The silence has been deafening for me, too. My own silence probably has sounded louder to me over the past two months than it has to anybody else. But I have had nothing to say.

I still don’t have much to say. Especially for such an opinionated person. I seem to be watching in shock and awe (Mr. Bush finally achieved it here, at least) as everything the way I knew it seismically shifts around me.

I started this site to help you, whoever you are reading this. The truth is that I don’t know how to help you. I can’t even help myself. I don’t think that links to law firms that are actively decimating their ranks is useful to you. They weren’t doing it quite like this when I started. I don’t know what to put up here that would do anybody any good.

If anybody has any ideas and wants to share them, I would be pleased to take suggestions.  The site is paid for and I have a lot of time on my hands, just like you do. I’ll leave it like it is until I have some reason to change it. I can only hope that it will be a change for the better, if it ever comes.

I have long past the point where I communicate more frequently with strangers than I do with people I know. This strikes me as eerie. Among the people I talk to through this website, through Twitter, and through Facebook (although not as the Unemployed Lawyer), almost everyone is a stranger. Certainly, almost all my correspondents started out that way.

Some of them have now become friends, even though we have never met, through the regularity of our correspondence or our shared interests. They are not friends that I’d go for beer and pizza with—for one thing, they are all in different states and countries. They are internet friends and we generally restrict our “conversations” to specific topics and communicate only through specific channels. We have never seen each other and likely never will. Even so, I value them highly and feel cheered and happy when I hear from them. They have become part of my world.

What’s eerie to me is also what comes as routine when you do what I am doing now. When you write for public consumption, you don’t have any idea who is going to read it, or why. I’m just happy anyone reads my work at all, if they read it at all. The difference between writing on the internet and writing for publication in some hard-copy form is that I have no idea if anyone reads what I write, while if copies of a book, magazine, or newspaper are selling, it stands to reason that someone is buying and reading them. It’s true that I have a hit counter on the site, but it only tells me how many times the site has been opened. It doesn’t say anything about which parts have been used or read.

I’m not complaining. I knew this would be so when I started the site.

But I can’t help wondering what you are thinking. I sometimes feel as if I’m drifting in a very small boat at sea in a very deep fog. I just can’t tell if there is anyone out there or not. I can peer and halloo all I want, but unless you light a lamp and ring a bell, I will never know that you are there. We are all hiding out here.

I am further fascinated by those who reveal themselves to me. I am filled with delight each time someone shows an interest, but sometimes I have to wonder why. I desperately want to know the back story. Why does the Unemployed Lawyer interest a purveyor of Italian ice, a gentlemen’s fashion consultant, a private detective, a healthcare professional, and a travel agent, to name a few Twitter followers? Believe me, I am very happy to have your interest; I’m just curious where it comes from.

This afternoon, I answered a request from an unknown woman for free legal representation. That one, I believe I can figure out. The comment was either a hoax posted by spammers bored with posting plain spam or a real request from a needy person who reasoned that a bunch of unemployed lawyers might need something to do. For the record, I don’t believe that the request was a hoax and I offered the best advice I could on how to seek representation. Either way, it did me no harm and the advice I posted was sound. It might be of use to someone in the future and I hope it helps a person in need right now.

But I’m still at sea, drifting in my little boat. I wish I knew if I have done anyone any good. I wish I knew if I depress you beyond measure and you wish that I would just go away. I wish I knew whether you think movie footnotes are stupid. I really, really wish I knew why my Corporations links keep changing colors on me. I wish I knew a lot of things. I wish I knew you.

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[1] Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., 1944, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak.

Your Unemployed Lawyer has spent a great deal of time over the past two weeks in a rather frantic state over the breakdown of the Corporations pages. I still don’t what happened or why, but I do know that it is slow, steady, tedious work to repair them and get them back on line. I feel like the breakdown makes me and the website look bad, but I comfort myself with the thought that not only can I restore the pages, I can return them to use in a new and improved condition.

It is not quite so with our “industry”, I think. (Have you ever wondered why the business of law is called an “industry”?). And then I think that even though I think it is not so; it may be so or similar. Similar. Yes. Definitely similar.

I believe that there has been a breakdown in the business or industry of law. For that matter, I know that virtually every industry in the country has suffered some degree of breakdown, many far worse than in the legal world. But it is our purpose here to discuss the world of lawyers, law firms, legal education, the practice of law, the business of law (two very different things in my mind) and the condition of lawyers in general. So, we will talk about the legal industry.

Like those infernal Corporations pages, it just doesn’t work the way it used to do. As with the Corporations pages, I am struggling to understand what happened and why. Similarly, I have the same uncomfortable feeling that I may never fully know but that I must take all possible steps to prevent it happening again.

I have a very bad feeling that whatever happened to the Corporations pages was my fault, though. I blame myself. I need to improve my scanty HTML skills.

I know that what happened to the legal world was not my fault. I can’t say that it wasn’t anybody’s fault, because I’m not a believer in spontaneous combustion; but I think that the blame is so widespread and nebulous that it can’t attach to anyone identifiable. This leaves no focus for blame, which, to me, is the equivalent of having nobody to blame at all. This is useless, since the good in blame is present emotional catharsis and the hope of future prevention.

Like the Corporations pages, the legal industry is still broken. We all read the news every day. Some of us wonder if we will someday pass the point when there will be more unemployed lawyers than employed lawyers. It’s a silly pastime but a little black humor never hurts.

Now we come to some differences.

First, I don’t know whether anybody but me cares at all about fixing the Corporations pages. I labor at it link by link until my back hurts so much that I have to stop. I’ve promised these resources and I feel guilty and responsible that they are missing. I want them to help someone.

On the other hand, I think everyone even remotely connected to the legal industry desperately wants to fix it. I think there’s a lot of guilt and shame and sorrow floating around out there. There’s fear and worry and uncertainty. Everybody wants to stop reading about lawyers and staff getting the axe.

Second, I know that if I keep slogging away I can put the Corporations pages back the way they were before the crash.

This is not going to happen in the world of law. It will never be the same. We have to accept this and let go. We don't have a choice.

As I read the news and talk to my friends, I feel a strange sense of history happening. Something is going on that will make our world, both in the overall and the specific, shift off its former track and become something that it never was before. I think I like this. It's a heady feeling.

Life has become unpredictable because the past no longer feels like an accurate reference. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I feel frightened and excited. We are all like settlers moving into new country. We don’t know what lies ahead, but we’re going because we hope it’s good. We’re also going because in this case it beats the alternative.

Finally, to come full circle, we fall back into sync.

I know that when I am finally finished with my slow, steady work on them, the Corporations pages will be better than they were before the crash. I have discovered that I can’t do it all at once, but I know that I can, indeed, do it.

I know that I cannot fix the legal industry. I can and do hope that these, my small contributions, may provide a tiny bit of help. But, because I am at heart a naïve and foolish optimist, I have to believe that same kind of slow, steady work will eventually make the legal world, including both users and providers, better than it was before. Obviously, this model no longer works. We need new things.

 The possibilities are endless. Just think of history happening.

Please accept my deepest apologies. I know that both pages of Corporations are useless. I don't know how or why they became so, but I assume I did something wrong. I have been rebuilding them for the past three days and have just re-completed Georgia. So that leaves everything through Wisconsin, including (shudder) New York. I'm going as fast as I can and hope at least to have A-M up and running by the end of the day tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.

UL

Twitter is a fun and interesting networking site where you “hear” or “tweet” the most amazing things: people tell you exactly what they’re doing at any given moment; advertise and promote their own work; lend support to others; discuss ideas or others’ publications; and take firm stands, either for or against the ideas of others. I enjoy singing with these twittering birds. I laugh, I'm bewildered; I'm torn, which makes me think. And it's all in 140 characters or less.

Your Unemployed Lawyer has had three such interactions over the past two days; and, as they’ve all struck me so differently, I’d like to write about them here.

First, there was an exchange between me and a most delightful seeming enterprise out of New Jersey, known as Little Jimmy’s Italian Ice, which, for reasons I cannot fathom, signed up to “follow” the Unemployed Lawyer on Twitter. How intriguing! I still don’t know why an Italian Ice company wants to receive all the notices an out-of-work attorney posts on Twitter, but I was happy to tell Jim, when he wrote to me directly, that my favorite flavor was lemon. I’m still smiling about it.

Then there’s Susan Cartier Liebel, long a supporter of this website and a champion of the solo practitioner. In addition, she is getting ready to open Solo Practice University. Susan “tweeted” that she “didn’t understand how a lawyer could be unemployed”. Susan is a bold and enterprising spirit, with seemingly endless energy and a true passion for what she does. And she does it extremely well. Of course she doesn’t understand.

She doesn’t understand that some of us are afraid to practice alone or would simply miss the presence of colleagues and the excitement of brainstorming. She doesn’t understand that, even for those who have overcome this obstacle, the banks which have received so much money are not exactly putting it back in circulation right now, and that some lack the start-up funds to get an office going. Some can’t find partners that make them feel comfortable. Some have practiced for 10-15 years in areas that simply don’t transfer to solo practice (e.g., M&A, corporate bankruptcy, securities, corporate governance) and have no idea how to do a real estate closing, a will, or any of the more personal tasks a sole practitioner likely performs. I won’t say such are not more personally rewarding; but I am saying that to take them up means throwing your entire prior career away.

Add to this mix that small firms, including solo practices, are no different from BigLaw firms, in that they have to bring in business or fold. It seems to me that if every unemployed lawyer (and they number in the thousands with widely varied levels of experience) now opened a solo practice, we’d soon have a glut on the market, Darwinian selection would begin, banks would call in loans, and we would soon be back to a large number of unemployed lawyers. Just my opinion.

Finally, there is the great debate over a new public law school to be opened in Dallas, Texas at the University of North Texas. This school is due to begin classes in Fall 2010.

Your Unemployed Lawyer has been mulling over a piece on law schools for some time, but Brian Cuban (The Cuban Revolution) and Chuck Newton (Chuck Rides the Rides the Third Wave) have gotten the first licks in. I am extremely interested in this debate because I can’t imagine why anybody would willingly matriculate at any law school at this time. Not only are BigLaw firms getting rid of people, but mid size firms, and small firms, too. They just don’t get as much attention.

Brian writes persuasively, but painfully, that the proposed public law school will create only more unemployed lawyers from the minute that the first graduates receive their diplomas. He reasons that if Yale, Harvard, U of C, etc., graduates are presently unemployable, then graduates from the supposed public school will, per se, be unemployable. Unfortunately, I agree. Why make more of what nobody wants, either at Yale or at UNT?

Now, the automatic distinction between UNT and Harvard or Yale is one to which I take great exception. I have worked with many stupid, sloppy, careless, indifferent lawyers from “top” schools. Some could not even spell or write a normal sentence. I will, however, save that for another day.

Chuck writes that the UNT Law School will offer “the opportunity for a good, more cost effective, legal education in a major metropolitan area that is not served by a public law school”.  I agree with that as well. I agree that education should be available to all who wish to receive it. I agree with Chuck that, in principle, this new law school, the only one of its kind in a major metropolitan area, is likely to do much good. At another time. We don’t need more lawyers right now, when many of the lawyers we have are already suffering. My opinion.

I have had the fantasy that we could put all law schools on hiatus for three years, and instantly thought of the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, let alone how many statutes, common law precedents and other legal barriers. However, if we could swing it, we could put the professors to work determining what has happened to get us here and why. They could make recommendations for change. There would be no more heartrending letters from recent grads fired before they even started work. Law firms might develop openings that would have to be filled by lawyers already out there. We could contemplate the professorial findings. My friends and I could pay our bills. Life wouldn’t have to feel so sad. We could all go out for Italian Ice at Little Jimmy’s and eat our treats on a sunny day with our feet paddling in the blue Atlantic. We could even try the blue ice. I wonder what that tastes like.

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[1] Universal Pictures, 1963, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren.

The headline of this morning’s The Wall Street Journal, always a cheerful read these days, has given your Unemployed Lawyer pause. Stocks are now down 50% from their peak 16 months ago. It’s very hard to take in and it reduces me to a kind of stunned pity.

I imagine it will only wreak havoc at already havoc-ridden law firms and am certain that it’s likely to create even more unemployed lawyers. It will certainly drill even deeper the pit of misery in which we all are floundering. Think it through like ...<< MORE >>