Posted on October 1, 2008 by David Cowen

Job Security

I don’t know many people who woke up and said to themselves: “I think I want a career in litigation support or E-discovery.”  But I do think we are lucky to be in this industry.  For all the challenges, long hours, impossible deadlines and difficult egos that professionals in legal services deal with, we have the good fortune to be in a relatively recession proof industry right now.

If you’re in banking, brokerage or financial services you are experiencing a complete meltdown and loss of jobs. Many of those jobs are in information technology, systems, and programming.  What’s more, this crisis is certain to get worse before it gets better.  We will all see the continued loss of jobs in the financial services sector and elsewhere for some time to come. This will lead to a significant number of people trying to break into the legal silo.

How will all this talent flooding the market affect the legal technology job market?

Good question. But here’s the thing -  the legal silo has historically been reluctant to hire from financial services.  Why? Because financial technologists don’t stick around after the market rebounds.

When the market goes down, tech guys  from finance come running to legal. But the moment the market goes back up, those same individuals run back to banking brokerage and financial services…. and the big year-end bonuses that go with it.  Legal Human Resources professionals know this pattern all too well. The last major meltdown occurred during the “DotCom” bust in 2000. How many Wall Street guys are still around in the legal vertical from that last talent migration?

What’s more –the technical nuances of the legal vertical are different.  Database Analysts, Project Managers, and IT Managers from financial services cannot just walk in the door and run litigation support and/or E-Discovery practice groups.

If you are in litigation support, E-Discovery or practice technology you are in extremely good shape from a career standpoint. There are well over 300 open positions across the country in our industry.  Think about it:  How many of you work for a law firm, consultancy, vendor or corporation that has an open position in litigation support or E-discovery?

Very few financial technologists will be able to fill those shoes. That’s called “Job  Security.”  And in tough economic times, I call it “sleep factor” - a.k.a. the ability to sleep soundly at night as the world melts down around you.

Pleasant dreams everyone. :)

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Posted on June 10, 2008 by David Cowen

Job Security in a Slowing Economy

With only 5 full months of 2008 on the books, the list of casualties from the slowing economy is growing.  The Department of Labor released statistics Friday revealing that the legal sector lost 1,100 jobs in the month of May.  These figures, when added to the 1,900 losses from April, indicate a volatile job market.

Despite this sharp reduction in workforce, I continue to see solid growth and demand in e-discovery and litigation support across the AmLaw 200. 

 The Cowen Group conducted a quick poll on Monday of litigation support/e-discovery hiring trends among 20 global law firms.  Our poll revealed the following:

  •            65% are aggressively hiring litigation support staff.
  •            20% are on plan and will continue to staff.
  •            15% are cautious and/or scaling back.

These results are precisely what I saw last year at this time. Indicating healthy hiring activity in the litigation support space despite the sluggish economy.

Although several clients acknowledged a decline in business and case loads, they were quick to point out that the increase in size, scope and complexity of cases were keeping their headcounts high.

Several of the firms polled responded that they were adding services and staff to their litigation support practices this year. 

There’s nothing like the DOJ, SEC, FBI and a sub-prime meltdown to give one a sense of job security. 


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