Brown		1,645

1		Baker & McKenzie		3,738
2		DLA Piper		3,348
3		Jones Day		2,502
4		Hogan Lovells		2,363
5		Latham & Watkins		1,931
6		Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom		1,859
7		White & Case		1,814
8		K&L Gates		1,763
9		Greenberg Traurig		1,721
10		Mayer Brown		1,645

Once again, the city with the most NLJ 250 attorneys is New York (21,100), followed by Washington, D.C. (12,700), Chicago (7,200), Los Angeles (5,300) and London (4,700). There are nine new entrants on this year's list, including Hogan Lovells, which was formed in 2010 as a result of the merger of U.S.-based Hogan & Hartson and U.K.-based Lovells. The other eight new entrants are briefly profiled in this week's issue of The National Law Journal.

The issue also includes charts for the fastest-growing firms in 2010 and firms with the biggest headcount declines last year, a variety of in-depth charts analyzing the geographic breakdowns of the NLJ 250, and profiles of two midsized firms that have staked out unique market positions in Akron, Ohio and Riverside, Calif.

About The NLJ 250.  The National Law Journal's 34th annual ranking of the nation's 250 largest law firms are based on the average number of full-time equivalent attorneys for the period Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2010. The NLJ sent surveys to about 300 law firms to determine the 250 largest. Lawyer counts do not include contract or temporary attorneys. A firm must have more lawyers based in the United States than in any other single country to be included on the list.

About ALM.  ALM, an integrated media company, is a leading provider of specialized business news, research and information, focused primarily on the legal and commercial real estate sectors. ALM's market-leading brands include The American Lawyer, Corporate Counsel, GlobeSt.com, Insight Conferences, Law.com, Law Journal Press, LegalTech, The National Law Journal and Real Estate Forum. Headquartered in New York City, ALM was formed in 1997. For more information, visit http://www.alm.com/.

ALM, The American Lawyer, Corporate Counsel, GlobeSt.com, Insight Conferences, Law.com, Law Journal Press, Law Technology News, LegalTech, The National Law Journal and Real Estate Forum are trademarks or registered trademarks of ALM Media Properties, LLC.

The Illinois IDES

I was at a meeting yesterday of a professional associate of which I am a member.  It is the Illinois Search and Staffing Association.  See: http://issaworks.com/  The meeting seminar was titled: Unemployment Insurance Workshop "Meeting Business Needs"   The workshop covered:

• "How To" Guide to completing the UI Protest, BIS Form 32: Understanding the unemployment process and all you ever wanted to know about effectively completing BIS Form 32 but didn’t know whom to ask. You will have the opportunity to discuss the BIS Form 32 with a subject matter expert.
• Work Opportunity Tax Credit: Learn how to reduce the cost of doing business, while helping those   most in need gain valuable work experience.  These incentives start at $2,400, and could amount to as much as $9,000 in tax credits for one individual hire from the IRS.
• Re-Entry Employment Services Program: The RESP is designed to help reduce recidivism in Illinois.
• Role Plays of Actual Cases: This is a fun and interactive way to better understand the complicated cases involving unemployment.  This method also helps employers better prepare for unemployment hearings and provides an awareness of the hearing process.
• Illinois Skills Match: Ever wish for a simple way to hire the right person for the job?  The Illinois Department of Employment Security has an Internet database designed for both the employers and employees to find jobs/candidates that meet their criteria for employment.  Enhance your ability to find qualified candidates for employment. Let us assist you!
• Employ Illinois Veterans: What better decision to make as an employer than to hire a veteran.  These individuals have training, take pride in their work and may also be able to earn you a tax credit for your business.  Learn more at the workshop.
• New Employee Bonding Program: Employers can apply for fidelity bonds through IDES.

It was very informative.  But what I found to me most odd, was that the bureaucrats from the IDES now refer to claimants as their "clients."

ManpowerGroup's 2010 Annual Report

I own a few shares of Manpower (MAN) stock in order to get their annual report.  I have heard and seen their CEO Jeff Joerres speak twice at national staffing conventions (of the ASA) and he is truly visionary and motivating in the business field within which I work.  Manpower is ranked by Fortune magazine as one of World's Most Admired Companies.  He totally gets staffing and placement and runs a great organization.  Their 2010 annual report, titled Empowering the World of Work, has really nice opening feature on how this next decade and beyond will be the Human Age.  Stating, "It's not about technology.  Or Systems.  Or money.  The talent, ambition and imagination of people will be the key building blocks of growth."

I like that - and I agree.  To be sure, my staffing firm is no Manpower, nor does it wish to be.  It is just a microscopic, granular spec of a version of the same model, and in a narrow niche segment (legal) and geographic (Chicago area) area.  But based on their shear size and breadth - they are standard bearers in the staffing and placement industry.  I applaud them for all that they do to lead by example and for what they do in terms of lobbying for laws (local and Federal) that are enacted to be fair and not harmful to employers in the temporary staffing business.

Chicago's Best Places to Work (according to Crain's Chicago Business)

Crain's Chicago Business magazine just released their annial ranking of "Chicago's Best Places to Work."  But I have a beef with their list.  First here is their list:

1.      Centro LLC

2.      Assurance Agency Ltd.

3.      Microsoft

4.      McTigue Financial

5.      Robert W. Baird & Co.

6.      Donlen Corp.

7.      Chubb Corp.

8.      Tasty Catering Inc.

9.      Lake Forest Graduate School of Mgt.

10.   Google

11.   Clifton Gunderson LLP

12.   Hitachi Consulting

13.   Radio Flyer Inc.

14.   Digitas Inc.

15.   LeasePlan USA Inc.

16.   Transwestern Commerical Services LLC

17.   CareerBuilder LLC

18.   Deloitte LLP

19.   Alterian Inc.

20.   Belvedere Trading LLC

My beef is - Microsoft and Google are not really Chicago companies.  They have offices here in town - but Crain's should only rank companies that have their corporate HQ offices in Chicago (and/or our suburbs).

Staffing Adds Jobs in March, BLS Says

More good news!

"Data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows seasonally adjusted staffing industry employment added 29,000 new jobs in March, increasing temporary help payrolls by 1.3% from February.  Temporary help firms have added approximately 500,000 workers to industry payrolls since August 2009, when BLS seasonally adjusted data on staffing employment began to show growth.

In a year-to-year comparison, temporary help employment is 12.5% higher than March 2010. The job gains in temporary help over the month, along with those in professional and technical services (35,000), led March employment growth in the service sector of the economy.  "We are seeing encouraging signs that the jobs recovery is developing traction," says Richard Wahlquist, ASA president and chief executive officer. "The fact that firms are now adding to both their flexible and permanent work forces means that demand for U.S. goods and services is up and that confidence is growing as we head into the second quarter."

Nonseasonally adjusted BLS data, which estimate the actual number of jobs in the economy, indicated that staffing employment increased 2.4% over February. On a year-to-year basis, there were 13.3% more workers employed in March compared with the same month in 2010. The ASA Staffing Index, which is also not seasonally adjusted and therefore is comparable to the nonadjusted employment figures reported by BLS, indicated a 9% increase in staffing payrolls since March 2010.

BLS also provides employment estimates for search and placement firms, but those are nonseasonal only, and reports lag one month. Friday, BLS reported that search and placement employment in February was up 3.2% from January, totaling 242,200 for the month. In a year-to year comparison, February employment was up 8.8% from the same month in 2010, continuing the trend of year-to-year employment growth in search and placement that began last spring.

Total U.S. nonfarm payroll employment rose by 216,000 new jobs from February to March. Job gains were mostly concentrated in professional and business services, health care, leisure and hospitality, and mining. The overall unemployment rate of 8.8% was little changed from last month's figure of 8.9%. Since last November, the jobless rate has fallen by one percentage point.

Alexandra Karaer - American Staffing Association staff writer.

Law School Applicants Take Note

My friend (and former employee of the company I own) Rachel Zahorsky has just written a very nice piece on the Cost of Legal Education (below) that was posted recently in the ABA Journal Weekly eNewsletter, called Law News Now.

Ms. Zahorsky write..."Attention, prospective law students: The cost of legal education will continue to rise. That is the prediction shared by two law school deans—Michael Schill from the University of Chicago at a recent panel event in Chicago, and Phoebe Haddon from the University of Maryland, who stopped for a visit with the ABA Journal.

However, Haddon, who opposed a tuition hike in 2011—the freeze remains subject to university approval—also proposed an interesting solution: increased collaboration between rival law schools. Shared faculty appointments, facilities and technology, a trend that has already taken root among colleges within a single university, can alleviate the hefty expenses of boosting practice-based courses as students demand more hands-on experience, Haddon says, even at law schools that compete for the same pool of students and professors.

“We have to be more practical and be more retrospective about our competitive interests,” Haddon said, “[Law schools] need to ask: What are the ways to make this a win-win situation by sharing those types of costs?”  One example Haddon cites is students' work on a leadership journal published jointly by Santa Clara Law and the University of Maryland School of Law that culminated in the Leadership Education Roundtable at Santa Clara last weekend.

And for those law schools that don’t want to share their toys in the sandbox?   “This is the reality for law schools,” Haddon added. “It’s already started, but we will soon see more formalized relationships between law schools.”

= = = = = = =

My comment on the topic is this: law school cost will not usually be the driving factor in a much-needed decline in law school enrollment.  For those considering law school, the future lawyer job market, to them, will always be fuzzy based on the continual issue of trying to guess what the actual job market will be "three years from now."   Things can and do change in three years, but in Illinois, every November another 2,200 new lawyers get sworn in.  And may 500-800 more each May.   Rather than the cost factor (families have plenty of money waiting to invest in their children's education), consideration should be given to the number of lawyers in each state as available inventory and to some type of a prediction for future demand.

Marketing (sales!) must also be taught in law school to those lawyers who will be on a law firm employment track.  The same goes for business (law office) management skills must also be taught in law school.  I know this from being married to a person who has taught marketing principals to 3L's at a law school in downtown Chicago.

And else where in that ABA publication we read, "Yale Law School had a 16.5 percent drop in law school applications at its March 1 deadline, the Yale Daily News reports. The average drop in law school applicants nationwide is about 11.5 percent."   This is odd, but good.  I do recall read recently (2009 Debra Cassens Weiss) that "the number of people taking the LSAT is at an all-time high figure, and the recession is a likely reason.  But some are questioning whether bad economic times are a sufficient reason to go to law school."