Autumn has arrived, and with it the promise of a fresh crop of law school graduates entering practice. That means that all the more experienced young lawyers move up a notch in our oddly hierarchical profession. Soon, they will have to sustain themselves; they will have to find enough work from their employers, their partners, or external clients to keep themselves busy without depending on some other, mature environmental lawyer (like me). There are some steps those young environmental lawyers might take to help the process. There are some opportunities in that process for clients. There are surely opportunities for the environmental bar to become more diverse if that process succeeds.
The law school class of 2009—the first class following the financial crisis of 2008—is now entering its eighth year at the bar. One often hears that everything we knew about the legal market before 2008 is now wrong. Certainly the environmental bar and the environmental practice are somewhat different.
