Legal Marketing & PR

Without credit, we won't get out of our morass

By Edward Poll, J.D., M.B.A., CMC

Our economy is in the doldrums ... or better said, we're experiencing a depression. Signs abound. From unemployment exceeding 10% and more in some areas, to now thousands of lawyers and staff terminated from the large firms. Who knows how many more there are in small firms ...

One large firm managing partner cited an even more frightening fact:  Many lawyers have been given generous severance packages in order to obtain liability waivers/releases and to keep the goodwill of those departing. In other words, they won't feel the impact for 6 to 12 months after leaving. We will see a ripple effect. As bad as it is now, it will get worse .... Unless the federal government is able to pull the rabbit out of the hat.

Our country was built with credit. One of the major thrusts for the Obama administration is to get banks to start lending again. Banks didn't do this with the first half of the major funding passed in the Bush administration. They horded the money to protect their own balance sheet. Will they do it with the second half, and with other bailout handouts?

Today, I had a conversation with a banker. He said that the federal regulators are requiring a higher capital input from the buyer than ever before. "In the old days" (not that long ago), one could buy a building for very little down payment (10%, e.g.),  Today, loan to value ratio has to be 30% and in many cases 40 and 50%  This is not the way to growth.

With this type of stagnation of credit, one can be assured that the prices for real estate will continue to slide downward with ever greater consequences.  And with continued worsening of our finances, law firms and lawyers will be further impact. If we have too many lawyers today for the work available (as discussed in an earlier post), demand will continue to shrink, and additional law firm layoffs will result.

Full post as published by Law Biz Blog on February 26, 2009 (boomark / email).