Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Journals Blogs -> The Journal of the Business Law Society

Legal Journals

: The Journal of the Business Law Society

The Business of Law: Increased Recruitment and Declining Retention

By Christina Alabi

I. Introduction    
    
    Since 1986, the number of lawyers working at American Lawyer (?Am Law ?) 100 firms has tripled, and part of that growth is due to the expansion of associate recruitment and hires. [1] With the increased competitiveness, employers search all over the nation to hire and retain the best and the brightest second and third-year students. [2] In 1975, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Burger, he notes that the practice of law is a business; ?it is no disparagement of the practice of law as a profession to acknowledge that it has a business aspect.? [3] Today that statement still holds true. Burger continues by noting that the ?forms of competition usual in the business world may be demoralizing to the ethical standards of a profession.? [4] It should not be a surprise that the fields of law and business fields are closely intermingled; indeed, by nature, a law firm is a business and a lawyer is a businessperson. Even though recruiting is only one aspect of legal management, it is one of the most important tasks that contributes great to staying competitive in the global marketplace. [5] Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw (?Mayer Brown?) former managing partner, Debora de Hoyos says recruiting ?is essential to the firm?s success -- and commands an incredible investment of resources?. [6]

II. Recruitment

Recruitment is equally important to the job seeking applicant as to the law firm recruiting them, and is much more costly. According to the National Association for Law Placement (?NALP?), ?fall recruiting experiences are a topic of great importance both to law schools and to legal recruiters, particularly as activity in the employment market for entry-level and summer associates is affected by the economy as a whole. [7]  According to Am Law 200 recruiting partners and legal consultants, firms may spend as much as $250,000 for each recruit. [8] Some of these expenses are accrued from all the costs incurred when students return for a call-back, or secondary interview. [9]

     The recruitment process is no longer an intrusion to the academic calendar amongst certain select schools. [10] Nonetheless, over the years the legal recruitment calendar has shifted progressively earlier, from September and October to August, in an attempt to keep the recruitment process from greatly interfering with the start of the fall academic semester. [11] Am Law 200 firms send recruiters to 10 to 30 law schools and at least a half-dozen job fairs. [12] Students at top-tier schools will interview with an average of 25 to 30 firms each, before attending secondary callback interviews at the firm locations. [13] The Student Professionalism time line on NALP gives deadlines for students to narrow down their choices and ultimately states that a student must not hold more than one offer after December 1^st. [14] Since students are being recruited earlier but still have until December to accept their offer, the ?courting process? last longer. [15] Because of the recruiting calendar shift, firms must send out partners nationwide, earlier, to recruit at the same time. [16] Mayer Brown sends Hoyos to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to sit at a cafe near Harvard Square for two days each fall to convince undecided prospects to accept their offer. [17]

        According to a survey of 300-plus law firms conducted by NALP, only 28 percent of students who are offered a job by a large firm will accept. [18 This can be attributed partly to number of offers that each high quality and competitive student receives.[19] The National Law Journal reports that the number of associates in the 250 largest law firms has increased 76 percent over the last decade, [20] while the number of law school graduates has gone up just 7 percent. [21] The associate percentage increase can not be attributed to an increase in law students since law school applications have declined. According to the American Bar Association (?ABA?), law school enrollment for first-year law students essentially was flat in the fall of 2007, with the number of men enrolled falling by 2 percent and the number of women rising 2.4 percent. [22] However, according to data from the Law School Admission Council, there has been an increasing decline in law school applications since 2004. [23] In 2004, 100,600 students applied to law school, and 95,800 applied in 2005. By 2006, there was a 7.4percent drop. [24]

III. Diversity   

        An increasingly important aspect of recruitment is the principle of diversity and inclusion. [25] Recruiting efforts have skyrocketed yet the demographics remain stagnant and the diversity low. According to NALP, ?law firms have made steady, albeit slow progress in increasing the presence of women and minorities among their lawyers and summer associates.? [26] In 2007, 5.40 percent of partners in the nation?s major firms were minorities, and 18.34 percent were women. [27] In 2006, the figures were respectively 5.01 percent and 17.90 percent.? [28]   

        Legal Recruiter Roland Dumas, director of diversity and marketing for Major, Lindsey and Africa, a large recruitment firm, says that the elitism process of screening based on a student?s law school and grades will not achieve much diversity. [29] He bases his claim on the idea that there are not enough African-American and Latino law students in the top law schools who would make the ?top quarter? cut. [30] Dumas states a firm should look for the capabilities they need instead to reveal the candidates who really have talent. [31]   

        In an effort to combat this issue, some firms have created diversity initiatives and fellowships.[32] These fellowships provide the student with a financial scholarship as well as a summer position. In addition, law firms are also reaching beyond law schools to find and foster new talent. [33] Due to the fact that the numbers of some minority groups are still relatively low at most of the nation?s law firms and the competition for qualified minority candidates is more intense, law firms are putting their resources toward pipeline projects. [34] A pipeline service attempts to capture students before they get to law school and aid and guide them down a path intended to lead and end at the sponsoring firm. In doing so, firms feel that they can train college students and in some instances high school students to become attorneys by capturing their interest in the law in their youth. [35] However, some feel like pipeline initiatives may not be the correct solution to the diversity problem. Dumas says ?although pipeline initiatives are ?well-meaning,? they do not address the root of the law firm diversity problem.? [36] He points to the number of women in the legal profession. They make up 50 percent of associates, but only 17 percent of partners. [37]

        Conversely, the most recent findings from the NALP Directory of Legal Employers reveals that, nationally, women and minorities continue to be much better represented in associate and summer associate ranks than in the partnership ranks. [38] Women make up for 45.06 percent of associates, minorities account for 18.07 percent and minority women for 10.07 percent of associates. [39] Compared to the population of recent law school graduates, each group lags in their representation by three to five percentage points. [40] This leads NALP Executive Director James Leipold, to believe that ?law firms are doing a very good job on the front end, recruiting women and minorities into their summer programs.? [41] He goes on to explain that these numbers confirm that the real challenge is retention as opposed to recruitment. [42] He refers to studies that have shown that women and minorities leave their law firm jobs at a higher rate than their male and non-minority colleagues. [43]

III. Retention

        When an associate begins working at the firm, statistics show that 40 percent of them will leave by the end of their third year and 62 percent by the end of their fourth. [44] Firms predict that most associates eventually leave in order to keep their partnership ranks trim and profits high, but 51 percent of associate departures are unwanted annually. [45] Recruitment may be the first hurdle but retention is the next hurdle and it is higher. [46] Firms are faced with constant challenges to acquire and retain the talent necessary to keep their firms efficient and competitive. [47]

IV. Recent Approach

        Since recruiting competition has intensified with the increase in associate salaries, firms are incorporating more creative means to recruit students. [48] Some firms have realized that grades and class standing alone will not produce the associate they seek. [49] While those credentials are still weighted with high importance, a thorough review of other important factors is taken into consideration. [50] Some firms are also modifying their hiring practices and techniques to focus on accommodating different perspectives. [51]  

     Some large and even medium size firms have resorted to hiring ?third-party interviewers? due to high recruitment costs [52] These hired parties are skilled and experienced in selection techniques. This is a fairly recent approach but the results seem promising for both the students and the firms since it will increase the business-oriented approach of recruitment practices. [53] The student now has the benefit of interviewing with someone with formal training in selection techniques as opposed to an attorney who may have little or no training in selection. [54]

 V. Conclusion

  The business relation to the legal field becomes more evident as the competition and demand is apparent at all levels. The firm business is a continuous process beginning with recruitment of high quality students and including retention of the firm?s top performers. In addition, the goals and ideologies of candidates sought. Also, diversity and inclusion principles are equally important factors considered during recruiting season. Nobel Peace Prize winner Milton Friedman said ?there is one and only one responsibility of business - to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game.? As long as firms abide by the rules and ethics, firms will continue to think of new innovative ways to retain its lawyers to make their firm-business a successful business.

 

Endnotes

[1] Elizabeth Goldberg, Is This Any Way to Recruit Associates? The American Lawyer
(August 6, 2007)
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1185820712334

[2] Abbie Willard Thorner, Legal Education in the Recruitment Marketplace: Decades of Change, Duke Law Journal, Vol. 1987, No. 2, Legal Education. (Apr., 1987), pg. 276-291.

[3] Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421

U.S.

773 (1975).

[4]

Id.

[5] Legal Management, What Makes Us Different Makes Us Great 26 No. 2 ALA-LM 34
March/April, 2007

[6] supra note 1.

[7] NALP Recruiting, Perspective on Fall 2007 Recruiting
http://www.nalp.org/content/index.php?pid=146
http://www.nalp.org/assets/1055_perspectivesonfall07.pdf

[8] Goldberg, supra note 1.

[9]

Id.

[10] Thorner, supra note 2 at 280.

[11] Goldberg, supra note 1.

[12]

Id.

[13]

Id.

[14] NALP Student Professionalism During the Interview Season: A Quick Guide to Your Ethical Responsibilities in the Offer and Decision-Making Process
http://www.nalp.org/content/index.php?pid=27

[15] Goldberg, supra note 1.

[16]

Id.

[17]

Id.

[18]

Id.

[19]

Id.

[20]

Id.

[21]

Id.

[22] Leigh Jones,

Law

School

Enrollment This Year Is Flat, The National Law Journal, March 5, 2008
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1204631586260

[23] 08-1 CBLOFF 8 Compensation and Benefits for Law Offices (January 2008)

[24]

Id.

[25] Legal Management, supra note 5.

[26] NALP Minority Women Still Underrepresented in Law Firm Partnership Ranks ? Change in Diversity of Law Firm Leadership Very Slow Overall
http://www.nalp.org/press/details.php?id=72

[27]

Id.

[28]

Id.

[29] Roland A. Dumas, Why Patches Won?t Work, The National Law Journal
http://www.mlaglobal.com/articles/NLJWhyPatchesWontWork.pdf

[30]

Id.

[31]

Id.

[32] Leigh Jones, Law Firms Set Up 'Pipeline' for Minority Talent, The National Law Journal, March 12, 2008
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1205232260024

[33]

Id.

[34]

Id.

[35]

Id.

[36]

Id.

[37]

Id.

[38] NALP, supra note 26.

[39]

Id.

[40]

Id.

[41]

Id.

[42]

Id.

[43]

Id.

[44] Goldberg, supra note 1.

[45]

Id.

[46] Legal Management, supra note 5.

[47]

Id.

[48] Thorner, supra note 2 at 282.

[49]

Id.

[50]

Id.

[51] Legal Management, supra note 5.

[52] Thorner, supra note 2.

[53]

Id.

[54]

Id.

Full post as published by The Journal of the Business Law Society on March 26, 2008 (boomark / email).