How is the Credit Crunch affecting the legal world?
This isnt a heart felt meaningful conversation, just a bullet point PERSONAL opinion from a usually tetchy but recently quite chipper old buzzard (thats me by the way):
PERSONAL INJURY - Frankly, times have never been better. More people want to claim, (sometimes for the wrong reasons), more people are aware of their rights and those that arent - use the web to get educated. Happy days!!
HOUSING LAW - Good times! Repo's are sadly on the way up and this is a great sector to be in for the privileged few who inhabit this strange world
DIVORCE - Quiet time of year for Family lawyers usually but come January, credit crunch or no, its open season. Surprisingly, the feedback Im getting from Family lawyers is that the Crunch really isnt impacting on business volumes significantly.
WILLS, PROBATE - Pardon the obvious pun but our Wills dept is as dead as a Dodo. Before long Im afraid people will be let go. Wills are a luxury not a necessity and new clients are simply not being found. You can only flat line for so long without cost cutting, Probate fortunately tends to be a steady sector, people dont stop dying just because were in a Crunch.
EMPLOYMENT LAW - Busy as hell with people getting sacked / made redundant / victimised etc. Our employment boys are thriving but again, as with PI, this is a reflection of the negativity brought by the Crunch. Good times, but grim work.
COMMERCIAL LAW - Mergers, Acquisitions, partnerships aplenty. Commercial / Corporate lawyers never go hungry - not the good ones anyway.
INSOLVENCY - Booming sector, in our firm at least. Absolutely huge volumes coming through and increasingly, people are happy to deal with lawyers rather than Debt Sharks
CONVEYANCING - Ive saved the worst till last. Pity the poor sods who chose conveyancing for a career. Lets be honest, weve had lean times before but this is as bad as anyone Ive spoken to can remember. One of our chaps has had 40 years in the business and has never known anything like it. There is no good news, there is no advice one can give other than get out now and re-train. We may have 2 years of utter drudgery ahead of us in the housing market. Dont sit it out waiting for the axe to fall.
Help your fellow lawyer to survive...dont assume your job is safe.....look at retraining...look at working for a larger firm...dont shaft yourself by being an arse at the Christmas party.....and FINALLY
Dont let the buggers get you down!
