URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT

1222 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 6, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

The Falling-Down Professions
BYLINE: By ALEX WILLIAMS
SECTION: Section 9; Column 0; Style Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 2026 words
YOU can't say law firms aren't trying.

At the Chicago office of Perkins Coie, partners recently unveiled a ''happiness committee,'' offering candy apples and milkshakes to brighten the long and wearying days of its lawyers. Perhaps this will serve as an example to other firms, which studies show lose, on average, nearly a fifth of their associates in any given year, in an industry in which about 20 percent of lawyers over all will suffer depression at some point in their careers.

Last year, Cravath, Swaine & Moore tried a more direct approach, offering associates an added bonus of as much as $50,000, on top of regular annual bonuses that range from $35,000 to $60,000.

At the august Sullivan & Cromwell, partners in 2006 began a program, groundbreaking in white-shoe firms, encouraging the uttering of ''thank you'' and ''good work'' to harried underlings, as reported in The Wall Street Journal.

Probably not a bad move at a firm that had been hemorrhaging associates at a rate of about 30 percent a year. (The rate dipped below 25 percent in the year after the program was started, although Fred Rich, a partner, said better etiquette was simply an element in a ''very broad agenda'' focused on more open communication.)

So now who's going to cheer up the doctors?

As of 2006, nearly 60 percent of doctors polled by the American College of Physician Executives said they had considered getting out of medicine because of low morale, and nearly 70 percent knew someone who already had.

In a typical complaint, Dr. Yul Ejnes, 47, a general internist in Cranston, R.I., said he was recently forced by Medicare to fill out requisition forms for a wheelchair-bound patient who needed to replace balding tires. ''I'm a doctor,'' he said, ''not Mr. Goodwrench.''

Make no mistake, law and medicine -- the most elite of the traditional professions -- have always been demanding. But they were also unquestionably prestigious. Sure, bankers made big money and professors held impressive degrees.

But in the days when a successful career was built on a number of tacitly recognized pillars -- outsize pay, long-term security, impressive schooling and authority over grave matters -- doctors and lawyers were perched atop them all.

Now, those pillars have started to wobble.

''The older professions are great, they're wonderful,'' said Richard Florida, the author of ''The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life'' (Basic Books, 2003). ''But they've lost their allure, their status. And it isn't about money.''

OR at least, it is not all about money. The pay is still good (sometimes very good), and the in-laws aren't exactly complaining. Still, something is missing, say many doctors, lawyers and career experts: the old sense of purpose, of respect, of living at the center of American society and embodying its definition of ''success.''

In a culture that prizes risk and outsize reward -- where professional heroes are college dropouts with billion-dollar Web sites -- some doctors and lawyers feel they have slipped a notch in social status, drifting toward the safe-and-staid realm of dentists and accountants. It's not just because the professions have changed, but also because the standards of what makes a prestigious career have changed.

This decline, Mr. Florida argued, is rooted in a broader shift in definitions of success, essentially, a realignment of the pillars. Especially among young people, professional status is now inextricably linked to ideas of flexibility and creativity, concepts alien to seemingly everyone but art students even a generation ago.

''There used to be this idea of having a separate work self and home self,'' he said. ''Now they just want to be themselves. It's almost as if they're interviewing places to see if they fit them.''

Indeed, applications to law schools and medical schools have declined from recent highs. Nationally, the number of law school applicants dropped to 83,500 in 2006 from 98,700 in 2004--representing a 6.7 percent drop between 2006 and 2005, on top of the 5.2 percent slip the previous year, according to the Law School Admission Council.

(Maybe they've been talking to actual lawyers. Forty-four percent of lawyers recently surveyed by the American Bar Association said they would not recommend the profession to a young person.)

The number of applicants to medical school, meanwhile, has dipped to 42,000 from 46,000 in 1997, although it has recovered from a low of 33,000 in 2003.

Students are focusing now on starring in their own creations, their own start-up businesses, said Trudy Steinfeld, the executive director of the Wasserman Center for Career Development at New York University.

''There's a sexiness to starting something cool,'' she said. ''Now we have people trying to start a Facebook or a MySpace. You might be working like a maniac, but it's going to pay off in status. You're going to be famous, providing something people are going to know and use all over the world.''

Unquestionably, many doctors and lawyers still find the higher calling of their profession -- helping people -- as well as the prestige and money, worth the hard work. And the stars in either field are still that: commanding the handsome compensation and social cachet. But to others, the daily trudge serves as a constant reminder that the entrepreneur's autonomy simply can't be found in law or medicine.

''We'd all seen the visions, watching 'L.A. Law,' or 'Ally McBeal,''' said Catherine Kersh, 32, a former litigator at a large firm in Los Angeles. ''It did seem glamorous.''

Reality, she quickly learned, was different. Ms. Kersh recalled a two-week stretch in which she and a team of associates were holed up in a conference room with 50 boxes of documents. Every day, for 12 hours, they fastened Post-it notes to legal briefs.

''You look around at the other associates, trying to remind ourselves, why did we go to law school?'' said Ms. Kersh, who now works for a nonprofit group that administers scholarships.

Many young associates, she added, spent their lunch hours making lavish purchases on NeimanMarcus.com, just to remind themselves that what they did counted for something.

Life, in fact, was less like ''Ally'' and more like ''The Practice,'' where lawyers work like dogs in a thoroughly unglamorous setting.

Nor does hard work guarantee success. ''With law firms merging, fewer people are making partner,'' said Carolyn Elefant, a lawyer in Washington who writes for Law.com, a legal news and information Web site.

In 2005, the number of equity partners at law firms grew by 2.5 percent, compared with 4.5 percent five years earlier, according to a study by Citi Private Bank. And even if you make partner, the work doesn't lessen.

''Partners now are often billing as many hours as the associates, because of the enormous growth of law firms,'' Ms. Elefant said. ''There's a huge overhead. The demand for global practice means many partners having to be available to clients around the clock.''

As firms demand ever more billable hours, said Lawrence J. Fox, a partner in the Philadelphia office of Drinker Biddle & Reath, lawyers find less time for pro bono work -- the very thing that once gave them a sense of higher calling. Increased competitive pressures also mean that young associates are often locked into arcane sub-specialties, like pharmaceutical product liability.

Doctors face similar pressure. Complaints about managed care crimping doctors' income and authority over medical decisions are nothing new, but the problems are only getting worse, several doctors said.

''Remember the 'I Love Lucy' episode in the chocolate factory?'' said Dr. Ejnes in Rhode Island. ''That's what a medical practice is now like. They keep turning up the speed on the conveyer belt, and before you know it, you're stuffing chocolates in your pockets.''

One doctor responding to the American College of Physician Executives survey wrote: ''I find it necessary about once every month or two to stay in bed for 24 to 48 hours. I do this on short notice when I get the feeling I might punch somebody.''

Increasing workloads and paperwork might be tolerable if the old feeling of authority were still the same, doctors said. But patients who once might have revered them for their knowledge and skill often arrive at the office armed with a sense of personal expertise, gleaned from a few hours on www.WebMD.com, doctors said, not to mention a disdain for the medical system in general.

''If the topic comes up in cocktail party talk, you'll hear nightmare stories from people as they've gone through the system -- 'they gave me the wrong pill,' et cetera,'' said Dr. Gregg Broffman, 57, a former pediatrician who is now a medical director of a primary care group in Buffalo.''In terms of my own self-esteem, it feels like a personal attack.''

EVEN the language of contemporary medicine has eroded the physician's sense of majesty.

''What irritates me the most is the use of the term 'provider,''' said Dr. Brian A. Meltzer, an internist in Pennington, N.J., who now practices pro bono on the side, but works full time for Johnson & Johnson's venture capital division. ''We didn't go to provider school.''

Making the erosion of cachet more acute is the fact that unlike law schools or medical schools, flashier industries recruit heavily on top college campuses, said Lauren A. Rivera, a sociology graduate student and an instructor at Harvard who studies career choice among students.

''Investment banking and consulting firms have a huge presence; they're barging in from before first day of classes,'' Ms. Rivera said. ''The messages they convey appeals to every undergraduate fantasy: this is a continuation of prestige education, this is the only valuable way to finish your education. You'll work with the smartest people and the most exciting, high-profile clients.''

And then there is, yes, the money issue. Or rather, money envy. Associates at major New York firms often start at $150,000 to $180,000, said Bill Coleman, the chief compensation officer at Salary.com, a company that tracks income statistics. Partners at the country's biggest 100 firms took home an average of $1.2 million in 2006, according to American Lawyer.

Hardly small sums, but for many senior investment bankers, bonuses and salaries this year will average $2.25 million to $2.75 million, according to Options Group, an executive search and consulting firm.

Doctors rarely approach such heights. While income varies widely, a typical physician might earn $150,00 to $300,000, according to Salary.com data. A surgeon might make $250,000 to $400,000; hot-shot surgeons can earn $750,000 a year, and superstars over a million dollars.

But absolute numbers are not the only issue, Mr. Coleman said.

The professions still largely award income in the traditional sense -- a set, orderly progression, over the course of decades. Careers in more entrepreneurial industries like hedge funds and private equity firms follow the sky-is-the-limit model of the entertainment industry, the Web or professional sports.

Kevin J. Delaney, a sociology professor at Temple University who has studied the culture of hedge funds and private equity firms, said executives there ''love the idea of being responsible for their own fate.''

They're going to make a million or lose a million based on the trades they make,'' he said.

Many firms are so small, he added, that ''you go there, it's one floor, and 10 people sitting around the room, six of them making millions of dollars.''

This star-system mentality is particularly attractive to college students, many of whom were reared with the '80s philosophy that every child was a potential superstar, Mr. Coleman said. And they want immediate rewards -- not exactly the mentality that will fuel a student through years of medical school, a residency and additional training for a specialty.

''Their attention span, everything, is instant feedback: quick, quick, quick,'' Mr. Coleman said. ''Apprenticeship, these kids don't want to do it.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: MAJOR US LAW FIRMS (91%); LAWYERS (90%); PHYSICIANS & SURGEONS (90%); POLLS & SURVEYS (71%); EDUCATION (69%); INTERNAL MEDICINE (69%); MEDICARE (62%); COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS (64%); LEGAL SERVICES (90%)
COMPANY: PERKINS COIE LLP (91%); CRAVATH SWAINE & MOORE (57%); WALL STREET JOURNAL (55%); CRAVATH SWAINE & MOORE LLP (91%); SULLIVAN & CROMWELL LLP (91%)
ORGANIZATION: AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PHYSICIAN EXECUTIVES (54%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (51%)
GEOGRAPHIC: BOSTON, MA, USA (79%) MASSACHUSETTS, USA (79%); RHODE ISLAND, USA (77%) UNITED STATES (79%)
LOAD-DATE: January 6, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: ANY OBJECTIONS?: The careers of real-life lawyers are often less glamorous and satisfying than those portrayed by their television counterparts in shows like, from far left: ''L.A. Law,'' ''Ally McBeal'' and ''Boston Legal.'' (PHOTOGRAPHS BY EVERETT COLLECTION

GALE ADLER/FOX

RON TOMAC/ABC) ILLUSTRATION (ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY CAMPBELL)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1223 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 3, 2008 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

Avoiding the After-Holidays Letdown
BYLINE: By MICKEY MEECE
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; PRACTICALLY SPEAKING; Pg. 5
LENGTH: 939 words
FRESH off 80-hour workweeks in a sprint for holiday sales, it is little wonder that some entrepreneurs are escaping for a precious few days of sun and relaxation.

''If you're constantly pushing, pushing, pushing,'' said Jeffrey Golden of BearHands & Buddies, which sells animal-inspired clothing and accessories, ''you're going to end up losing sight of what you need to do.'' Mr. Golden and his family are headed to Aruba on Friday.

Ridgely Evers and his wife, Colleen McGlynn, of DaVero, a maker of olive oil and other specialty food items, left for Mexico on the day after Christmas.

''They are the lucky ones,'' points out Joel R. Evans, a marketing professor at the Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University. ''The typical small retailer can't afford to do that.''

Still, for many small-business owners, the weeks after Christmas and New Year are time to recharge after the adrenaline rush of the holiday season gives way to an emotional letdown. Some entrepreneurs decompress at home; others, if they can, squeeze in a vacation.

The letdown could be more intense than usual if, as retail consultants expect, sales slowed markedly in the 2007 holiday season. Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director at the Strategic Resource Group in New York, for one, expects sales were 1.7 percent to 2.3 percent higher than 2006 for all retailers. Other estimates range from 3 to 4 percent higher.

Smaller retailers like BearHands in Little Ferry, N.J., and DaVero in Sonoma County, Calif., can derive a third or more of their profit -- and most of their sales -- in November and December, Mr. Flickinger said.

If his estimates on retail sales prove to be correct, it was somewhat of ''a Dickensesque December for smaller retailers,'' he said, because consumers in the suburbs and small towns spent less this year.

Even so, at the BearHands booth in Bryant Park in New York in December, Mr. Golden and his staff had a steady stream of customers, including many tourists. BearHands ran a booth at Columbus Circle and one at the Southern Christmas Show in Charlotte, N.C., for 10 days in November. It also has a growing wholesale business, he said, which accounts for 65 percent of sales.

From the West Coast, Mr. Evers of DaVero said, ''This holiday season has been an absolute blowout success for us.'' The opening of a DaVero retail store about two years ago at Plaza Farms in Healdsburg is a big part of that success, he said. DaVero shares space with other artisans there.

Other boutique shops with more remote locations that may not have fared so well can take heart, Mr. Flickinger says. While he expects sales at small retailers to slow in the first quarter, as consumers with gift cards return to national chains, they can expect a surge in sales after Passover and Easter. Why? Because shoppers will be looking for higher-quality items, a better range of products and branded names, he said.

Hardware stores, variety stores and gift shops could benefit, he added, as stores like Dollar General move into food and beverages, and bigger retailers have fewer unique gifts and more private-label goods.

''Consumers have a conscience, and they want to support the companies that make a commitment to their communities,'' Mr. Flickinger said. ''They are supporting the stores and merchants that Norman Rockwell painted for The Saturday Evening Post: retailers that sponsor Little League teams and give to local charities.''

Still, smaller retailers have to be nimble and strategic this month to instill customer loyalty for the rest of the year, Professor Evans of Hofstra says. He offers a list of 15 ways to be smart about marketing in January.

Mr. Evers of DaVero says his secret is keeping an open line to his customers. ''If you're not communicating actively with your clientele,'' he says, ''somebody else is.'' DaVero routinely sends e-mail messages, making sure there is a monthly promotion to keep customers coming back to the site and the store.

At his other business, NetBooks, a software company, Mr. Evers, the man behind the original QuickBooks, maintains a blog for small-business owners who are his customers.

Mr. Golden and his staff plan to engage in grass-roots communications as they reach out to parent-teacher organizations to bolster the spiritwear business of BearHands. Middle schools, high schools, colleges and even professional teams have ordered items to show team spirit, Mr. Golden said.

Plus, he will start traveling across the country to trade and licensing shows, which begin in earnest this month. ''It starts all over again,'' he said.

In its fourth year, BearHands has expanded from its signature products, the warm animal-themed mittens, to the accompanying buddies -- the most popular being cats, dogs, frogs, giraffes, horses, penguins and polar bears.

Now, it has added a recycled- denim line of accessories like purses, plus warm-weather gear like sun hats, baseball caps and onesies that incorporate the buddies.

Its wholesale business has grown accordingly from small boutiques looking for seasonal items to include gift shops at zoos, among them the Bronx Zoo, and stores like Olly Shoes and the Paper Place. Now that it has all-season gear, the company hopes to reach agreements with bigger retailers like Macy's and Dick's Sporting Goods to sell its products, Mr. Golden said.

This slow but steady expansion has helped BearHands avoid the inevitable January letdown, he said. So instead of being a novelty, he says, ''BearHands has more of a complete line, which helps with brand recognition. I think we're moving at the right speed.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: ENTREPRENEURSHIP (90%); HOLIDAYS & OBSERVANCES (90%); SMALL BUSINESS (90%); RETAILERS (89%); SALES FIGURES (78%); TRAVEL HOSPITALITY & TOURISM (78%); SALES PROJECTIONS (70%); WHOLESALERS (68%); FASHION ACCESSORIES (57%); CHRISTMAS (90%); COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS (69%); BUSINESS EDUCATION (90%)
COMPANY: BRYANT PARK GRILL (52%)
ORGANIZATION: HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY (56%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (91%)
GEOGRAPHIC: CHARLOTTE, NC, USA (52%); SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CA, USA (79%) NEW YORK, USA (92%); CALIFORNIA, USA (79%); NORTH CAROLINA, USA (79%); WEST USA (79%) UNITED STATES (92%); MEXICO (79%)
LOAD-DATE: January 3, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Jeffrey Golden of BearHands & Buddies sold animal-inspired clothing at a booth in Bryant Park. (PHOTOGRAPH BY MARKO GEORGIEV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1224 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 3, 2008 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; TODAY IN BUSINESS; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 815 words
OIL REACHES $100 A BARREL Oil prices began the year with a volatile surge, briefly reaching $100 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, left, before settling at $99.62. Said one analyst: ''It's the same usual suspects: the bad, bad world out there, a cold winter and declining oil inventories.''

MARKETS SLIDE TO BEGIN YEAR Wall Street stumbled out of the blocks for the new year, with the Dow industrials falling 220 points, after oil prices surged and a report pointing to a fall in manufacturing activity in December revived fears that the economy will falter in 2008. [C1.]

WEATHER CHANNEL FOR SALE

The Weather Channel, one of the last privately owned cable channels, is being put up for sale by Landmark Communications, and could fetch more than $5 billion, according to people briefed on the auction. NBC, News Corporation and Comcast are said to be interested. [C1.]

HALF-BUILT DREAMS The collapse of Levitt Corporation, the big home builder that ran out of cash in October and declared bankruptcy in November, illustrates how the turmoil in real estate is spreading far beyond subprime borrowers. Levitt employees were laid off, the subcontractors put down their tools, and buyers were left with half-built homes. [C1.]

NO SLUMP IN MANHATTAN As the housing market across the country continued to stagnate in the fourth quarter, the market in Manhattan set a record. The average price for an apartment reached $1.4 million in the last quarter of 2007, up 17.6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006, according to the brokerage firm Prudential Douglas Elliman. [A21.]

FREEING TAX-EXEMPT GROUPS Pension funds, university endowments and other organizations that are exempt from paying taxes will no longer be ensnared by a law intended to combat two notorious corporate tax shelters known as Lilos and Silos. [C3.]

CALIFORNIA SUES E.P.A. California sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency, challenging its recent decision to block California rules curbing greenhouse-gas emissions from new cars and trucks. California officials argue that the agency had no legal or technical justification for blocking the standards. [A13.]

DaimlerChrysler paid a $30 million fine last year, the most ever by an automaker, for failing to meet federal fuel-efficiency standards, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. [C4.]

PLAXO IS ON THE BLOCK Plaxo, an early social networking site that helps people keep their address books updated, is up for sale, people briefed on the auction said. The company is seeking as much as $100 million, these people said. [C3.]

TRAVEL PUBLISHERS' NEW PATH Travel publishers like Rough Guides and Lonely Planet are taking on Web-based upstarts like TripAdvisor.com by moving more of their work onto the Internet and extending their content into mobile services, in-flight entertainment systems and satellite navigation devices. [C4.]

MIXING ENTERTAINMENT AND ADS American Eagle Outfitters has been at the forefront of the trend toward advertainment, in which companies make videos to engross viewers while glamorizing a particular brand. Advertising. [C3.]

LATE-NIGHT HOSTS RETURN

Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan O'Brien returned to late-night television, eight weeks after their writers went on strike and plunged their shows into reruns. The Iowa caucuses and the hosts' new facial hair loomed large in the new programs. [A19.]

JANUARY IS TIME TO RECHARGE For many small-business owners, the weeks after Christmas and New Year are time to recharge after the adrenaline rush of the holiday season gives way to an emotional letdown. Some entrepreneurs decompress at home; others, if they can, squeeze in a vacation. Small Business. [C5.]

NATIONAL CITY CUTS 900 JOBS The regional bank National City Corporation, based in Cleveland, is cutting its dividend by half and shutting its wholesale mortgage division, eliminating 900 jobs, because of weakened housing and credit markets. The move sent National City shares down 86 cents, to $15.59. Shares have been as high as $38.94 in the last year. [C3.]

NETFLIX AIMS FOR INTERNET

Netflix, the DVD-by-mail company, wants to strike deals with electronics companies that will let it send movies straight to TV screens over the Internet. Its first partnership is with the South Korean manufacturer LG Electronics. [C3.]

WORKING AT HOME, IN STYLE

The number of Americans working at least part time from home keeps rising -- 28 million in 2006, up 40 percent from 2002 -- and that is contributing to greater attention to how the home office is designed and furnished. [D1.]

BREEDEN'S STAKE IN ZALERichard C. Breeden, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman who is now an activist investor, has raised his stake in the Zale Corporation, the jeweler, to 13.3 percent from 7.7 percent, according to a regulatory filing. [C3.]

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