There's been an explosion in demand for legal services since late 2020 with lateral hiring skyrocketing in virtually every practice area.
But how did recent law school graduates from the top schools fare in their efforts to secure entry-level associate positions at leading law firms in the United States?
The good news for the law school class of 2021 — employment rates significantly rebounded from the pandemic-induced slump that hit the previous class, ending up stronger than they were two years ago.
Recent graduates are also enjoying the benefits of accelerated innovation at law firms over the past two years in their efforts to better recruit talent and retain their people.
This includes more flexible work environments, higher compensation packages and more opportunities for education and advancement.
Laura Leopard, Founder and CEO of Leopard Solutions says, “We all know what happened in 2020. In the thick of COVID, law firms just pressed the pause button. They did not do a lot of hiring, they didn't hire a lot of laterals and they also didn't hire a lot of people coming out of law school. So, what we're seeing here is that they’re finally hiring those grads who were on pause and the 2021 grads as well.”
But with those advances comes challenge – and opportunities -- such as how to navigate this new “normal” and effectively managing teams and foster relationship building, networking and mentorship in a hybrid and remote work environment.
Entry-level associates from top law schools can also expect a flurry of calls from recruiters as our research shows a high level of attrition from the graduates from top 10 schools because they are highly sought after, so competition is driving some of the low retention rates we are seeing.
Let’s delve deeper into the numbers.
According to our research, in 2021, a total of 14,600 new attorneys joined law firms. Of those, 64 percent were hired into top 200 firms and 36 percent went to firms outside the top 200. In 2021, there were 9,286 graduate hires in the top 200 firms. This is a dramatic increase over both 2020 and 2019, which saw 4,093 and 6,296 hires respectively. While this growth is dramatic, we can surmise that firms are playing catch-up and bringing those on board who were impacted by the 2020 pandemic hiring pause while also meeting their internal needs for additional support due to the increase in legal work.
How has the hiring of diverse candidates been impacted?
More women than men are now attending law schools and entering law firms as new graduates. That was the case in 2021 with women composing 53% of 2021 hires. In top 200 placements, ethnically diverse hires made up 28%.
It’s worth noting that while the top 200 remained stagnant over the last three years, under top 200 firms have grown from 20% representation to 23% representation, showing some strides in representation, even in an ultra-competitive environment despite the fact that it’s been even harder for firms beyond the top 200 to recruit and retain diverse candidates because Big Law firms are actively striving to hire more ethnically diverse attorneys leaving fewer for under top 200 firms to court.