Job Seekers

A young lawyer with three children abandoned a job at a firm to seek a better work-life balance, with a new position inside of a corporate legal department. The past year has been full of late-night Zoom calls, scrambling to keep up with a shifting regimen of public health regulations and not as much influence over the company’s overall policies than the lawyer originally sought out. 

It has been well over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic pushed law firms to quickly move out of their office spaces. Law firms have taken a wide-range of approaches when it comes to getting people back into the office. Some firms moved personnel back in last summer, while others are still remote, or as close to it as they can. 

Big law is on a hiring frenzy for regulatory, policy and enforcement lawyers, with a string of big firms in mid-April adding former government lawyers, prosecutors and legislative aides. 

After a monumental financial year for law firms, the associate lateral hiring market is on a hot streak, and firms are making every effort to entice more corporate young lawyers, including huge signing bonuses and extending offers to associates the day of their interviews. 

In the good old days (12 months ago), when lawyers interviewed for jobs, they dressed up in suits, maybe flew across the country, met with numerous people – sometimes sequentially and sometimes together – shook hands, ate a meal, and had a glass of wine. In other words, they exchanged germs in as many ways as possible. Chances are good they even wore shoes. 

The demand for associates from law firms in Atlanta rebounded this year after a major slowdown in associate hiring in 2020 from the pandemic. 

Thriving in the Age of Disruption

Law.com’s Legal Speak podcast chatted with Tallahassee, Florida-based legal recruiter Andrew Wilcox to discuss how the widespread success of working from home has reshaped the lateral hiring market.

On December 16, the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility released an ethics opinion that blesses the work arrangements that countless lawyers have set up since the coronavirus pandemic made lawyers across the country work remotely. 

The legal field is continuing to take its slow march back to employment prior to the pandemic, with the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report showing 4,800 new jobs this January.