Welcome to UnemployedLawyers
It's no stigma anymore. It's happening everywhere, to everyone. It's happening to your friends and colleagues. Maybe it's happened to you. Maybe you're afraid it's going to happen to you. What happens when law firms are letting lawyers and staff go in double-digit numbers? It's not like all those people can just lateral over to some other firm. Some other firm is also letting people go in double-digit numbers. If you're senior or a partner, you'd better have a book of business, but if you'd had a book of business, you wouldn't have been on the hit list in the first place, would you?
It feels like the end of the world. We all went to expensive schools for three long years. We stayed up all night studying. We even gained an understanding of the Rule Against Perpetuities.[i]
When we finished with the expensive schools, we started our high-paying jobs so we could pay our student loans. We still stayed up all night working.
We began to feel comfortable and competent in our profession. We got married, bought homes, had children. We still stayed up all night working, but sometimes the case was so exhilarating that we just didn't care. Our ideas mattered. Or voices were heard. We really were lawyers, even if the work was grindingly hard. We had a future in front of us.
Oops! All our former employers just dropped a bunch of futures right out the window. Where does that leave us now? We still have the marriages, the mortgages, the kids. Some of still have the student loans. We still have our 401(k)s, but those are now good for a couple of beers to cry in.
I started this site hoping to take some of the pain away. As we go along, the site will contain links to highly recommended headhunters, career counselors, contract employers, and anything else that anyone thinks might be helpful. I also hope that you will use it as in information exchange, e.g. "i just interviewed at Firm X. They didn't want me, but they might want you."
This site is also for gossip and pissing and moaning, if you absolutely have to get it off your chest, but it's not a snipe site. It's a site for all of us, unemployed lawyers and unemployed staff, to help each other. Together, all our great minds should be able to overcome the disastrous Reversal of Fortune the legal profession has dealt us. Let's take our futures back!
[i] If you want to see the Rule Against Perpetuities put to steaming, sexy use, rent Body Heat, with Kathleen Turner and William Hurt.
It feels like the end of the world. We all went to expensive schools for three long years. We stayed up all night studying. We even gained an understanding of the Rule Against Perpetuities.[i]
When we finished with the expensive schools, we started our high-paying jobs so we could pay our student loans. We still stayed up all night working.
We began to feel comfortable and competent in our profession. We got married, bought homes, had children. We still stayed up all night working, but sometimes the case was so exhilarating that we just didn't care. Our ideas mattered. Or voices were heard. We really were lawyers, even if the work was grindingly hard. We had a future in front of us.
Oops! All our former employers just dropped a bunch of futures right out the window. Where does that leave us now? We still have the marriages, the mortgages, the kids. Some of still have the student loans. We still have our 401(k)s, but those are now good for a couple of beers to cry in.
I started this site hoping to take some of the pain away. As we go along, the site will contain links to highly recommended headhunters, career counselors, contract employers, and anything else that anyone thinks might be helpful. I also hope that you will use it as in information exchange, e.g. "i just interviewed at Firm X. They didn't want me, but they might want you."
This site is also for gossip and pissing and moaning, if you absolutely have to get it off your chest, but it's not a snipe site. It's a site for all of us, unemployed lawyers and unemployed staff, to help each other. Together, all our great minds should be able to overcome the disastrous Reversal of Fortune the legal profession has dealt us. Let's take our futures back!
[i] If you want to see the Rule Against Perpetuities put to steaming, sexy use, rent Body Heat, with Kathleen Turner and William Hurt.
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