The Jobs Picture: Slow Patchy Growth
Last week, the ABA released its 2013 law graduate employment data. If your glass is half full, you celebrated the slight uptick in employment. If you’re a pessimist, you dismissed the progress as a slight blip on a flatline.
This week, James Leipold, the Executive Director of the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), chimed in on the state of JD hiring. His thoughts? “We’re not going back to 2006 anytime soon.”
Leipold, who spoke at NALP’s annual conference this week, positioned recent progress in a historical context. According to Leipold, nine percent of associates lost their jobs in 2009. And 60,000 legal jobs were wiped away from 2008-2009, with only 15,000 returning over the past four years. While Leipold depicted recent numbers as “two steps forward and one step back,” these numbers really reflect a step forward after four steps back.
Despite some law schools reporting high job placements and six-figure starting salaries among recent graduates, the recovery has been maddeningly uneven. Overall, Leipold reports that starting median salaries have dipped since 2008 due to tepid hiring at big firms. Worse, it often takes law grads up to 18 months to land full-time work. Leipold adds that outsourcing and technology are further undercutting the need for new associates.
Bottom line: Don’t expect much change in the coming years. Still, in Leipold’s view, there are reasons for optimism. With enrollments projected to decrease by seven percent for the class of 2017, there will be fewer new graduates competing with each other for jobs. While law grads have entered a period of lowered expectations, they can take solace in knowing the worst is over. “I think the class of 2011 will historically come to be seen as the bottom of the market,” says Leipold.
Source: National Law Journal
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