Legal Market Reports

• The 2018 legal market was even stronger than the 2017 market. We had more candidates interviewing and getting hired in 2018 than we did in 2017.
• The market is so strong that a majority of the candidates we placed this year were entertaining multiple offers from top firms.
• In a market this strong, the supply of attorney candidates at smaller firms—especially those in niche practice areas and niche markets—dwindles. These firms, which have not typically used recruiters in the past, came to us for help in large numbers this year.
• Following in Milbank’s footsteps, many top firms raised salaries for associates of all levels starting in the summer of 2018. The reaction from firms’ corporate clients was mixed, with many clients expressing unhappiness about the ever-increasing cost of legal expenses, and many companies indicating they would turn to alternative legal solutions to keep costs down.
• The uncertainty regarding how the revenue-driving clients might react to these salary raises seemed to slow down interviews and hiring in big firms significantly. The already competitive landscape for attorneys looking to lateral within the large firm space became even more so.
• Many millennials recognized that these biglaw salary increases came at a steep cost of working even harder, leading to a trend of seeking refuge in boutique or “lifestyle” law firms or simply quitting the practice of law altogether.
• To address client cost-concerns, large firms are increasingly creating staff attorney positions rather than partner-track associate positions. This is true particularly in more commoditized areas of law, such as patent prosecution and trademark.
• Senior level litigators had a very, very difficult time getting positions in larger markets. Litigation is increasingly becoming a dangerous practice area for large law firm attorneys with few opportunities for advancement.

• The 2017 legal market was one of the better legal markets on record. We placed 30% more attorneys in 2017 than we placed in 2016—and 2016 was a very good legal market.
• While the partner market was healthy, the associate market was far healthier than it has been in a generation. The market is doing well in every part of the country.
• Provided there is no crash, the 2018 market should be an even better market than 2017.
• Litigation was surprisingly active in smaller to midsized law firms and very slow in the largest law firms. Large law firms have continued to have reduced hiring in 2017. Large law firms have also started creating more and more staff attorney roles for litigators. We saw numerous law firms do this in 2017 that formerly would have hired regular associates.
• Niche practice areas remained very popular and the easiest to get jobs in. The more “niche” an attorney’s background, the more marketable they are likely to be. Attorneys in the most niche practice areas that are geographically flexible were almost always able to land positions.
• For many niche practice areas, it became easier for attorneys to get hired at top law firms than it has ever been. Large law firms are finding a lack of talent for attorneys in many niche practice areas and hiring more and more of them.
• Corporate generalist hiring was much less robust than it was in the previous years; however, corporate finance has gotten busier.
• Overall, corporate was extremely competitive to get positions within the largest law firms, but smaller to midsized firms were hungry for attorneys in corporate.
• Real estate was very slow. There was hardly any activity in real estate all year, and real estate attorneys had a difficult time.
• More and larger law firms are moving away from employment-related work. Many of those that are not are hiring “staff attorneys” to do the day-to-day related employment work. In an interesting twist, many employment-only firms did a lot of hiring in 2017 and were increasingly demanding the best talent.
• Trademark is traditionally a “barometer” of a healthy economy with new businesses being started—we saw more trademark jobs in the last month of 2017 than we have ever seen. Many large law firms are hiring staff attorneys to do trademark work, however.
• Senior level litigators had a very, very difficult time getting positions in larger markets. Litigation is increasingly becoming a dangerous practice area for large law firm attorneys with few opportunities for advancement.
• More and more millennials seem to be interested in smaller law firms and unconcerned about compensation and leaving large law firms than ever before—many are simply quitting.
• Diversity has become something that is extremely important to law firms. This has become so important that this year I wrote a book about diversity for law firms and applicants that can be found here: Law Firm Diversity: How Race, Gender, Age, Social and Economic Divisions Impact the Hiring, Retention and Advancement of Law Firm Attorneys

This State of the Market Report covers the major trends in legal placements for 2016 and 2017. As this Report explains, one of the most significant features of the new legal job landscape is the increasing demand for specialist attorneys and the decreasing demand for generalist attorneys. In fact, it appears that the new badge of marketability has become the quality of an attorney's "niche" practice area experience as opposed to the quality of the attorney's law school or law firm. This Report tells you what happened with the legal job market across the country in 2016 and what we can expect in 2017. READ MORE >