aw firms across the United States have significantly reduced their summer associate hiring for 2024, reaching a record low, as they adopt a more cautious approach to recruitment. According to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), the total number of summer associate offers this year saw a slight decline compared to the already low figures from 2023.
In fact, the median number of offers per law firm office dropped to just six, down from seven in 2023, marking the lowest point since NALP began tracking this data in 1993. Despite this, the average number of offers extended to second-year law students remained stable at 22.
This drop in summer associate hiring signals that the legal recruitment market has yet to recover from last year’s slump. U.S. law firms have increasingly focused their hiring efforts on experienced lateral hires, scaling back summer associate and associate positions in response to uncertain market conditions and a decline in lawyer productivity. A report from the Thomson Reuters Institute published in January highlighted the growing trend of firms reducing their hiring as client demand slows, despite strong profits.
The report also pointed to the lingering effects of the hiring boom seen in 2021 and 2022, when firms were overstaffed due to an uptick in demand for legal services during the post-pandemic period. NALP’s executive director, Nikia Gray, explained that this overstaffing has left many law firms re-evaluating their recruitment strategies, leading to fewer summer associate positions.
One of the most notable shifts in this year’s hiring trends is the move away from traditional on-campus interviews, which have long been the cornerstone of law firm recruitment. Instead, a growing number of summer associate offers were made through direct recruiting, referrals, or resume collections—accounting for 56% of offers this year, compared to 47% in 2023. On-campus interviews now represent only 24% of offers, while early interview programs, introduced by law schools to allow students to connect with firms in the spring or early summer, accounted for 20%.
This shift in recruiting methods is further evidence of how law firms have moved toward earlier, more decentralized hiring practices. The COVID-19 pandemic facilitated this transition by popularizing virtual interviews, which have made it easier for firms to recruit students outside of traditional recruiting events. The removal of voluntary recruiting guidelines by NALP in 2018 has also given firms greater flexibility in how they approach the hiring process. As Erika Gardiner, McDermott Will & Emery’s director of talent acquisition, stated, “Shifting to earlier recruiting has proven necessary to secure top talent.”
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