More law school graduates landed jobs within nine months after graduation, but the employment rate still fell because the 2013 class was bigger than the previous year’s, the NALP reported. That means more grads were chasing work. A bright spot is that there was more work to be had.
Overall employment fell for the sixth year in a row to 84.5 percent from a high of 91.9 percent in 2007. Since 1985 there have been only two classes with an employment rate this low.
The 2012 rate was 84.7 percent.
The annual measurement is closely watched, particularly given the negative trends in the legal job market. Grads have been struggling for some time now. This year’s employment number has fallen 7.4 percent from the 24-year high of 91.9 percent in 2007.
The entry-level job market continues to be sluggish. Just 64.4 percent of grads got jobs where bar passage is required, matching last year’s number. NALP has never measured a lower number. It’s dropped 10 percentage points since 2008.
However, large law firms continued to hire in bigger numbers. Firms with more than 500 lawyers accounted for 20.6 percent of the jobs taken in law firms, according to the NALP. That number was 16.2 percent in 2011.
The rebound is hardly complete, though. Four thousand such jobs were taken by the 2013 grads, which is significantly below the 2009 number of 5,100.
One other bright spot was an increase in salary — a national median of $62,467 for the recent class, compared to $61,245 for the class of 2012. That’s just the second year-over-year increase in the median salary since 2008, the NALP said.
However, the national median then was $72,000.
“Law graduates must enter law school with the understanding that the jobs picture, while strengthening, is one that will continue to evolve, and in the course of that evolution is almost certain that new opportunities will present themselves,” said NALP Executive Director James Leipold.
“It is not true that there are too many lawyers — indeed even today most Americans do not have adequate access to affordable legal services — but the traditional market for large number of law graduates by large law firms seeking equity-track new associates is not like to ever return to what it was in 2006 and 2007.”
