Summer Associate Recruiting Rates On the Rise

by Rachel Glas

Entry-Level Job Offer Rates
Summer Associates	2010	2009
	percent
National	87.4	69.3
Los Angeles	94	78.5
San Francisco	90	55.8
San Jose	95.5	73.3
Source: National Association for Law Placement, Perspectives on Fall 2010 Law Student Recruiting

Three years after the current recession hit law firms and decimated the market for entry-level attorneys, things finally may be looking up, according to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP).

One-quarter of law schools reported that they increased their presence at job fairs in 2010 by at least 5 percent compared with the previous year. Meanwhile, more than one-third of law firms said they upped their presence on campuses compared with 2009.

In the rate of job offers, summer associates experienced the most dramatic upswing, with a national rebound of 18 percentage points after plunging to an all-time low of just 69.3 percent in 2009.

But it's too soon to celebrate, NALP warns. "It is important to keep these numbers in perspective," says James Leipold, the association's executive director. "The recovery we are seeing in the legal economy is nascent, and the jump in recruiting levels is small."

Authors of the report posit that the dramatic upswing in offer rates reflects shrinking summer associate class sizes. After being stuck with large classes during the recession, law firms decreased the size of their programs by a median of two positions last year, the first drop since 2001.

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