Last week's data from the US’s Bureau of Labor Statistics illustrate the still rocky economic terrain facing law firms in the country. According to a report on the AmLaw Daily web site, the jobs decline last month more than wiped out increases in the profession’s numbers clocked up in December, when some 1,900 jobs were added.

Number crunching

Indeed, the number crunchers seem to be constantly revising their figures, as the bureau’s initial figure for December was about half of the ultimate number, while it has also revised up its November figure from 200 jobs lost to 1,000 gained.
The web site points out that a longer-term reading of the legal sector jobs figures makes for more palatable reading. It is estimated that the profession today employs some 6,500 more people than it did a year ago, with a total of 1.125 million under its umbrella, the highest since May 2009.
However, that number remains 50,000 short of the sector’s peak before the global financial crisis cut a swath through employment numbers.

Super bowl scandal

Meanwhile, the only aspect of US society that might be more apple pie than the legal profession is the Super Bowl, the annual gridiron football championship that brings families together round the television for a multi-hour epic embodying American wholesomeness. Sadly, this year’s event, which saw the Baltimore Ravens pip the San Francisco 49ers, was beset by negative publicity – and not just resulting from power failure that threw the New Orleans Superdome into darkness for half an hour. Darker still were claims that the annual match has become the US’s biggest magnet for sex traffickers, including the exploitation of underage girls.

Thousands of prostitutes

Media reports from New Orleans reported that as of two days before the match, authorities had made eight human-trafficking arrests in New Orleans, with officials claiming that only scratched the surface of the problem. The Huffington Post quoted one sex worker who claimed prostitutes were shipped in to service the hordes of male fans attending the match, with most expected to cater for 25 to 50 customers a day.
The Texas state attorney general, Greg Abbott, describes the Super Bowl as ‘the largest human trafficking incident in the US,’ according broadcaster ABC. It goes on to say that two years ago, when the match was held in Miami, the Florida Commission against Human Trafficking estimated that ‘tens of thousands of women and minors’ were trafficked to the game.