The future is not what it used to be

This week is full of forecasts. The WSJ Law Blog discusses the “future of associate pay.” AmLaw Daily rounds up various doom and gloom stories under the encouraging headline “Is the Associate Apocalypse Upon Us?” while The American Lawyer Fall 2009 Student Edition considers the future of BigLaw in “Don’t Look Back”. Vault’s Phil Stott has been blogging from the World Business Forum here in New York (lots of tidbits available on Pink Slipped). This morning, a handful of industry experts aired their views at a Vault-hosted discussion on the future of banking (for more on the panel’s insights, see Brian’s recap below and Stephanie Myers’s posts in Vault’s Finance Careers Blog). And New York Times reporter Adam Liptak previews the new Supreme Court term, noting that it “will be dominated by cases concerning corporations, compensation and the financial markets that could signal the justices’ attitude toward regulatory constraints at a time of extraordinary government intervention in the economy.”

While the recession and its attendant shake-up of the legal and financial sectors are disturbing to say the least, there is also something encouraging—even inspiring—about the necessity opportunity to go “off-label” in pursuit of a fulfilling career. At least that’s my silver-lined outlook today…

- posted by vera

“I’ve seen the future! And it’s a bald-headed man from New York!”
(Could it be this guy?)