The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) recently released its annual Perspectives on 2015 Law Student Recruiting report, pointing to signs of recovery in recruiting following the 2008-2009 recession and its aftermath.
The data, which were initially presented by NALP Executive Director James Leipold during the NALP 2016 Legal Recruiting Summit last month, reveal this recent recruiting cycle to be the most robust summer associate recruiting and new associate hiring cycle since the recession.
“There is a scramble for top talent that we have not seen since before the recession,” Leipold said. “The increase in spring on-campus recruiting and the seemingly new trend toward some pre-OCI offers for perceived top talent and diverse candidates are indicative of this increased competition.”
The hiring, Leipold said, “may be driven in part by the fact that some law firms have been spooked by not having enough mid-level associates to do the work coming in, in large measure because law firms hired so few entry-level associates in the immediate aftermath of the recession.”
“Nonetheless, demand for legal services remains mostly flat and some analysts suggest lawyer headcount at some law firms is still too high,” Leipold said. “Even so, as law school graduating class size continues to come down for the foreseeable future and some law firms excel in a difficult market, it is likely that in the short term law firm recruiting activity for summer programs will remain brisk. Absent another macro-economic disruption of some sort, it is likely that we will see increased intensity in the recruiting arena throughout 2016.”
In the last six years following the economic recession, law firms have slowly continued to increase their entry-level recruiting activity.
While the size of the graduating class has gotten smaller, the average size of law firm programs has nearly recovered to pre-recession levels.
Smaller graduating classes may be one factor driving law firm competition in on-campus recruiting, and new pre-OCI trends are emerging.
Law firms reported an increase in the number of summer associate offers made this year, compared to last year.
They also reported a 95.3 percent offer rate from summer programs for entry-level associate positions — the highest NALP has recorded in over two decades.
These findings, among other data described in the report, offer evidence that legal recruiting and hiring activity over the last two years has intensified, offering a bright outlook for 2016.
Significant findings include:
• 95.3 percent of 2015 summer associates, students who will graduate in 2016, received an entry-level associate position offer, up from 93.4 percent last year, and in stark contrast to 2009 when only 69 percent of summer associates received offers.
• The number of offers for summer program spots has increased measurably as the competition for top law school graduates heats up, and for members of the Class of 2017, nearly all of the recruiting markers ticked upwards for the third year in a row.
• 59 percent of law firms reported making more offers for summer 2016 associate positions than they had for summer 2015 positions.
• For the fourth year in a row, a higher percentage of callback interviews resulted in offers compared to the previous year, and the percent of callback interviews resulting in offers for summer positions rose from 52.1 percent to 53.8 percent, the highest figure recorded since 2007.
• The overall acceptance rate dipped slightly from 33.8 percent last year to 32.7 percent this cycle as law firms had to make more offers to yield the same number of acceptances.
• 26 percent of law firms reported making at least one pre-OCI offer.
• More than half of law schools in all regions reported an increase in the number of law firms visiting campus during spring OCI.
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