2024 Bright Insight

FINDING, ATTRACTING AND KEEPING LEGAL TALENT

Global 100 firms indicating they will expand by acquiring practices and/or entire firms. With nearly 6 out of 10 law firms looking to law schools as a source of talent, understanding the graduate trends and how law firms are specifically recruiting associates, is valuable insight. According to the American Bar Association, there are 20% fewer students graduating law school today than there were 10 years ago . Law firms, however, should not be concerned with declining graduation rates as the total number of law school graduates that have become employed in law firms, and not elsewhere in the industry, has actually grown 4% over the same period.

Legal talent continues to be primarily sourced from other law firms and directly from law schools. Interestingly, firm respondents have shown more proclivity than in previous years for hiring legal talent from the government and corporations . Capturing talent through law firm or practice acquisition was a new selection included in this year’s survey and more than half of law firms indicated this is part of their talent sourcing strategy. Large firms, in particular, plan to use acquisitions to fuel headcount with 93% of

Number of U.S. Law graduates & share employed in law firm positions

50,000

60%

53%

50%

40,000

41%

40%

30,000

30%

20,000

20%

18.8k

18.6k

18.1k

17.9k

16.5k

16.4k

16.3k

16.3k

16.0k

16.0k

10,000

10%

-

0%

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

Total Law School Graduates

# Employed in Law Firms

% Employed in Law Firms

Source: American Bar Association, 2024

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