There is good news for recent law graduates. According to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), the rate of summer associates that received offers increased to 87% in 2010, from a historic low of 69% in 2009. The increase of 18% is much closer to what the offer rates were in 2008, which was 90%.
Having more job offers available has made law graduates a little bit pickier. For permanent job offers, acceptance rates dropped a little bit, going down to 82% in 2010 from 85% in 2009. Also, the median number of summer offers for 2Ls that firms put out went up a little bit, from seven to nine. Despite all of this, the summer programs overall size dropped a little bit more, with a median class size of four, instead of about six, which it had stayed close to for almost 10 years. 3Ls were also still not in high demand by law offices, as only 15% of them said that they interviewed them, and of those only 40% were given job offers.
There is no need to worry about these smaller class sizes and low demand for 3Ls, as there is more good news. According to the survey taken by NALP, in 2011, most law firm officers that didn’t have a summer program in 2010 are planning on adding one this year, which is good news for both law students and recent graduates.