Apologies
Apologies to any/all of those readers for whom this site is simply taking up space in their RSS readers and bookmarks. What with a month on holiday over Christmas and now the workload associated with the LPC final exams in February, I have utterly neglected this site. I will try to make amends over the coming few weeks but I don’t expect to be adding much until the end of February!
In the meantime, try this post and its follow up for an hilarious account of due diligence!
Banking & Legal Recruitment
Banking & Legal Recruitment - Legal Week
The Legal Week editor’s blog draws attention to the supposed leverage banking associates have in pay discussions: that they will leave for an investment bank, which will gladly take them on AND pay them more…
The past two months have put such claims to the test. Tremors in the credit markets have seen banking giants including UBS, Citi, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers announce profit downgrades over the past few weeks ahead of their quarterly results.
Now there is the threat of redundancy for in-house lawyers, while the banks’ ability to hire will be significantly hit.
Legal Week’s investigations were largely met by a wall of silence, but common sense would dictate that amid the current uncertainties, it is likely that banks are less likely to be hiring in-house lawyers…but to what degree is unclear.
“Banking Parner” makes an interesting point though:
I think the author has missed the point a little, as has much of the legal press for some time. The really good banking lawyers have been leaving to join banks not as in-house lawyers but as transaction managers (i.e. commercial, non-legal roles) as investment banks suddenly realised that lawyers were actually rather good at running deals.The brutal truth is that those who have joined banks as in-house lawyers are less likely to be the stars than the lawyers who joined banks in non-legal roles. And it is the stars that firms miss the most.
A simplistic view perhaps, but worth bearing in mind if you’re thinking of a change of employer! Comments welcome.
What I’ve been reading
Pre-Budget Report 2007 Summary from Mondaq
Introduction to MiFiD from Mondaq
City set for bank vs bank credit crunch clashes from Legal Week
Leveraged Buyout Bust By-Product: Lawsuits from DealLawyers.com
Oh, and lots and lots of textbooks!
GDL Funding
As I am lucky enough to be sponsored for my current LPC course, the days of arranging loans to fund my legal studies have long gone, with my Career Development Loan fully paid off two months ago. I was therefore surprised to read in Legal Week that Barclay’s have turned down applications by students starting the ‘conversion course’ for a CDL. The Learning & Skills Council has ‘clarified’ the issue by announcing that GDL students should never have been eligible for such loans. Mine was provided through Royal Bank of Scotland and I was never in any doubt as to whether I was eligible, having read through the application form and terms and conditions.
As Legal Week writes:
Indeed, to be perfectly frank I’m not entirely sure why CDLs aren’t available for law conversion courses. The rules say the loans are available only for courses that lead directly to employment. Admittedly, the GDL does in most cases lead only to the Legal Practice Course. But why else would anyone want to complete the GDL other than to qualify as a lawyer?
I have been told time and time again that it’s a definite positive to have studied Economics and Politics before starting my law career, but this decision may have the (probably undesired) effect of encouraging more students to study for a law degree immediately, passing up on the opportunity to gain valuable knowledge and expertise in another area which can then be applied to their legal studies at a later date:
Because if you’re even remotely interested in qualifying as a lawyer it’s safer to study law than to face a bill worth thousands of pounds to pay for a conversion course when an important source of funding has suddenly dried up.
Economics of a Law Practice
What Every Lawyer Should Know About the Economics of a Law Practice
The above introduction to the economics of a law firm, while having a US focus, is useful for its information on increasing leverage by usefully delegating work to associates.
Why do so many lawyers know so little about the economics of practicing their profession? Not surprisingly, it’s because their law school education did not address any of the business aspects of practicing law. So most young lawyers join law firms with little understanding of how they operate and without a clue as to what it takes to make a law practice successful and profitable. Many lawyers, especially those who join large firms, manage never to master these concepts — and, in many cases, work hard at avoiding them.
I’m happy to say that my LPC provider now offers such a course, especially useful for those students with no business or economic background. It will hopefully prevent some future lawyers from entering what M. Morrione refers to as the ‘institutional cocoon’.