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The Shift: The market is starting to question the professional development of junior lawyers

Amid the Great Recession, law firms laid off swaths of junior lawyers, particularly in practices like real estate. Four years later, as the market rebounded, they realized they didn't have many qualified mid-level real estate lawyers.

While firms haven't cut as many associates during the pandemic, three years into the world-shifting event and law firm leaders and in-house counsel are starting to wonder if they have at least three years' worth of undertrained associates who didn't benefit from the professional development historically gleaned from in-office exposure to how legal work gets done.