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Lateral hiring bounced back in 2024, especially for associates in BigLaw, new NALP report says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 26, 2025, 3:49 pm CDT

Lateral hiring of law firm associates increased nearly 25% in 2024, far outpacing a much smaller increase of about 2% in lateral hiring of partners, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Association for Law Placement.

Overall, lateral hiring in firms increased nearly 14%, according to a March 26 press release and a report in the April NALP Bulletin.

The increase was highest in firms with more than 1,000 lawyers, which had an overall 21% increase in lateral hiring and a 41% in lateral associate hiring.

The increase follows two down years “characterized by a retreat of BigLaw firms from the marketplace, which created an opportunity for savvy small firms to pick up some top-notch talent,” said Nikia Gray, executive director of the NALP, in the press release. “In 2024, the lateral market began to stabilize, and with that, we saw the BigLaw firms reentering the fray, largely driving the smaller firms out of the market.”

Lateral hiring increased 110.9% in 2021, decreased 11.5% in 2022, decreased 35% in 2023 and increased 13.9% in 2024.

The average number of lateral hires per office or firm was 16 in 2021, 15.9 in 2022, 9.3 in 2023 and 9.9 in 2024. The lowest average in the last 25 years was was 5.1 lateral hires per office or firm in 2009.

The report is based on a survey of 434 law offices that supplied hiring information on 4,295 lateral lawyers. Most of the respondents were from midsize and larger firms. Only 11% of the survey respondents came from firms of 250 or fewer lawyers.

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Judge tosses bias suit over BigLaw firm’s diversity hiring program for summer associates

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 27, 2025, 8:55 am CST

A straight, white female lawyer can’t sue King & Spalding over exclusion from a diversity hiring program for summer associates because of a “paucity of allegations” that she was ready and able to apply, a federal judge ruled Monday.

The plaintiff, Sarah Spitalnick, said she didn’t apply for the position while she was a 1L at the University of Baltimore School of Law because she thought that it would have been a futile gesture. The February 2021 job ad that she saw for the program said candidates “must have an ethnically or culturally diverse background or be a member of the LGBT community.”

But U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar of the District of Maryland said mere allegations about being ready and able to apply aren’t enough. Spitalnick’s lawsuit says nothing about steps that she took to apply or inquire about the position or about considering similar positions, he said.

Spitalnick “faces an uphill climb to plead an actual or imminent injury—a climb she ultimately fails to summit,” Bredar wrote in the Feb. 24 opinion.

Reuters and Law360 covered the decision.

Bredar noted that Spitalnick sued more than three years after she saw the ad. She wasn’t able to show that she was ready and able to apply in 2021 or that she remained ready and able when she sued, he said. It “strains credulity” to think that the job posting was still up in 2024, and she was already a lawyer at that time.

Spitalnick “supplies no reason to believe she would have remained interested in, let alone eligible for, an internship for first-year law students,” wrote Bredar, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.

The King & Spalding program was sponsored by the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, a third-party organization.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Bureau of Land Management is hosting five events to quickly fill more than 100 vital wildland firefighter and various supporting positions throughout the state for the 2025 fire year. Applicants are encouraged to attend one of the in-person events but may apply online in advance.

During the events, staff will be on-site to review resumes, process applications, conduct interviews, and potentially make job offers.

“To meet BLM California’s wildland fire-related challenges, we are recruiting applicants who are committed to managing fire in the most effective and efficient ways possible,” said State Fire Management Officer Peter Kelly. “Please consider the BLM for a rewarding career in wildland fire management and apply and visit with us during these hiring events.”

The BLM will be hiring wildland firefighters for engines, hotshots, handcrews, helitack and various supporting positions. A summary of these types of positions is available on the National Interagency Fire Center’s wildland fire job page.

The in-person events are scheduled as follows from 9 am to 4 pm daily:

December 12- 14, 2024
Apple Valley Fire Center 18809 Central Road Apple Valley, California 92307 (Google Map)
Hours: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

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January 30 – February 2, 2025
Bakersfield Field Office 35126 McMurtrey Ave. Bakersfield, California 93308  (Google Map)
Hours: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

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February 7-8, 2025
Carson Valley Inn In the Topaz Room 1627 Hwy 395 N Minden, NV 89423 (Google Map)
Hours: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

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March 4-5, 2025
Hidden Valley Fire Station 1709 HWY 139 Susanville, CA 96130 (Google Map)
Hours: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

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March 6-7, 2025
Surprise Valley Fire Station 602 Cressler St. Cedarville, CA 96104 (Google Map)
Hours: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Job announcements, including qualifications, salaries, application instructions and application deadlines, will be available at USAJOBS. For more information applicants can visit the BLM California fire hire page online.

 

 

 

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Will diversity policy affect hiring of independent monitor in Boeing case? Federal judge wants to know

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 17, 2024, 11:11 am CDT

A federal judge considering a proposed plea agreement between Boeing and the U.S. Department of Justice wants to know how diversity, equity and inclusion policies will influence the selection of a monitor to assess compliance.

In an Oct. 15 order, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas ordered briefing on the issue, report Reuters and the Associated Press.

Reed wants to know “what role Boeing’s internal focus on DEI impacts its compliance and ethics obligations,” the order said.

He also wants the government to explain how its diversity policy “furthers compliance and ethics efforts” and how it will be used in selecting a monitor.

The AP described Reed as “a favorite of conservative lawyers looking for a court to hear their lawsuits against policies issued by Democratic presidents.” He is an appointee of former President George W. Bush.

The deal before O’Connor calls for Boeing to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States for misleading the Federal Aviation Administration about a new flight-control system. The technology allegedly played a role in plane crashes that killed 346 people.

The deal calls for Boeing to pay a $487.2 million fine, with credit for $243.6 million Boeing previously paid under a deferred prosecution agreement, according to a July government court filing. The deal also calls for Boeing to spend at least $455 million on compliance and safety programs over a three-year probationary period. The monitor would be chosen by the government with feedback from Boeing.

The AP spoke with John C. Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School, about Reed’s inquiry into DEI policies.

“I do not see this as a strategic move but as a detour motivated by the court’s skepticism of DEI,” Coffee said.

Hat tip to the Volokh Conspiracy, which linked to the order in a post by Paul Cassell, a professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law.

Cassell represents families of crash victims and thinks that the deal fails to hold Boeing accountable for the deaths.

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Which BigLaw firms are hiring the most lateral partners?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 5, 2024, 8:59 am CDT

Frank Lopez, the chair at Paul Hastings, is hiring partners away from rivals with the aim of creating “exponential impact,” he told Bloomberg Law.

During the first six months of the law firm’s fiscal year, billable hours increased 12%, Bloomberg Law reports. That’s four times higher than the average for the nation’s 50 top-grossing firms, based on figures for the first half of 2024.

Paul Hastings is projecting that its billable hours will increase 10% by the end of the year.

“In a flat or contracting market, the only way to grow demand is to take market share from your competitors at the top,” Lopez told Bloomberg Law.

Paul Hastings’ lateral partner hiring trails only one firm in the top 50, according to a Bloomberg Law chart of lateral hiring through July of this year. These firms were on top:

  • Kirkland & Ellis, 71 partners

  • Paul Hastings, 44 partners

  • Greenberg Traurig, 35 partners

  • DLA Piper, 32 partners

  • Holland & Knight, 28 partners

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Which BigLaw firms are increasing lateral associate hiring the most? One made legal headlines last year

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 4, 2024, 11:24 am CDT

As a whole, BigLaw firms have reduced lateral hiring of associates over the last two years, a phenomenon documented in a report by the National Association for Law Placement.

But some high grossing law firms are bucking the trend, Reuters reports in a story that relies on data from legal data intelligence provider Leopard Solutions.

No. 1 for raw numbers in lateral associate hiring is Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, which had to grapple with the loss of 140 lawyers who left to start a new firm last year.

Lewis Brisbois hired 279 lateral associates in 2023, an “uncharacteristically high” number, the firm’s managing partner, Greg Katz, told Reuters columnist Jenna Greene in an email. The firm has also improved its management structure and is bringing on “top talent of every experience level,” Katz said.

Despite the new hires, Lewis Brisbois had 48 fewer associates at the end of 2023 than at the beginning, when there were 659 associates, according to Leopard Solutions, which collected its data from the websites of the nation’s 200 top grossing firms.

But the new firm made up of former Lewis Brisbois lawyers fared much worse. It imploded amid revelations that two of its leaders had sent offensive and derogatory office emails.

Other BigLaw firms increasing lateral associate hiring are Jackson Lewis (which hired 130 lateral associates last year) and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (which hired 113 lateral associates in 2023).

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For second year in a row, law firms pull back on lateral hiring of lawyers

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 27, 2024, 11:35 am CDT

Law firms continue to cut back lateral hiring of lawyers following the talent wars of 2021, according to a report by the National Association for Law Placement.

Lateral hiring by firms declined 35% in 2023 following a decrease of 11.5% the prior year, according to a March 27 press release from the NALP and a NALP Bulletin article.

The median number of lawyers hired was 4.0 in 2023, and the average was 9.3 per office or firm, the lowest numbers since 2010.

As the market cooled, there was also a decline in the number of lateral hires allowed to work remotely outside firms’ geographic areas. For lateral partners, the percentage allowed to work remotely was 12%, down from 16.1% in 2022. For associates, the remote percentage was 13.6%, down from 19.3% in 2022.

Lateral hiring is down more for associates than partners. Associate lateral hiring decreased nearly 43% in 2023, following a decline of 20% in 2022. Although associate lateral hiring declined among all sizes of firms, it was most pronounced in firms with more than 1,000 lawyers. In those firms, associate lateral hiring decreased 51%.

Partner lateral hiring only decreased 10% in 2023 after a slight increase of 5.5% in 2022. The decline was due to a 19.1% decline in hiring at firms with 501 to 700 lawyers and a 19.9% decline with firms of more than 1,000 lawyers. At firms of other sizes, lateral hiring of partners increased.

The NALP analysis is based on more than 4,400 lateral hires at 479 firms and offices. Firms were encouraged to report hiring based on individual offices, but some of the data includes firmwide hiring.

Nikia Gray, executive director of the NALP, noted NALP research showing that firms are also making fewer offers for summer associate programs.

The research on summer offers and lower lateral hiring “strongly suggests that law firms are projecting lower client demand over the next few years and readjusting their talent growth strategies as a result,” Gray said in the press release.

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Flush with incoming associates, law firms pulled back on 2024 summer associate hiring, rivaling Great Recession levels

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 12, 2024, 12:22 pm CDT

Law firms that recruited law students in 2023 for summer associate programs in 2024 took a cautious approach, resulting in one of the softest recruiting seasons since the Great Recession, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Association for Law Placement.

The offer rate for summer 2024 programs for second-year law students was the lowest recorded since 2012, according to a March 12 press release and the NALP report, Perspectives on 2023 Law Student Recruiting.

Forty-six percent of callback interviews in 2023 resulted in offers for 2024 summer associate positions, a decline of 6 percentage points from 2022. The acceptance rate, on the other hand, was 47%, an increase of 6 percentage points from 2022 and the highest ever recorded by the NALP, indicating that students were receiving fewer competing offers.

The median number of offers extended by law offices to 2Ls for summer 2024 programs was seven offers, the lowest figure since the recruiting cycle for summer 2010 programs.

The softened market for 2024 summer associates follows a record number of 7,570 second-year law students participating in summer associate programs in 558 law offices last year. Among that number, 7,294 of the summers accepted associate offers.

“Recruited in the midst of the post-pandemic hiring surge, the total number of students participating in 2023 2L summer programs was the most ever recorded by NALP and resulted in over 1,100 more students receiving associate offers this year than in 2022,” the NALP report says. “Now facing the prospect of all these new lawyers flooding their offices in the fall, firms may have growing concerns about absorbing additional new talent if client demand does not increase to keep pace and they continue to carry excess capacity through 2024.”

The report also found that the traditional vehicle for hiring 2Ls—on-campus interviews—is declining as a recruiting strategy. Only 53% of summer associate offers for 2024 programs were made through this process.

“What the data suggests is that OCI is still a valuable recruiting tool,” said Nikia L. Gray, executive director of the NALP, in the press release, “but that firms are increasingly viewing it as a vehicle to ‘round out’ their summer programs after engaging in a vigorous round of pre-OCI recruiting to secure their ideal candidates.”

As a law professor, one of the most rewarding parts of my job is helping students navigate their burgeoning legal careers and find positions that bring professional satisfaction and success. I am always delighted when students appear in my office with an offer in hand or a story about an amazing case that they worked on over the summer.

Correspondingly, one of the worst parts of my job is witnessing the disappointment, embarrassment and uncertainty that students face when a hoped-for offer doesn’t arrive, a job doesn’t work out, or something goes wrong at an internship or summer placement.

While my students have found professional success in a wide variety of settings—large law firms, small firms, nonprofits, government agencies, courts, etc.—I have been highly troubled by the number of students who have been subjected to hiring and employment practices at small firms that I would describe as unethical at best and deceptive and exploitative at worst.

Here are just a few examples from my 11 years as a professor at law schools in three states (with superficial details changed to protect the privacy of the students involved).

  • A student who, after working for two summers at a small firm, was offered a “three-phase employment plan,” in which the firm offered to (1) pay her a (very) low salary for her first three months, (2) the same salary for the next three months on the condition that she generate an equivalent amount of revenue or pay back the difference, and then (3) stop paying her a salary from the sixth month onward but charge her a fee to use the firm’s printer. The hiring partner told her that she should plan to have developed her own book of business by that point.

  • A small firm that hired multiple summer associates with the promise that everyone would receive offers of permanent employment at the end of the summer. After putting in long hours for the next three months, every summer associate except the hiring partner’s son and a prominent potential client’s daughter were told that they would not be receiving the offers of which they had been assured.

  • A student who received an offer from a small firm that wanted him to open a branch office in another town completely on his own. The firm offered to pay him $40,000per year and give him a stack of law books that it had purchased from a recent library closure but noted that he would have to pay for his own insurance and his own subscription to online legal research service Westlaw. When the student pushed back, the firm agreed to raise the offer to $60,000 per year and promised that, eventually, he would earn back some amount of the additional revenue that he generated at a percentage to be negotiated later.

In addition to other such troubling examples, I have frequently witnessed 2Ls and 3Ls performing significant amounts of unpaid or low-paid work at small firms during the semester. These students sometimes struggle to keep up with their classes and the demands of their supervising attorneys.

Many of those students, moreover, never receive offers from those firms and are left scrambling to find other permanent employment near graduation. Meanwhile, my sense is that these firms see no problem with such outcomes and instead commend themselves for having given students an opportunity to gain experience.

In some of these situations, the attorneys involved may have been overwhelmed by hefty workloads or truly miscalculated the hiring and supervisory capacities of their small firms. They may also have been out of touch with the current legal market and reasonable compensation ranges.

In others, I think that such firms have purposely exploited law students, extracting considerable amounts of work from them while dangling the prospect of long-term employment that they know they will never be able to offer. Finding a law student to intern is indeed a cheaper option than hiring another attorney, paralegal or assistant.

I am sympathetic to the unique workload and economic challenges faced by small firms. I am also aware that such firms can—and very often do—offer law students opportunities that larger firms cannot: opportunities to perform more significant legal work earlier in their careers.

I have had scores of law students find immensely satisfying employment at small firms and even start their own. Additionally, local small firm attorneys are often some of the most supportive and engaged alums that law schools have.

But I also think that the lack of transparency surrounding small firm hiring increases the risk of unsavory employment practices—a risk that law schools, the bar and small firms themselves should work to reduce.

Unlike large firms, which typically compensate associates in a given region similarly and whose hiring and compensation practices frequently find exposure on sites like Above the Law, small firms vary enormously and are often black boxes with respect to compensation. Law students understandably struggle to determine whether an offer from a small firm is a fair one and often don’t yet have the experience to know when a term of employment is unusual or objectionable.

The common issues with large firms are well known and widely discussed: grueling hours, difficult partners and high attrition, particularly among women and people of color. I worry, however, that in our profession’s very laudable efforts to improve the workplace at big firms, small firms have largely escaped scrutiny.

Worse, the attention on big firms seems to have created a mythology in the minds of many law students that working for large firms necessarily entails high compensation in exchange for terrible hours and poor treatment, whereas small firms are their gentler, more family-friendly—though lower-paying—alternatives. Experienced members of our profession know that to be a false dichotomy, but law students may not.

To combat these issues, law schools have to offer students closer guidance in contemplating job offers from small firms. They should keep track of which firms engage in dubious employment practices and caution students away from them. Law schools also have to teach law students how to do due diligence before accepting a job. Schools should encourage students to research how other small firms in the area are compensating attorneys doing similar work, check the disciplinary history of the lawyers at the firm, and ask tactful but thoughtful questions about the firm’s finances.

State bars should take a more active role in monitoring the employment practices of small firms and whether such firms are providing adequate supervision of law student interns. State bars should also provide more CLE opportunities designed to ensure that small firm attorneys are up to date on employment laws, ethical hiring standards and current norms in compensation.

Finally, small firms have to engage in careful self-reflection before hiring law students. They should not hire law students whom they cannot adequately supervise or fairly compensate. Additionally, they should be as transparent and upfront as possible with students about the possibility of future employment.

While having law student interns is undoubtedly helpful, particularly if a firm is struggling under the weight of a daunting caseload or financial uncertainty, the risks inherent in small firm practice should not be borne by some of the most vulnerable members of our profession.

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Tracy Hresko Pearl is professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She researches and writes in the areas of law and technology, criminal procedure and torts. Before becoming an academic, she was an associate at Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., and a law clerk for judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Denver.

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ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Bureau of Land Management is hosting two events in California to quickly fill over 100 vital wildland firefighter and dispatch positions throughout the state for the 2024 fire year. Applicants are encouraged to attend one of the in-person events but may apply online in advance.

During the events, staff will be on-site to review resumes, process applications, conduct interviews and background checks and, at the Sacramento event, potentially make job offers.

“California’s need to build our wildland firefighter workforce is increasing and the Bureau of Land Management is looking to expedite the hiring process,” said State Fire Management Officer Peter Kelly. “The BLM encourages enthusiastic, energetic individuals looking for a rewarding career in wildland fire management to apply and visit with us during these hiring events.”

The BLM will be hiring wildland firefighters for engines, hotshots, handcrews, helitack and dispatchers. A summary of these types of positions is available on the National Interagency Fire Center’s wildland fire job page.

The in-person events are scheduled as follows:

December 1-3, 2023
Pacific Southwest Research Station
4955 Canyon Crest Dr
Riverside, CA 92507
Hours: 9 am to 4 pm each day.

February 2-4, 2024
Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Sacramento 
2001 Point W Way
Sacramento, CA 95815
Hours: Friday, 12 pm – 4 pm; Saturday. 8 am to 4 pm; Sunday 8 am to 2 pm.

In addition to the hiring events, three informational webinars are scheduled to provide applicants tips and assistance to navigate the application process. Those webinars are scheduled for Oct. 19 and Nov. 9, 2023; and Jan. 25, 2024. Please register in advance through the website.

Job announcements, including qualifications, salaries, application instructions and application deadlines, will be available at USAJOBS. 

Applicants can visit https://www.blm.gov/california-firehire, for more information.