Associate hiring increased among participating firms in 2024, with the total number of entry-level hires exceeding lateral hires, 55% versus 45%, driven primarily by the largest firms, according to an April report by The NALP Foundation for Law Career Research and Education.
This increase reverses the trend of the last two years.
Slightly fewer participating firms rehired former associates than in the previous year. It was 52% in 2023 and 49% in 2024. But rehires or boomerangs accounted for a larger share of overall associate hires in 2024 at 11% versus 7% in 2023.
Fiona Trevelyan Hornblower, president and CEO of The NALP Foundation, said the new data shows that shifts in the talent market are emerging, with the rise in entry level recruiting as well as earlier departures by associates, with distinct differences by firm size.
The overall 2024 associate attrition rate was 20%, up slightly from 18% in 2023, but still well below 2021’s historic high of 26%, with the highest attrition level reported at the smallest firms.
While the most frequently cited next professional positions for departing associates remained law firm associate positions and corporate in-house counsel jobs, the rates for both climbed, with 41% in 2024 versus 31% in 2023, and 18% in 2024 versus 15% in 2023, respectively.
For the second straight year, associates continued to depart their firms earlier in 2024, within four years of hire, instead of the five-year historical pattern.
For the third year in a row, female hires outpaced males hires at 53% versus 47%.
Associates of color comprised 36% of all associates hired in 2024, increasing slightly from 34% in 2023.
The 2024 data in The NALP Foundation report, “Update on Associate Attrition,” came from 119 participating firms in the U.S. and Canada, detailing 6,092 associate hires and 4,125 associate departures.
The report is available for purchase at https://www.nalpfoundation.org/bookstore
