<p>Dont get me wrong, Im a lifelong Dem and am ecstatic about last night's victory, but why is it that the legal community so heavily favors Democrats? Is it because Dems are more likely to pass more stringent laws, thereby presenting more opportunities for litigation? Also, do you think BIGLAW is helped by having a Dem president and congres? Could we expect salaries or bonuses at these firms to go up (if it weren't for the economic meltdown)?</p>
<p>It depends on the types of lawyers. The ones I know who are corporate, tend to be Republican.</p>
<p>Our legal dept. has activists in both parties. I don't think you can generalize that the legal community or BigLaw favor Dems. </p>
<p>BigLaw follows the economy to some degree. If our company (a Fort 500) is representative, we plan on pulling work in-house and severely cutting our outside counsel budget. We won't be adding new lawyers for awhile. Our outside law firms are going to be increasing their rates or overstaffing cases at their peril.</p>
<p>Due to the economic slowdown, there are fewer new business contracts to review, mergers-acquisitions and technology investments are on hold, etc. People are going to be putting off getting their wills updated or getting other legal work if they are worried about their jobs, and we've already seen the slowdown for real estate and financial lawyers. It's really, really not a good time for new grads.</p>
<p>The Republican Party represents the interests of business owners and business owners hate lawsuits. Republicans want caps on liability & punitive awards judgments & also want the loser to be required to pay the costs of litigation for both sides.
Democrats favor lawsuits as a method of keeping businesses responsible and as a targeted approach to enforcing & shaping legislation.
Post #2 is correct in that it is trial lawyers that are the most ardent supporters of the Democratic Party. Both plaintiffs' civil & defendants' criminal trial lawyers support Democrats.Republicans want more prisons built (Newt Gingrich's passion) with fewer rights & more restricted appeal rights (especially re: habeaus corpus claims) for criminal defendants & prisoners.</p>
<p>My experience has always been that there are lawyers who support both the democratic and republican parties. There might be a bit of the chicken and the egg argument, too -- does a lawyer become a M&A lawyer specializing in hostile takeovers at least partially because of his or her view on corporate America and membership in the Republican party? Does a lawyer become a public defender at least partially because of his or her view on criminal justice and membership in the Democratic party? I think it's difficult, if not impossible, to say for sure.</p>
<p>In addition, if you look around at who actually runs for public office at the state and federal levels, many of these folks are lawyers by training. These lawyers, who feel ardently enough about their views to run for elected office, are abundant across the political spectrum.</p>
<p>I'm a commercial real estate lawyer and my husband is a securities/securitization lawyer, and we're both Republicans. We work with plenty of people who are Republicans, and plenty who are Democrats. The trial lawyers associations tend to support Democrats; many corporate groups support Republicans. As with anything else, I don't think you can generalize.</p>
<p>From David Brooks' New York Times column published on October 9, 2008:</p>
<p>"Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone.</p>
<p>"The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community."</p>
<p>I'm a Republican as are most of the other members of my legal department as well as most of our outside counsel.</p>
<p>I don't think you can generalize. My H was in biglaw for 20 years and the past 10 as a General Counsel for a large corporation. In his experience, he's worked with both Dems and Republicans. The ones who donate, though, are much more likely to be the Democrats.</p>