Some Law Firms Begin Temporarily Farming Out High-Priced, Surplus Junior Attorneys By Placing Them On Loan With Public Interest Practices

The Associated Press reports:

• [A]cross the country, the junior end of the law firm hierarchy has been taking the brunt of layoffs, pay freezes and furloughs as business shrinks and firms trim their payrolls. Summer associate programs are being scrapped or reduced, and many spring law school graduates who were promised positions for the fall are being asked to delay their start date for as long as a year.

• But one silver lining is the altruistic use to which some firms are putting their surplus lawyers, seconding them to defend the poor, champion worthy causes or provide full-time pro bono lawyering.

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• Public-interest work fellowships are being offered to a handful of associates in Los Angeles and Chicago as the firm searches for productive ways of weathering the economic downturn, said Anne E. Rea, managing partner of the California offices of Sidley [Austin LLP], a global firm with 1,800 lawyers.

For more, see Law firms give associates a chance to build skills while doing good (Rather than lay off junior lawyers, some firms are lending them to public interest practices where they can handle weightier issues and gain courtroom experience).