New Job Listings Increase for Law Firm, In-House and Government Attorneys in March
After a month-over-month decline in new job listings in February from each of the three employer types tracked by Firm Prospects–law firms, in-house legal departments and government agencies–March saw an increase in new jobs across the board. We’ll need to wait a few months to see if this will be the start of an upward trend in legal hiring, as some predict, or just a blip on the radar during a prolonged lull in legal hiring.
Law Firm Jobs
Although not as drastically as in-house or government job listings, new law firm job listings increased by 6.2% as compared to the prior month, with 1,115 new jobs listed on Firm Prospects.
New job postings continue to be dominated by firms seeking litigation attorneys, mainly at the associate level. As seen in the chart below, over 38% of all law firm job listings in March were seeking litigation attorneys, followed by employment at 16.4% and intellectual property attorneys at 16.4% and 9.7%, respectively. Relative to the unprecedented demand for transactional attorneys seen in 2021, new job listings for corporate attorneys still remains slow at 8.8% of all new jobs in March.
Lewis Brisbois took over the top spot for most new job listings by a law firm in March with 51 new posts. Ogletree, the law firm with the most new job listings in February, moved to the 8th spot with 20 new listings for associate attorneys. The bar chart below lists the top 20 law firms with the most new listings in March as tracked by Firm Prospects.
The major metropolitan areas with the largest attorney populations topped the list of locations with the most new attorney job listings in March. As seen in the chart below, New York had the most new law firm job listings in March with 107, followed by the District of Columbia with 60 and Los Angeles with 55 new posts.
In-House Jobs
New in-house job listings jumped drastically in March with 1,932 new listings as compared to 1,520 the month prior, an increase of over 27%. Two of the Big 4 accounting firms knocked Meta out of the top spot for total listings in March with KPMG posting 76 new roles followed by PwC at 46.
GOVERNMENT JOBS
Job postings by government agencies looking to hire attorneys also increased in March with 860 total new listings, an increase of 234 jobs as compared to the prior month, an increase of over 31%. The DOJ once again led all government agencies with 35 new job listings in March, followed by a number of states seeking attorneys at various levels and within different departments.
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