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March 5, 2009

David Bilinsky

A Disturbing Trend…

♫ They used to tell me
I was building a dream.
And so I followed the mob
…
Brother, can you spare a dime? ♫

Lyrics by Yip Harburg and music by: Jay Gorney.

There is one magical quality of a picture – it can convey information in a manner that drives home a point faster than text could ever hope to do.

Accordingly it is one thing to read about the layoffs in the legal profession in a serial fashion in the news – it is entirely another to see that same information graphed and displayed in living colour.

When I came across the Layoff Tracker on LawShucks.com, it made me realize not only the numbers of people being laid off but also the geometric growth of same over time.

This particular chart certainly had the most impact for me:

2009 Year to Date Law Firm Layoffs

2009 Year to Date Law Firm Layoffs

LawShucks reports:

“There have been 2,915 (1,231 attorneys, 1,684 staff) in calendar 2009 – 1,375 (537 attorneys, 838 staff) in February alone.”

Now these stats are American, but they certainly bring home the depth of the difficulties south of the border. One can only hope that this particular trend starts leveling off and turning around before many more people's lives are thrown into turmoil and people are in search of their next dime…

David J. Bilinsky is a lawyer and Practice Management Consultant. His area of expertise is enhancing a law firm¹s profitability, developing strategic business planning and applying technology to the practice of law. Dave's mission in life is to empower lawyers to anticipate the changes, realize the opportunities, face the challenges and embrace the expanding possibilities of the application of practice management concepts to the practice of law in innovative ways that provide service excellence. He is the founder and current Chair of the Pacific Legal Technology Conference. You can visit his blog at: www.thoughtfullaw.com.
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2 Comments on “A Disturbing Trend…”

  1. David Bilinsky says:
    March 6, 2009 at 11:04 am

    Greetings:

    The mayhem continues…The ABA Journal reports layoffs of nearly 1500 this last week alone..

    http://www.abajournal.com/weekly/march_mayhem_law_firm_layoffs_top_500_today_over_1200_since_friday

    Good friends are now among the carnage..

    Regards,

    Dave
    daveb@thoughtfullaw.com

  2. David Bilinsky says:
    March 6, 2009 at 11:07 am

    ..and the New York Times is reporting 651,000 jobs lost in February:

    http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

    Dave

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