The legal employment market for entry-level attorneys has heated up, driven mostly by smaller law school class sizes. Fall recruitment numbers are way up, as the largest law firms are scrambling for top talent, according to statistics released by The National Association for Law Placement (NALP).
“After a period of considerable and prolonged slowdown in law student recruiting volumes, for the last two years we have seen strong markers of recovery,” said Jim Leipold, executive director of NALP. “There is a scramble for top talent that we have not seen since before the recession.”
But despite the most robust summer associate recruitment and new associate hiring cycle since the recession, fewer law students are expected to land jobs through on campus interviews. For the Class of 2014, 23.4 percent landed jobs through OCI compared to 37 percent in 2008.
That is becasue the market has fundamentally changed, Leipold said.
“The law firm job growth has flat lined and may not be coming back.” Leipold said. “Business is where those jobs have moved to.”
The number of law firm jobs dropped from 55.5 percent in 2007 to 50.9 percent for the Class of 2014. Data has not been released for the Class of 2015. Business jobs are up from 14.1 percent in 2007 to 18 percent.
Overall, the Class of 2014 saw the first uptick in employment since 2007, with 86.7 percent finding jobs ten months after graduation. Based on smaller class sizes, experts predict that the percent will rise even higher for the Class of 2015 and Class of 2016.
For the Class of 2016, a record 95.3 percent of students who had summer associate positions received a full-time offer. That is up from 93.4 percent last year, and in stark contrast to 2009 when only 69 percent of summer associates received offers.
The employment picture looks even better for the Class of 2017. The number of offers for summer program spots increased and for the fourth year in a row a higher percentage of callback interviews resulted in offers.
Also, 59 percent of law firms reported making more offers for summer 2016 associate positions than they had for summer 2015 positions. More than half of law schools in all regions reported an increase in the number of law firms visiting campus during spring OCI.
“The increase in spring on-campus recruiting and the seemingly new trend toward some pre-OCI offers for perceived top talent and diverse candidates are indicative of this increased competition,” Leipold said.
Leipold said the hiring is mostly driven by the fact that law firms are spooked by not having enough mid-level associates to do the work coming in. This, of course, is because firms cut back on hiring during the recession.
He said, however, that despite the big uptick in recruitment, demand is flat. The actual number of legal jobs dropped for the Class of 2014, compared to the Class of 2013. But smaller law school graduating classes mean firms have fewer candidates.
“Some analysts suggest lawyer headcount at some law firms is still too high,” Leipold said. “Even so, as law school graduating class size continues to come down for the foreseeable future and some law firms excel in a difficult market, it is likely that in the short term law firm recruiting activity for summer programs will remain brisk.”
Law firms have slowly increased entry-level recruiting activity during the last six years, with the average size of law firm programs close to pre-recession levels.
Leipold said the number of jobs landed by the Class of 2015 and 2016 may continue to drop, but only because the class sizes are smaller and not every graduate is employable. total jobs dropped from 37,730 for the Class of 2013 to 36,530 for the Class of 2014.
But overall, the percent of new grads with bar passage required jobs should continue to rebound. But Leipold does not expect J.D. advantage jobs to decline. Such jobs rose from 7.7 percent in 2007 to 14.8 percent for the Class of 2014. These include in-house legal jobs, compliance jobs and consulting.
“The future lies at the nexus between technology and law,” Leipold said.
Non-legal technology jobs make up 6.9 percent of business positions, with legal technology at 2.1 percent.
Full-time, long-term, bar passage required jobs continue to increase, making up 62 percent of the Class of 2014. Leipold said he expects that number to soon rebound to the historical high of 68 percent.
