Full-Time Job Offers To Summer Associates Are Highest In Decade

happiness excitementFull-Time Job Offers To Summer Associates Is The Highest In A Decade

 
Slowly, but surely, the legal market seems to be returning to the days of old–or at least stabilizing. Full-time job offers for law students who spent last summer clerking in a law firm is at 95%, according to the latest data from the National Association of Law Placement (NALP) and reports from The National Law Journal.
After a fall-out in 2009, when only 69% of summer associates earned full-time offers from the law firms the clerked, job offers have been on the uptick. Last year, 93% received full-time offers and now 95% did, for the highest amount since pre-recession times. According to The National Law Journal report, NALP Executive Director, James Leipold joked at a recent annual summit for law firm recruiters and law school career services staff, the only summer associates to not receive job offers were the ones who threw up on someone.
Still, this is no time to be jumping for joy. As Leipold noted at the summit, the increase in job offers and competition for summer clerkships is largely the result of less law students to chose from. Interestingly, the national average number of summer associates to be hired by a NALP-affiliated law firm was 13 in 2015–the same as 2008 before the market was obliterated by the recession.
But Leipold cautioned the largest law firms have not seen the same type of recovery. For law firms with 700 or more employees, the median number of summer associates in 2007 was 30. In 2015, the number was just 20. What’s more, only 59% of law firms reported making more job offers than previous years and 30% said they actually had fewer offers this year than previous years.
In terms of on-campus recruiting, nearly a third of law firms said they had increased the number of schools they went to for on-campus recruiting this past year. Some 43% said they made no changes and about a quarter said they’ve decreased the amount of schools they’re currently visiting for on-campus recruiting.
For the schools, 36% reported having a 5% or greater increase in the number of law firms recruiting on their campuses. Some 43% reported having no change and just 21% reported having less on-campus recruitment from law firms.
Source: The National Law Journal
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