Largest 250 Law Firms Still Shedding Attorneys, Lawcrossing Finds 30,000 Attorney Jobs

Pasadena, CA -- (SBWire) -- 11/15/2010 -- The 250 largest law firms in America laid off over 1,400 attorneys from their staff, marking a second year of declining headcount.

This marked a decline of 1.1 percent for the 250 largest law firms, down from the 4 percent decline in 2009. The data is taken from the NLJ 250 which is complied by The National Law Journal. Associates accounted for most of the layoffs, around a 1,000 attorneys. The report includes projections till the end of the year.

The NLJ 250 had 60,782 associates, who account for 48% of all the attorneys employed. The law firms hired 5,335 new associates, including deferrals from previous years. Partners were in a relatively more secure position, as their total numbers actually increased by 0.6 percent. The total number of lawyers at NLJ 250 was 126,299 in 2010.

Several of the top law firms experienced double digit layoffs. The biggest ones in terms of percentage were Fish & Richardson and Butzel Long, each with 17.7 percent decline. However, nine firms increased their headcounts by over 10 percent. But the only firm in the top 20 to meet that criterion was Ropes & Gray, who increased their attorney headcount by 21.6 percent.

CEO A. Harrison Barnes of LawCrossing says that although the large law firms are laying off attorneys, there are opportunities in smaller firms across America. “Going solo is not the only solution if you are laid off; we have been able to gather thousands of openings from smaller and mid-sized firms.” LawCrossing has been able to find over 30,000 attorney jobs across the country.

LawCrossing is a job aggregator site for all types of legal jobs. Its database carries attorney jobs (30,369), law student/clerkship (16,968), legal staff jobs (11,259), partner jobs (256), postgraduate clerkship (591), and summer associate/ internships (2,389).