Author’s note: In a previous column, “Five Sobering Trends Could Impact Younger Lawyers,” I offered five predictions as to how the recession might affect younger lawyers. In this column, those predictions will be assessed. In a future column, I will offer five more projections, which are more global and, thankfully, more positive.
The five earlier predictions were that law schools would focus more heavily on providing practice-based education; law firms, especially the so-called megafirms, would decrease their entry-level hiring; starting law firm salaries would decline or at least stay flat; small and midsize law firms would have a deeper pool of lawyers available for direct hiring from law schools; and the death or decline of traditional (and expensive) summer programs would be on the horizon.
