BROOKE FLANDERS – While more and more law school graduates are entering the job market, more and more firms are trimming their associate positions. According to a report by the National Association for Law Placement, the overall employment rate for law school graduates fell for the six year in a row, to 84.5%. Though it may not be the type of job most law school graduates imagined when they began law school, working as a freelance attorney is an option that law school graduates may need to consider.
For those law school graduates who are in the Millennial generation, those born between 1980 and 1995, working as a freelance attorney may actually be right up their alley. According to a study done by PwC, Millennial employees want greater flexibility and put a premium on work/life balance. Compared to working at a traditional law firm, working as a freelance attorney provides much more flexibility.
One type of freelance attorney is the “temporary contract lawyer.” Contract attorneys have been crucial to the legal force in places such as Washington D.C. Large, mid-size, and small law firms, hire these temporary contract lawyers, often through placement agencies.
Even though contract attorneys are not full time employees, a state appeals court in New York recently ruled that a law firm had to pay toward unemployment insurance for a contract attorney who worked with the firm for only two weeks. After unsuccessfully interviewing for an associate’s position at the firm, the attorney was hired as a contract lawyer and was provided with an office, desk, computer, receptionist, a firm email address and information technology support.Following the ruling, the law firm stated that the message seems to be “”under New York law, if you hire a contract attorney, unless you go to great lengths to make sure it is one of these independent contracting firms who do this kind of thing, you’d better expect to treat them as an employee relative to workers’ comp insurance, unemployment insurance and potentially other benefits.”
There are, of course, various drawbacks to working as a freelance attorney. Freelance attorneys, such as contract attorneys, do not have reliable paychecks and are paid significantly less than lawyers who work full-time at a firm.While law firms can bill hours to clients for hundreds of dollars per hour, contract attorneys are often only paid $25 to $40 per hour. And, while some contract attorneysbelieve they are entitled to receive overtime pay when their workweek exceeds 40 hours,a federal judge recently held that overtime pay was not required for contract attorneys. The U.S. District Judge found that although contract attorneys often perform routine work, the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act are not applicable because these lawyers are still professionals, making them exempt from the law’s overtime provisions.
Regardless of the drawbacks, however, law school graduates who find themselves without jobs come graduation should consider working as a freelance attorney because having a job is certainly better than having no job at all.
