La Vida Continua

Big Law continues to scramble to find ways to stay afloat, once again turning to the incoming associate class as a source of cost cutting. As the National Law Journal reports today DLA Piper, the largest Firm in the free world, has reduced the size of its first-year associate class entering the firm in January to 85, down from 100 last year. And only half of the 85 will actually work at the firm, while the other half go into public interest jobs and join the firm in the fall of 2010, said Frank Burch, the firm's global chairman. But it doesn't end there. Forget the old Big Law predictable lock-step associate compensation formula. And apparently, Big Law is going to place more emphasis on the dreaded contract/staff attorney, thereby divesting associates further of their worth to The Firm. (Look, I can't stand the annual locust-like influx of gunner associates either, but you have to admit there is something weird about contract attorneys.)

Anyhoo, the resultant uncertainty can't make for a happy summer for these newly minted law grads all bloated with their sense of entitlement and promise of filthy lucre. Rather than sit around fretting, I'd get a job waiting tables some where around here and blow it out, maybe for the last time before reality sets in. After all, the best revenge is living well.