The dicey economy and ongoing layoffs by many large law firms has caused many staff employees to pass on scheduled vacations. Several administrators have reported that their vacation usage for the first six months of 2009 will be about half of what it was last year. This coincides with a recent national survey showing that 20% of white collar employees are afraid of losing their job if they take a vacation and 71% who say they can't afford a vacation this year. As a result, the Opinion Research survey found that just 52% of employees took a vacation and a Conference Board study shows that the number of workers planning to take a vacation during the remainder of 2009 has fallen to a 30 year low.

All of this is a combination of good and bad news for law firms. Employees not taking vacation saves the disruption of employees being away from the job and saves the cost of temporaries. On the other hand, law firms are, in the best of times, high pressure places to work. Adding the fear of job loss and the perceived inability to take time off could result in errors, vindictive actions and interpersonal conflict. We know of several firms that are enforcing mandatory vacation policies, both to permit some relief from the pressures and to ensure that vacations are spread over the slower summer months and not jammed into the busier fourth quarter.

Just as many employers are creating greater flexibility for fathers, we find that fewer dads appear to be interested in taking on primary childcare responsibilities, even if their wife or significant other could comfortably carry the financial load for the entire family. According to the Working Dads 2009 survey 31% of U.S. men would give up work and become a stay-at-home child caregiver. That is down from 37% in 2008 and 49% in 2005.

The reaction of law firms to the economy has been all over the map when setting staff salaries. Some have been business as usual with modest cost-of-living increases. Others have taken the opportunity to reduce salaries, especially with new hires. And a large number of firms have frozen salaries in all but the most unusual cases. For law firm administrators there has never been a more difficult time to understand benchmarks in the legal industry. PayScale, a salary survey consultant, has published an excellent white paper, How to Perform Compensation Benchmarking and Set Salary Ranges. There is a reasonable amount of advertising inserted but, on balance, the white paper is valuable reading for anyone with compensation responsibilities. It's free on their website (www.payscale.com).

Although many law firms have taken steps to freeze salary levels and cut back on some benefits, the reductions do not appear to be affecting health care. Only 6% of businesses report that they have reduced or eliminated healthcare coverage but 26% have increased employee contributions to health plans. 

 

The New York office of a Midwestern law firm recently had more than 250 applicants in response to an advertisement for a paralegal position. With high unemployment, the availability of candidates has caused many law firms to attempt to recruit themselves, especially for relatively routine positions, rather than using recruitment agencies. The volume of applicants may require skills and a planned response that is different from a firm's experience. Here are some tips from firms accustomed to receiving a high volume of resumes:

1.      Place more requirements in ads. Law firms tend to err towards inclusion in advertisement with modifiers on requirements such as "preferred" or "a plus." Start by precisely defining the ideal candidate. You can always re-advertise with a broader criteria if you are not satisfied with the candidates. To reduce the number of unqualified candidates use declarative statements such as, "A bachelor's degree and at least five years of experience are absolutely required."

2.      Require on-line applications. Create a unique email address (paralegalapplication@smithlaw.com) and leave all other contact information out of the ad. Maintain the resumes on line and use an automatic responder to thank applicants and give them the screening process and timetable.

3.      Delegate screening. Create tough screening criteria and let the clerical staff reduce the number of viable candidates to 20 or less. Reject unqualified candidates with an immediate form email.

As of last week, 10,550 people have been laid off by major law firms (3,944 lawyers and 6,606 staff members) in 2009 according to the website Lawshucks.com. This is in addition to 930 lawyers and 1,062 staff laid off in 2008. In total this represents approximately 5 percent of practicing lawyers in the AmLaw200 and 7 1/2 percent of the total staff.