How Does 2012 Measure Up for GCCs?

I remember an article I read in 2007, where the vice president of Hughes & Sloan Inc had commented, “For corporations looking for lawyers, it's a buyer's market, so they can be picky about who gets in-house legal jobs.” 2007 was when the economy had suddenly realized and sullenly admitted that it was already in the depths of an acute recession.
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Come 2012, everyone is suddenly enthusiastic about ‘recovery.' Huge numbers and heartening data hit the headlines everyday bolstering the ‘feel good before the elections' effect, and punctually after a few days or weeks news appear quietly that the ‘previously published' data had been somehow inflated. However, the disclaimers do not make headlines. So, what does 2012 actually hold out for General Corporate Counsel?

A recent salary guide for 2012 published by Robert Half confirms things are getting better. A salary range of $130,750 for lawyers with 10-12 years' experience and a range of $64,000 to $98,250 seems promising enough. Lawyers with 1-3 years of experience are expected to fetch between $76,750 to $118,000, while those with 4-9 years of experience can expect between $96,750 and $184,000. Year on year, the report claims an expected increase of 3.4% in the salaries of lawyers with the most experience and a minimum of 1.9% increase in case of first-years.

The report by itself would have been cause to celebrate unless one took into account that the prices of everything including gas has gone up and that the inflation rate in 2012 has never fallen below 2.5% at least in the first three months so far reported. So,
in 2012, first-years would actually be earning less than what they did in 2011 in terms of real value, and the experienced lawyers can be thankful that they are not suffering more than they did in 2011.

So, at least, that takes care of the salary story with assurances that at least there is no indication of any steep drops and things would continue more or less as they are; but what about the number of jobs or job opportunities? The scene is one where you wouldn't like to take chances.

In 2010, while lamenting on U.S. News that jobs will be harder to come by, Katy Hopkins had quoted Jim Leipold, executive director of the National Association for Law Placement saying, “The Class of 2012 will be the first class for which we might see some kind of uptick in employment … I'm not making a prediction that it will recover in 2012; I'm saying it probably won't recover much before then.” Spoken like a true statesman: say everything, but deliver nothing.

Well, 2012 has arrived, and so has the uplifting comment of Jim Leipold once again. This time, he claims that the situation has “hit the bottom” and “I see no reason for it to continue on a downward spiral.” However, he admitted many law school grads are into paralegal work and that “there is no 3L hiring market.” According to him, “The days of the large summer classes are over. And they're not coming back.”

The demand of sophisticated services being irrelevant, the recently published Peer Monitor Index of the Hildebrandt Institute for Q1, 2012 shows that while the demand for legal services is inching up, general corporate work dropped by 6% as opposed to practice in capital-market related areas, which grew by 6% and labor and employment related areas which rose by 5%.
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If morning shows the day, then GCC in the field of IP related work or in labor and employment can expect a steady rise in demand of their services, if not a rise in salaries. However the demand for general corporate work is dropping rapidly and much work is being turned over to paralegals. That's 2012.