How Coronavirus and a Bear Market Could Upend Law Firm Hiring
There's no sign yet of panicked hiring freezes, and offers are already out for the newest crop of associates. But the situation is evolving quickly, and even if it's very unlike the Great Recession, the pandemic is bound to affect the legal job market.
March 12, 2020 at 05:00 AM
5 minute read
The original version of this story was published on The American Lawyer
When the U.S. stock market went into a tailspin in the fall of 2008, the response among law firms was swift and nearly uniform.
Hiring ground to a halt almost immediately after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy prompted a 4.5% one-day drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Sept. 15. Law students who were lucky enough to have interviews that August received offers, but after the crash, even those from top schools with the shiniest of resumes got nothing.
Fast-forward to this week, when the Dow sank by 7.8% on Monday, with the sudden start of a price war on oil compounding growing fears about the spread of the coronavirus, and it dropped another 5.8% Wednesday. Since peaking on Feb. 12, the index is down 20.5%.
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