Wow, Sometimes Posts Just Write Themselves

When I'm looking for hard truths backed up by clear evidence, you know the first place I go? The New York Times Fashion section.

I mean, some might look at this article, prominently posted on the front of the NYT website early on a Monday morning, and conclude that it is a fact-free trend piece specifically designed to bait New York lawyers and get to the top of the most emailed list. True, there are weasel words ("say many ... lawyers", "Many young associates ..."), evidence-free assertions ("Students are focusing now on starring in their own creations" ... uh, really?), and hilariously broad assumptions about youth culture ("Their attention span, everything, is instant feedback: quick, quick, quick"). But, really, check out this hard-hitting data:

The pay is still good (sometimes very good), and the in-laws aren’t exactly complaining. Still, something is missing, say many doctors, lawyers and career experts: the old sense of purpose, of respect, of living at the center of American society and embodying its definition of “success.”

Well, the Sense of Pride Index is down 42 points over the last six months and the Inflation-Adjusted Success Definition Embodiment Scale is the lowest it's been in decades. And don't even get me started on the Mueller-Greggs Erosion of Cachet numbers. Other evidence:

Nationally, the number of law school applicants dropped to 83,500 in 2006 from 98,700 in 2004—representing a 6.7 percent drop between 2006 and 2005, on top of the 5.2 percent slip the previous year, according to the Law School Admission Council.

In the year I applied (2002), law schools recorded their highest number of applications ever. So in 2002, by the article's logic, the law was at the height of its prestigey successoryness. Five years later and everything's gone to shit?

The rest of the article is gossipy tidbits (including an honest-to-god "somebody came up to me at a cocktail party" story!), a couple of timeless grievances, and the now-mandatory-in-every-Times-article "god, wouldn't it be great to be at a hedge fund?" boilerplate.

Okay, here' s my crack at this article: The 2001 recession made jobs straight out of college scarce. This led to a glut of law school applications, which have since abated as the white-collar economy has become stronger. Some of the applications were likely from people who would ordinarily have gone into other professions out of college, and were unfamiliar with the legal world. Meanwhile, Wall Street law firms, which have extraordinarily high levels of turnover to begin with, have recently seen a slight uptick in the number of young associates leaving. It is possible that some of this uptick is due to the people from the 2001-2002 law school glut entering the legal profession and becoming dissatisfied, although this is impossible to quantify. A reporter wishing to prey on the insecurities of young lawyers could theoretically use these tiny bits of data to spin a tale of an industry-wide decline. THE END.

(Alternate title for this blog: "The New York Times Legal Articles Blog")