US legal jobs are rising again, but gains are mixed
The U.S. legal sector enjoyed its fifth straight month of employment growth in July, despite strains on the U.S. economy, reaching just shy of the historical peak of 1.2 million jobs in December 2023, according to the latest preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But a review of 35 years of BLS data shows legal industry employment has still barely improved from an earlier high point it reached nearly two decades ago, before the late-2000s financial crisis and the pandemic each reversed years of gains.
July's job numbers, which are subject to revision, are just 1.7% higher than the 1,179,500 jobs recorded in May 2007, when a period of propulsive growth had increased the number of legal jobs by 26.3% since 1990.
While overall legal employment only recently rebounded from the Great Recession, the largest law firms have grown substantially, employing more lawyers and becoming far richer. Between 1999 and 2021, the 200 top-grossing U.S. firms collectively grew their lawyer headcount by 87% and increased their revenues by 172%, according to data collected by the American Lawyer.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics job figures for the legal sector include a range of legal workers at companies, law firms and other organizations of all sizes, including paralegals and assistants.
The majority are attorneys, according to BLS, but it's a much larger and more varied group than those employed by the country's largest law firms. Those firms have grown by serving major corporate clients and continually charging higher rates, legal industry consultants said.
Billing rate increases have also sent compensation skyrocketing for top lawyers at the most in-demand firms. Pay for the "superstars" of the legal industry — who can command more than $10 million a year — are "numbers that were unimaginable 15 years ago," said consultant Bruce MacEwen of Adam Smith Esq.
Technological advances have allowed law firms to grow without needing to rely as heavily on administrative staff and paralegals, said Kristin Stark, a principal at law firm consultancy Fairfax Associates.
The ratio of lawyers to law firm staff has been declining for years, according to a 2024 report from the Thomson Reuters Institute. In 2017, law firms had 95 full-time support staffers for every one lawyer. In 2023, that number dropped to 81. The Thomson Reuters Institute and Reuters share the same parent company.
Artificial intelligence could drive more changes in legal staffing and employment if it allows law firms and legal departments to manage with fewer workers.
Kent Zimmermann, a law firm consultant at Zeughauser Group, said he spoke with the general counsel of a large fund who, instead of asking his fund's go-to outside law firm for case summaries and complex data sets, asked a generative AI model for the same information and received it for free.
Beyond the U.S. legal sector, BLS reported much weaker-than-expected job growth for July and issued historically large revisions to the data for May and June.
President Donald Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer hours after the report, accusing her without evidence of manipulating the figures.
– A team from Boies Schiller has taken on a prominent role defending top Florida officials in a pair of lawsuits in federal court over the state's hard-line immigration policies.
Boies partner Jesse Panuccio is representing state Attorney General James Uthmeier in one case that is on appeal now in the 11th Circuit. A judge in June held Uthmeier in civil contempt, opens new tab for allegedly flouting one her orders in the litigation.
A contract between Florida and Boies Schiller showed the state was billed $875 for legal work from partners, $750 for counsel and $625 for associates. Panuccio was a leading U.S. Justice Department lawyer during the first Trump administration. He and the firm did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Panuccio was in court last week in the other case, a challenge to the state's effort to build an immigration detention center in the Everglades. He is defending the state's emergency management director.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami at the hearing halted new construction at the facility dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" while the lawsuit plays out.
– International law firm Eversheds Sutherland said this week that its overall global revenue increased by roughly 10% in 2024, rising to $1.63 billion thanks in part to an increase in revenue from its U.S. offices.
Eversheds' U.S. business increased its revenue by 10% to, $460 million in 2024, a firm spokesperson said. The firm opened a new office in Silicon Valley last month.
Eversheds said Wednesday that revenue generated by its offices in Asia, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Middle East, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom rose by 3% to 768.7 million pounds ($1.04 billion) during its most recent fiscal year, which ended April 30.
Other London-founded international firms, including Clifford Chance, Kennedys, and Linklaters, have also reported revenue increases.
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