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The Looming Associate Crisis

By Ronda Muir
June 28, 2007

An associate recruitment and retention crisis is looming for which there are no easy solutions. Law schools continue to graduate roughly 40,000 students a year, as they have over the last 20 years. The AmLaw 200 law firms have been steadily hiring an average of 4%+ more associates each year, resulting last year in a typical incoming associate class of 50. That means that AmLaw 200 firms now hire about 10,000 new associates a year, or about 50% of the graduates from the top 100 (hardly the Ivy League elite) of the nation's 200 law schools.

Seen from another perspective, the top 20 law firms in the country need to hire at least 2100 graduates this year, while only 1400 or so students will graduate in the top 20% of the top 20 law schools.

And the number of associates these firms will be trying to hire is likely to continue to climb. Already this year, firms are starting to announce double-digit increases in summer hiring ' 35% at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, 20% at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and 14% at DLA Piper. And the competition from hedge funds and investment banks offering attractive alternatives is increasing.

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