Employment during the Recession

Those who have jobs during the current recession should count themselves very blessed and those of us who are looking for jobs have reason to feel blessed also.  If your regular position has been downsized or your company shuttered, the recession gives you (and me) a chance to open yourself up to the possibility of trying the career change that you have always dreamed about.    And why not?   Law firms are downsizing, clients are nit-picking bills that they use to pay without a second glance and  debt collection is one of the major growing areas of  employment and law (that alone is enough to make a barrister jump ship or court).   Therefore, perhaps, you can use the time to consider becoming a school teacher, radio disc jockey, talk show host and for the not so faint of heart an entertainer.  I didn’t say what kind of entertainer;  I will leave that up to you and your fantasy job daydreams.  As for me, I will post thoughts on the job market (hopefully not all grim news) and attempt to infuse those posts with thoughts of positivity .  When I  am not doing that, I will post some employment law news that you can use.  So here is to beginning – again?

Why was there a death in the office?

The November 2009 ABA Journal article ” A Death in the Office” by Richard B. Schmitt” provided me with a sobering reality check.  I was struck with sadness after reading about the real life mysterious death of a fellow lawyer who committed suicide in his office.  It was not just the mystery surrounding his death or that he took his own life that struck me, but it was the circumstances surrounding his untimely demise.  Why should a man, such as Mark Levy who was by all accounts gifted, talented and smart end his life because of a job loss.  It appears that Mr. Levy had discussed his plans with no one and that no one knew of  his obvious growing distress and profound sadness.  After reading the article, I prompted my husband a physician to read it.  He also seemed quite shocked after reading the article.  We were both at a loss as to how there could be no place for this man.  Sure, Mr. Levy’s firm may have been changing directions and perhaps could no longer afford to have a Supreme Court power house lawyer on staff – but surely there was somewhere for him to go.  As my husband said, this man had skills that the younger generation could only one day hope to learn.   Do we really view other human beings as matters to be discarded so easily and without a passing thought as to how one will fare. 

 I read in the article how Mr. Levy was viewed as extremely intelligent and skillful, but without the much required ability to cultivate clients and therefore business in the world of  law as we now know it.  It is as we all know —  excellent practitioner skills are not enough.   The article remarked how Mr. Levy provided services for a legal organization that he could have hit on for future work, but that he was content and naive enough to perform the job well and believe that it would be sufficient perhaps to garner him work in the future.  It didn’t.  One must be a rainmaker also.  So let us all take heed that our skills should be impeccable because not only does our noble profession require them to be so,  but ultimately, because we do. Additionally we should act on the nudge that we should always follow up with potential new clients and grow, grow, grow that portable client base. Finally, we should also appreciate our colleague in the office across the hall and keep in touch with them also.

Perhaps, Mr. Levy’s firm could have allowed him the use of his office until he garnered new employment, instead of giving him a firm two weeks deadline for severing all connections to the firm.  I am not writing this to scold his his former employers, but to admonish all of us that in this changing world economy we must all be sensitive to our fellow lawyers.  With law firms downsizing, solo firms closing and the frenzy to find new employment to sustain our out of control lifestyle for bigger and better we are all susceptible to feeling as if the pressure is overwhelming.  I simply pause to salute this fallen lion and mourn the fact that he will roar no more.   I hope that his life and death provide profound lessons for the legal profession – not only how to practice law, but more importantly how we need to live inside our firm and outside of  our practice.

Invisible Women

The use of statistical evidence was reserved for class action discrimination cases but now statsitics  are even used in single employee situations.   This surprising fact begs the question why and for me throws the entire premise as to why we ever used statistics into question.     Sure, when you have a large number of employees and you are trying to show the historical and systemic effect of discrimination statistics are useful and downright illuminating.   However, the usefulness of statistics in single employee situations by the employer is usually an attempt to skew the evidence in a manner that is more favorable to the employer and probably not at all relevant to the case at bar.  For instance,  recently, I read an article in More magazine about the invisible woman in corporate America — black women.   Statistics were used to show how white women have outpaced black women in their ascent up the corporate ladder, despite the fact that black women in the workforce are not a new phenomena.  Black women have always worked whether it was the fields, the big house, someone’s kitchen, minding children, the classroom and yes finally the board and courtrooms. Black women have always worked.

The author said she was prompted to write this article because of the “large”  number of black women that the Obama administration has chosen to employ.    The writer in More questioned if black women were enough of a corporate presence and whether this new phenomena evinced by the Obama adminstration would catch on with the rest of corporate america.   The More magazine article went on to quote some grim statistics, for example [a]ccording to Catalyst, a New York–based research firm that studies women in business, that while African-American women hold only five percent of all managerial, professional and related positions in corporate america ; white women hold 41 percent.”. Grim indeed. Women of color are similarly scarce on corporate boards. And until Ursula Burns was tapped earlier this year to head Xerox, there were no black female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.  Yet, in the decade between 1996 and 2007, the number of black women getting master’s degrees increased 130 percent, while the increase for white women was only a paltry 38 percent.  More Magazine, October 2009, Wiltz, T.

On the other hand, Essence, the leading magazine for women of color lauded the appointment of these women and presented them as if were they norm for corporate America.   While both articles have some truth, it was the negative statistics that I could not get out of my head and I as pondered it I thought about Sonia Sotomayor who I cheered for and wanted to see confirmed as Supreme Court Justice, but at the same time felt a great sense of sadness and injustice that black women were still not represented on the great judicial body of the Supreme Court. What made this appointment particularly bittersweet was that it came from Barack Obama, our first black president, himself a black lawyer and married to a black lawyer. If anyone knows the struggle of blacks in the law – to get the same shot a plum schools, judicial clerkships, internships and first time job opportunities, it is Barack and Michelle. Ivy League graduates but neither stayed and made the cut at white shoe law firms.

The statistics quoted clearly show that the number of black women graduating from college and achieving professional and graduate degrees and their current place in the corporate, academic and even in the government hierarchy is unbalanced.  Certainly, in employment statitstics speak reflecting  a higher than a two standard deviation point range.  While this information is sobering it is not surprising.  Further, it clearly elucidates who the major benefactors of affirmation action have been   –  white women.  Yet, we have white men and white women who spit venom and become vitrolic at the mention of affirmative action as if it has somehow benefitted some group other than them.  Yes, affirmative action has benefited white males for all of the Newt Gingrichs and Rush Limbaughs who rail against it.  Just think who do white women marry most often – white men.  And if white women are receiving  higher paying jobs and ascending the corporate ladder more – their spouses and children are also benefitting.    Affirmative action has had very little affect in the African-American community.  Affirmative action continues to remain a concept that the community could benefit from but much like integrating the schools it has never happened and remains in dire need.   I suppose I have to change the name of this article to the “True Benefirciaries of Affirmative Action”.

“The Obama administration has given us an image that’s very new today but 20 years from now will be extraordinarily normal,” says Ella LJ Edmondson Bell, associate professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and author of Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity. “This is the first time in our history that we have been able to get a glimpse of what a multiracial workforce looks like, particularly in the White House.

We shall see.

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