InsideCounsel makes predictions regarding the state of the in-house legal market in 2012 including compensation, hiring trends, and what it takes to make it as an in-house counsel. InsideCounsel notes a moderate increase in base salaries and bonuses, and offers advice on how to earn more.   Read More

As if Google wasn’t already powerful enough, now it has taken to poaching other company’s executives to beef up its own legal team. Adding some heft to Google’s team of in-house patent experts, Allen Lo, the former vice president and deputy general counsel at Juniper Networks, will be joining the online giant as deputy GC. In his new role, Lo will be responsible for patent licensing and litigation.  Read More

With news breaking that the national unemployment rate dropped to 8.5 percent in December 2011—and the addition of 200,000 jobs, one might think the legal job market also reaped the benefits of Americans getting back to work. Not really. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the legal sector lost 1,800 jobs in December. What makes this loss even more disconcerting is that among jobs in the professional and technical services category, legal services is the only group that saw a decline.  Read More

News Corp. has hired Gerson Zweifach as its group general counsel, replacing Janet Nova, who has been serving in an interim basis for the past six months. Lawrence Jacobs, the previous general counsel, stepped down in June after 15 years  Read More

On Tuesday, H&R Block announced that Tom Gerke will be taking the helm of its legal department as general counsel and senior vice president. Much of Gerke’s experience comes from the telecommunications industry. He served as the executive vice president and general counsel of landline telephone company Embarq (a spin-off of Sprint) and was promoted to CEO in 2007. While CEO, he oversaw Embarq’s merger with CenturyTel, and then served as executive vice chairman of the combined company. Immediately prior to his appointment at H&R Block, Gerke was general counsel at trucking company YRC Worldwide.  Read More

The District Attorney’s office in California’s Santa Clara County is in the midst of a hiring boom, and it’s able to exercise some selectivity. The office hired 14 lawyers in the past year, and it has 12 additional openings, the Recorder reports. Seven hundred people have applied. The openings are the result of retirements and funding for seven new positions. Part of the allure of the job is starting pay of $92,000. Newbie prosecutors make less in the California counties of Contra Costa, Alameda and Orange. One of the newer prosecutors is Melanie Griswold, a Harvard law grad who formerly worked as a litigation associate at King & Spalding. "I would've come to the DA's office and worked as a volunteer for free if I had to do that to get a job," she told the Recorder. "I knew it was what I wanted to do." Meanwhile, the public defender’s office in Santa Clara County has seven new positions that attracted 400 applicants, the story says.   Read More

Chicago’s elite law schools have released employment statistics that show fewer grads are going to law firms. The Chicago Tribune noticed the decline. At the University of Chicago, 71.2 percent of its 2010 law graduates went to work at law firms, down from about 80 percent in the previous two graduating classes, the story says. At Northwestern University, 62 percent of its 2010 graduates went to work for law firms, compared to at least 73 percent for the four previous classes. The numbers don’t mean the other grads are jobless. At the University of Chicago, for example, more grads found work in business and obtained clerkships.  Read More