Recruiting for law students is moving earlier, faster and increasingly outside traditional channels, according to a new report from the National Association for Law Placement.
NALP’s annual report, “Perspectives on 2025 Law Student Recruiting,” shows a continued shift toward employer-sponsored recruiting, including direct applications and accelerated timelines, at the expense of law school-sponsored methods such as on-campus interviewing.
During the 2025 recruiting cycle for 2026 2L summer programs, 80% of offers resulted from employer sponsored recruiting, compared to just 20% through law school sponsored methods such as on-campus interviewing (OCI). Most offers were made well before midsummer, with 85% extended prior to July.
Acceptance rates also reached record levels. Overall, 52% of summer program offers were accepted, continuing a multiyear trend toward higher acceptance amid compressed timelines.
Nikia Gray, executive director of NALP, said the 2025 cycle not only reaffirmed the three-phase structure seen last year, but it also pulled the entire process materially forward.
“It should give us pause that, in a period already defined by significant institutional change and disruption, one of the forces exerting the most pressure on the structure of the first-year curriculum is not pedagogical reform or accreditation standards, but employer recruiting activity,” Gray said.
Gray added that for employers seeking alternatives to the accelerating pace of recruiting, expanding and diversifying pipelines may be the most effective option.
Summer 2025 programs and outcomes
Nationally, the average number of 2L summer associates per individual office was eight in 2025, down from nine in 2024, and 10 in 2022 and 2023. This is the smallest average 2L class size per office since 2020, when many firms canceled or scaled back their programs due to the pandemic.
New York City continued to post the largest class sizes, averaging 29 2L students per office.
The offer rate from 2L summer programs (to return post-graduation as an entry-level associate at the firm) held steady at 97%, unchanged from 2024. For the fourth year in a row, the offer acceptance rate exceeded 89%. The 2025 rate was 89.4%, down just slightly from the record high of 89.6% in 2024.
Offer rates to 1L summer associates (to return for the 2L 2026 summer program) rose to an all-time high of 94.2%, while acceptance rates for those offers declined to 72.3%. Of 1Ls who accepted a return offer, 75% will spend the entire 2026 summer with their firm, down from 79% the prior year.
For the first time, NALP tracked “jumbo offers,” defined as offers extended simultaneously for both 1L and 2L summers. Ten percent of offices with 1L programs reported making at least one jumbo offer, and 87% of those offices included a bonus or financial incentive tied to the 2L portion.
Recruiting for summer 2026 programs
Direct application was the most frequently used recruiting method for 2L hiring in 2025, cited by 93% of law offices. Law school recruiting programs followed at 71%, with resume collects at 64%.
Callback interviews resulted in offers 47% of the time, a slight decline from the prior cycle and below the historical range observed from 2014 to 2022.
While employer-sponsored recruiting produced higher offer rates than law school-sponsored methods, acceptance rates were higher for offers generated through law school-sponsored recruiting.
Overall offer volume for summer 2026 2L programs was essentially flat, increasing just 0.4% year over year. The median number of offers per office fell to four, an all-time low.
Timing varied sharply by recruiting method. Employer-sponsored offers were most often extended in May or earlier, while June remained the most common month for offers resulting from law school-sponsored recruiting.
