Summer Associate Hiring Not Increasing

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The National Association for Law Placement has revealed a study on March 7 that shows there isn’t much more hiring for summer clerks this year. The average associate class of 8 last year, the lowest it’s ever been, stayed just that this year; and the median class size of 4 for summer clerks went up by just 1.

Summer associate offer rates scrabbled from 40.6 per cent to 46.4 between 2010 and 2011. Since these figures represent how firms will hire in two years, we shouldn’t expect an increase in hiring till at least 2013.

Jim Leipold, the director of the National Association for Law Placement, spoke of the lack of progress:

  

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“This is not a hot recruiting market, but this sort of modest growth may well represent the best we can hope for with year-on-year comparisons going forward. I would anticipate volatility in the recruiting market for some time. For instance, 2012 is off to a slow start economically for law firms, and we may see that reflected in the recruiting numbers this August.”

There have been more callback interviews, though the offers are not much higher. Of the class of 2012 who finished the summer clerkship at law last year, 91.4 per cent were offered permanent jobs, of which 85 per cent accepted.

There are indications that smaller summer class sizes will be more common.