On-campus recruiting picked up slightly at law schools last fall, but that did not translate into major summer clerk hiring gains, according to data released on March 7 by the National Association for Law Placement. The average summer associate class size remained at eight—matching the previous year’s historic low. The median class size increased by just one summer clerk—from four in 2011 to five in 2012. Summer associate offer rates ticked up modestly, from 40.6 percent in fall 2010 to 46.4 percent in 2011 for students interviewed by firms. But that figure was dwarfed by the 60 percent offer rate in 2007.
Relatively small summer associate classes indicate that firms do not plan to boost new associate hiring through at least 2013, since firms attempt to project their hiring needs nearly two years in advance. Firms did offer a higher percentage of callback interviews to prospective summer associate hires last fall, and the median number of summer offers extended by firms rose slightly, from nine to 10. However, that figure lags significantly behind the pre-recession median of 16 offers. Smaller summer associate class sizes appear to have allowed firms to extend permanent job offers to the vast majority of summer associates—something they did not do in 2009, when they had committed to large summer classes but saw demand for legal services slowed by the recession.
