Ryan & Partners PC, Saratoga.
BY JAMES T. TOWNE, ESQ.
Growing up most of us heard the French
proverb “the more things change the more they
remain the same” at least once from our parents.
So, too, it applies to the state of the legal profession
in upstate New York, which continues following
a pattern ongoing since the start of the
Great Recession in 2008-09.
Part of the barometer for the profession’s
condition can be measured by the condition of
New York’s law schools. They prime the pump
of the profession.
In the first decade of the century, they flooded
the profession’s engine, leading to a lack of jobs
and entry level opportunities. In recent years,
New York’s law schools showed a continuing
decline in enrollment as those schools continued
to shrink faculty and admissions in an effort to
catch up with the realities of employment in
the profession.
In 2015, 11,565 students enrolled in New York
law schools, down from 12,033 (3 percent) the
year before. New York lagged the national trend
which showed the total number of students
fell by almost 6,000 or a 5 percent decrease in
national enrollment. The National Association
for Law Placement found that overall employment
for recent law graduates fell for the sixth
straight year in 2013 (to 84.5 percent) and that
unemployment among 2013 grads was 12.9
percent, nearly double the national unemployment
average for the same period of 6.6 percent.
But with unemployment at a low of nearly 4
percent for the Capital District and residential
and commercial real estate transactions continuing
their ever stronger rebound–always
a strong signal for law firms engaging in that
practice area–the legal profession in the Capital
District continues on a solid footing.
And using personal and business bankruptcy
filings as another measure of the local
economy, while a decline may be bad for bankruptcy
practitioners, it is an overall indicator of
a strengthening economy that can only portend
well for the profession as a whole as business
failures decrease and personal financial well
being increases.
In 2013, there were 7,838 bankruptcy filings
in the Capital District. In 2014, there were
7,177, a drop of 8.5 percent; and in 2015 there
were 6,671, a drop of 7.1 percent. While a yearon-
year decline of 8.5 percent and 7.1 percent,
respectively, may seem modest, looking at a
decline of bankruptcy filings of 14.9 percent
over two years helps put in perspective the
relative strength the Capital District’s economy
is experiencing.
So what are the profession’s prospects and
hurdles in 2016?
There is no question that the market for legal
services has permanently changed as clients seek
for different ways to deal with legal problems,
including re-assessing fee arrangements. Clients
seek creative ways to deal with the billing structures
of law firms. Alternative fee arrangements
represent a major change from the “old days”
when firms performed the services and simply
billed by the hour. Now the relationship is seen
as more of a partnership between attorney and
client on both the legal and business side where
clients and law firms will have to work more
closely on the business aspects of the attorney-client
relationship and how to make it successful
for both parties rather than confined merely to
the legal part of the relationship as in the past.
Part of this evolving process involves exploring
alternative fee agreements, dispute resolution
alternatives, as well as seeking out law firms
with unique practice skills or with additional
attributes beneficial to the client’s needs.
“Business as usual” is now a waning occurrence
as clients seek a law firm with the best
skill set for the client’s needed practice area or
seek to leverage the added benefits a law firm
may possess such as that afforded by certified
minority status. 2016 should be an exciting year
as these trends continue to evolve.