Thanks to the weather, my sinuses still hate me today so I started my online job search a little later than I had intended. I went by Craigslist first, and I was surprised by what I found there. For once, the legal job page wasn't filled with hundreds of paralegal openings and temporary agencies trying to trick unemployed lawyers like myself into applying for document review positions that don't yet exist just so that they can have a big pile of resumes to show to potential clients. Instead, there was only a handful of each and even fewer attorney positions.I knew that the economy was bad. The evening news is proof of that, but I didn't know that it was so bad that lawyers are actually doing their own work. Apparently, attorneys everywhere are cutting short their billable lunches, laying down their golf clubs, and turning their backs on speeding ambulances to--get this--pick up their keyboards and type. Not only that, but they're calling their clients and judges' law clerks personally. They're learning how to use Westlaw. They're finally breaking in their office chairs. They're actually working.
I know I'm reading way too much into Craigslist. We may be in a recession, but hell hasn't frozen over yet. The truth of the matter is that the attorneys are probably doing as they always have, while the paralegals are the ones who are having to work longer hours with twice the caseload and half the pay. Given the economy, this joke may hold true as well:
Two lawyers met at a cocktail party late one night.
"How's business?" asked the first lawyer.
"Rotten," replied the other. "Yesterday, I chased an ambulance for twenty miles. When I finally caught up to it, there were already two other lawyers hanging onto the bumper."
