So all these laid-off lawyers are going to … D.C.?

According to an article on today’s law.com site, as laid-off lawyers are scrambling for jobs many are considering other practice areas, other locations, in-house jobs and jobs with smaller firms.  And they are going to D.C.

According to Stephen Stone of Cambridge Counsel, there are more big firm jobs in Washington, D.C., than Atlanta for instance, since it has more firms and has not been hit as hard by the recession.

Well, maybe.  “The world is in a deleveraging process. Law firms are deleveraging as well. Positions are getting hundreds, if not thousands of applications,” he said.

Says Richard Rice, the head of attorney recruiting at FirstPRO,  “Everybody’s going to D.C. That’s not a market where we want to send people, even though there are jobs and placements there.”

Rice noted that jobs in Washington, D.C., are in areas such as government contracts and intellectual property that have not been impacted by the recession as much as real estate, banking and corporate law. Jobs are also available in bankruptcy and workouts, he said. “You need to have skills that are portable,” he cautioned.

We’ve seen a surge in membership on the D.C. Posse List and many have identified themselves as ex-BigLaw associates (sending us resumes, too) and we suspect it’s because of the government contract work, the DOJ/SEC/FDIC [insert Federal agency here] investigation work, and bankruptcy work.  

Granted:

1.  as we reported previously, associates still remaining at firms are being given document review which would normally be handled by contract attorneys

2.  agencies can still staff most projects they receive (and there are projects, few as they maybe) from their own internal rosters. 

But given the number of subpeonas issued, and government investigations commenced, and corporate bankruptcy filings, and all the civil litigations out there we suspect a lot of work will come.