The law is often seen as the perfect option in a recession. Good pay, humane hours and job security more than compensate for gruelling post graduate training. Recent indications, however, suggest that lawyers shouldn’t be so smug.

Far from a recession-proof panacea, solicitors are increasingly as vulnerable as notoriously unfortunate bankers. Legal Week reports that rising NQ salaries (often approaching £90,000) undermine firms’ abilities to shoulder the burden of expensive and under utilised junior lawyers. Quiet days, early nights and playful weekends might seem a dramatic and welcome change from last year’s dizzied frenzy, but salaried employees are expensive commodities, and their burden can soon outweigh their benefit. In the last slump Charles Russell and Jones Day both sacked in droves. Dickinson Dees led the charge this time round, with 17 redundancies in re-mortgaging.

Perhaps, however, there’s never been a better time for those working in insolvency and, controversially, divorce.

http://www.legalweek.com/Articles/1125926/Duck+the+downturn.html

http://www.financialpost.com/reports/story.html?id=645763