Attorneys

==Links==
===Media===
* Allegheny County guilty of having glut of lawyers 
By Mike Wereschagin
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, January 5, 2007
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_487151.html
Go easy on the lawyer jokes. They're having a tough
time these days.
It's harder for attorneys to find work in Allegheny
County than in many other regions, due in part to
Pittsburgh's industrial collapse, two law schools in
the same city, and the steady erosion of the region's
corporate base, said David Blaner, executive director
of the Allegheny County Bar Association.
"Our population is more saturated than most," Blaner
said Thursday morning. About 8,000 attorneys practice
in Allegheny County, which has a population of about
1.2 million.
Blaner's description of a tight market wasn't exactly
news to the 130 or so new lawyers who were sworn in to
the Federal District Court of Western Pennsylvania
yesterday in a ceremony at the Omni William Penn
Hotel, Downtown. Several said they'd been told early
in their studies at the law schools of Duquesne
University and the University of Pittsburgh that it
might be tough to find a job here.
"I started hearing about it during the admissions
process" at Pitt, said Kerri Frederick, 28, of
Aspinwall.
The number of lawyers per capita in Allegheny County
-- about 650 attorneys for every 100,000 people -- is
much higher than the national average of about 370
lawyers per 100,000 people, according to American Bar
Association and U.S. Census records.
By comparison, New York City and Philadelphia have 860
and 890 attorneys per 100,000 people, respectively.
Washington has the nation's highest concentration of
lawyers by far -- around 7,470 per 100,000 residents,
according to the same records.
Adding to the dilemma facing local lawyers, the number
of attorneys in Pennsylvania is increasing faster,
percentage wise, than in any other state, according to
the American Bar Association. The number of attorneys
practicing in the state rose from 38,460 in 2005 to
more than 45,000 in 2006 -- an 18 percent increase.
The next-fastest increase was in Wyoming, where the
attorney population increased by about 5.7 percent in
the same time period.
"There are more students who want to find positions
outside the region than there were 15 or 20 years
ago," said Pamela Day, assistant dean for career
services at the University of Pittsburgh School of
Law. "There definitely are more options for law firms
out there with respect to candidates."
The school graduates about 240 a year, a number that
has remained steady for several years, Day said.
"I think because you have two law schools in the area,
that does create more competition" for jobs, Day said.
Lawyers here have a cushion, though, Blaner said. The
Allegheny County Bar Association maintains a $1.3
million fund to provide grants or loans to members who
fall on hard times -- such as those who lost offices
or records in the 2004 floods. The 89-year-old fund is
the only one of its kind, and usually helps six to
eight people a year, said county bar association
spokesman Tom Loftus.
The association offers a student loan repayment
program through which recent graduates can get a loan
of up to $3,600 a year for three years. The loan is
forgiven if the attorney works for one year at a
public legal service organization, Loftus said in an
e-mail.
More than the loan forgiveness, though, the chance to
work on something significant eclipses the risk of not
being able to find work for some law school graduates.
"I took a class on the civil rights movement, and in
that class we studied the Brown v. Board of Education
decision, and some of the cases that came during the
Vietnam War," said Bryan Milo, 28, of Friendship, who
was admitted to the bar yesterday. "I decided to go to
law school because I really wanted to do something
like that."