Posted on 07/27/2014 4:04:01 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Ask Jason Fraser how many jobs he applied for after graduating from a St. Petersburg law school last year and this is what he says:
Maybe 10 or 20 when it was some place I wanted to work. Maybe 50 when I started getting desperate.
After searching as far afield as Ocala and Miami, Fraser finally landed a public defenders post in Pasco County in June. But his months of job-hunting raises another question, one that nags at many in the legal profession:
Does Florida have too many lawyers?
Since 2000, the number of licensed attorneys has swollen from 60,900 to 96,511. In the same period, five new law schools have opened, cranking out even more lawyers to join those bemoaning the diminished rewards of their chosen career.
Now it seems you work harder to make half of what you did in 1998, said Angela Wright, a Tampa criminal defense lawyer. The economy is a reason but also the fact there are a whole lot more attorneys.........
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Too many lawyers. That is why I chose to not go to law school.
All you see on daytime TV are ads from lawyers about bankruptcies, SSDI applications, lawsuits on drug or medical device use, accidents with trucks, assaults in apartment complexes, workers compensation claims, auto accident claims - you name it. Filled to the gills with lawyers.
Supply & demand works? Who knew?
I’ve seen this first hand with a relative - not in Florida, but in Ohio. She finally got a job with an natural gas energy company where she verifies the ownership of the leased land. It’s contract work, but she makes enough to live and make a dent in the loans. Most importantly, it’s experience that should lead to something more long term.
A couple of years ago, I saw a blurb about the UCal system adding yet another law school, when the economics of the legal profession were already consolidating.
The "education" system has its own reality.
now lets make it happen with doctors
The big firms outsource the grunt work to India.
“Does Florida have too many lawyers?”
Yes and so does the rest of the country. Like the phone
companies caller ID block, block unblock and block unblock
block. The lawyers in this country are the worlds worst at
creating a demand and filling it. There are no telling how
many laws out there that were passed and put into place just
to employ lawyers. The old saying “a man who represents
himself has a fool for a client” the laws are so ambiguous and
the courts so bureaucratic that an innocent man can
get convicted simply for not having the proper paperwork
to present evidence in his defense.
Also I think that being a lawyer and a politician is a
conflict of interest. What does a lawyer know about energy,
agriculture, education and health when all they are taught
is bureaucratic navigation. Not to mention tort.
There are a lot of problems in this country that are
crated by the saturation of the field. The more lawyers
the more laws. They are going to have to do something
to continue getting those high fees. Maybe they will do
like they did with Obamacare, make it a mandate to
keep a lawyer on retainer.
“Supply & demand works? Who knew?”
Especially when you get to create the demand and fill it.
Sounds like Obama wants to hire truckloads of immigration lawyers. Just what we need.
I hadn’t connected the two, but for him it would be killing two birds with one stone. Hire worthless grads, entrench illegals in our legal system.
According to NCEES, there are only about 22,000 Professional Engineers in Florida, with an additional 15,000 who live out of state. When your lawyers greatly outnumber the engineers, is this a good thing or a bad thing?
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
Comes the dawn of the minimum wage lawyer. Sometimes success does not bring good fortune.
Florida has to many blood sucking bottom feeders, they advertise constantly on TV around here wanting to sue anyone for anything. No wonder nobody wants to accept responsibly any more, jump on the free money bandwagon sue someone.
Something I've been saying for years. We are in bad need of loser pays and refunds and penalties for suits that later turn out baseless.
Many secretarial positions were eliminated by word processing programs and such (across the spectrum of industries). My boss has a secretary, and she is always scrambling to find work (doing filing or anything at all) in other departments because the reality is that at best it would be a part-time position. My predecessor had a secretary, and when she left I didn’t replace her - I do it myself.
It’s a versatile degree nonetheless. She should do well.
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