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Laid-off lawyer in predicament she never imagined

Steve Lopez

February 15, 2009

"I can't get a job anywhere."

I've been getting a lot of e-mails that start like that. This one was from Ellie Trope of Mid-City in Los Angeles, near La Brea, who lost her job more than a year ago. She wrote me after reading my column two weeks ago about the endless mob scene at the employment office in Van Nuys.

Trope, 43, is an attorney with 15 years of experience, and she said lawyers are losing their jobs in droves.

When people in banking and the mortgage industry were getting the heave-ho, it came as no surprise. In fact, on Friday I spoke to a banking executive with 20,000 employees under him who got fired in December after 21 years on the job. But I would have thought anyone with a law degree would be able to talk their way out of a layoff, file for an injunction, whatever.

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Not so. Trope told me it's gotten much worse of late, and when I made some phone calls and checked on the Internet, I found that law firms in California and throughout the nation have been handing out pink slips by the dozens and the hundreds.

"Job cuts in U.S. legal sector hit 1,300 for January," said a headline at Legalweek.com.

"Today isn't over, but it already has a name: Black Thursday," said a Los Angeles County Bar Assn. blog this week, making reference to hundreds of layoffs in the legal biz that were announced around the world the other day.

Trope sounded weary when I spoke to her by phone. The financial pressure of losing her job took a huge toll on her marriage, she told me, and she and her husband are now living separately. They share custody of their two children, and despite the financial strain, Trope hasn't wanted to put the nanny on the bricks too, so she's shuttling back and forth between households with the kids.

"I'm definitely not desperate," said Trope, who worried about coming off like a whiner when so many people are in far worse shape.

But she didn't sound whiny to me. Instead, she was very forthcoming about what it's like to fall from your perch and realize, to your surprise, that being humbled isn't entirely a bad thing.

"Attorneys used to be recession-proof," said Trope, and she assumed she was too.

From Fairfax High, she went to UC Riverside and then Whittier Law School. She had several jobs after graduating 15 years ago, mostly as an in-house counsel specializing in consumer products.

Last February, after 15 months with an international toy company handling licensing, copyrights, advertising and labor relations, she heard layoffs were coming because the 2007 Christmas season had been slow. Then she was whacked.

"I loved the people I worked with," said Trope. "It was almost like losing a boyfriend or a relationship. I was devastated."

But her disappointment didn't shake her confidence.

"I figured I'd find another job."

When it didn't happen right away, she did something she never expected to do in her life.

"I applied for unemployment insurance."

How did it feel?

"I figured I paid into it, and this is what other people do."