By James T. Towne Jr.
The prospects for the legal community in
Saratoga and the Capital Region in 2013 remain
vibrant, especially when gauged against
the national legal scene. New businesses
continue to form in the area bringing new
residents moving here as the inevitable result
of the generally strong business environment
in Saratoga County.
And from what we hear-they love the area’s
many amenities. So the successful branding
of Saratoga as the place to be in the Northeast
has worked wonders in facilitating attracting
business and new residents.
As we all know, Global Foundries has had a strong economic impact upon the area already, and the legal profession has benefitted like many other sectors of the local economy. As a result, the trend of Albany sited law firms expanding their law practices into Saratoga continued to occur in 2012 and will most likely increase in 2013.
Many Albany area firms “dipped their toes in the water” of the Saratoga legal community in 2012 by opening small offices designed to test the market to assess the demand for increased specialized legal services.
Others jumped directly into the deep end of the pool by merging or acquiring small local practices in an effort to garner an “existing local presence” to their new area practice. There is no reason to believe 2013 will see any decline in this activity. In 2013, for example, our law firm is looking to nearly double the size of our Saratoga County practice by either expanding the current Saratoga Springs location or opening a second location in the county.
The basis for success for the profession in 2013 remains our strong, lively and growing economy affording new legal opportunities and challenges for the profession at large.
The national legal scene, however, is a different story. While the Saratoga legal community remains buoyed by the influx of new business to the region and the expansion of many local businesses, nationally the legal profession faces a headwind of daunting proportions.
Various surveys and statistics drawn from the ABA, the Wall Street Journal and the National Association of Legal Career Professionals indicate the following:
• There are 201 law schools nationally;
• An increase in law school applications started in 2008 as a result of the economic crisis. College graduates chose to extend their education in the hopes that the general economy would improve while they acquire an advanced degree;
• There were 44,495 law graduates in 2012;
• A pipeline of law students approaching nearly 90,000 all anxious to graduate and enter a workforce with decreased demands for graduates;
• At present, we have the lowest employment rate in the profession since 1994 (86 percent) of which only 66 percent required a law license;
• In the three years from 2010 through 2012 law schools have already graduated more students than there are projected available job openings for the entire decade through 2019;
• A continuing contraction in the demand for traditional legal services due to reduced corporate and commercial activity nationally continues to effect the entire profession.
So where does this all lead for the local legal community? 2013 should be another growth year, bucking the national trend of contractions, firm collapses and lawyer oversupply.
However, it would be foolhardy to believe that those current national realities of the legal community will not eventually reach the Capital District as the growth of our currently expanding business inevitably stabilizes.
For the near term future, with our stronger than national local economy, Saratoga remains an enviable place to practice, a fact not lost on others as the number of area firms expanding into the county increases.