By all accounts, last year’s job market for law students was dismal, with hiring off by 44 percent at the largest firms. For the class of 2009, 88.3 percent of graduates found employment within nine months of graduation, the lowest figure since the mid-1990s and one that does not reflect the percent of graduates who are underemployed — either in non-legal jobs or non-permanent full-time positions. Many expect the numbers for the class of 2010 to be even worse.
But that’s where the bad news ends. It appears as if the job market hit rock bottom a year ago and is now bouncing back. Law schools report that more employers will interview on campus this fall. And law firms report they plan to hire more summer associates.
“We are looking forward to seeing the market pick up,” said Marcy Cox, assistant dean of career development at the University of Miami School of Law. “I don’t know if BigLaw will ever be the same, but certainly hiring will increase.”
Columbia Law School in New York kicked off the Fall recruitment season on Aug. 11, and was pleased to report that the number of interviews law firms have agreed to conduct with second-year students increased by 8 percent from the prior year.
“It will probably still be smaller summer classes than it was in 2007 and 2008,” Petal Modeste, dean of career services at Columbia Law told the New York Law Journal. “But I don’t think they will be as small across the board as they were last year. I think a good number of the firms will edge back up closer to where they used to be.”
The 100 largest legal employers hired 7,034 summer associates in 2009, but only employed 3,805 this past summer, according to data collected by The American Lawyer. This year, based on a sampling of 10 firms that have publicly announced their intentions, those 100 employers are on pace to hire 6,300 summer associates for 2011. That would be a dramatic improvement, but one most people do not expect.
“Last year there was a significant drop, but I think they will hold steady [this year],” Cox said. “I think some of the law firms may not even know how many they will hire. A lot of them sign up in April or May, but by August they recognize they can’t hire as much. Firms will look at this very carefully and be very conservative. It is quite possible we will see fewer offers this year.”
One reason for that could be the number of associates that were deferred over the past few years. Jim Leipold, executive director of the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), said it would not surprise him to see larger classes in 2011, despite the deferrals.
“I have said all along, based on patterns from [prior] recessions, that the class of 2012 [summer associates in 2011] will be the first that we might see bigger classes,” Leipold said. “It fits the historic model of how it impacts the legal recession era of the legal market.”
Leipold said that law students can expect more employers on campus this fall.
“I hate to speculate, but I will say that last year more than 20 percent of law firms didn’t have a summer program,” Leipold said. “I would expect some of them would go forward with summer programs again.”
But, Leipold warns, don’t expect this to be an easy market in which to find a job. He advises students to take a broader approach, both geographically and by practice area, when choosing where to apply.
“There truly were regions where [hiring] was up and regions where it was down,” he said. “The numbers at small and medium size firms varied by region. Small and medium firms are much harder to generalize than large firms — so many variations by geography.”
by Jack Crittenden for The National Jurist
