Summer Associate Hiring Hit All-Time Low In 2024; 78% Of 2025 Summer Associate Offers Were Made Before August 1

Reuters, Law Firms Chopped Summer Associate Jobs to Record Low and Recruited Earlier Than Ever, Report Shows:

Law firm summer associate hiring hit an all-time low in 2024, as firms took a “conservative” recruiting approach, according to the National Association for Law Placement.

The total number of summer associate offers was down slightly compared with the 11-year low of 2023, while the median number of summer associate offers per law firm office fell to six in 2024 from seven in 2023 — the lowest since NALP began tracking that figure in 1993. The average number of summer associate offers, which law firms made to second-year law students, held steady at 22. …

U.S. law firms have focused their recent hiring efforts on experienced laterals and reduced their summer associate and associate hiring amid uncertain demand and declining lawyer productivity, a January report from the Thomson Reuters Institute found. …

The new data offers further evidence that summer associate hiring is earlier and more decentralized than ever.

The shift to online interviewing during the COVID-19 pandemic made it easier for law firms to connect with students outside of formal interviewing programs, the report notes. Previously, law firms would come to law school campuses in late July and August for in-person interviews. NALP also did away with its voluntary recruiting guidelines in 2018, giving law firms more flexibility in how they hire law students.

Shifting to earlier recruiting “has proven necessary in order to continue to secure top talent,” said Erika Gardiner, McDermott Will & Emery’s director of talent acquisition for law students and associates.

NALP Research, Perspectives on Law Student Recruiting:

Issued annually, NALP’s Perspectives on Law Student Recruiting report details recruitment activity on campus and at job fairs; provides information on summer program characteristics; and provides information on the outcomes of summer programs and of recruiting for both second-year summer associates and entry-level associates not previously employed by that employer.

NALP Research, The New Era of Law Student Recruiting: Evolving Methods and Shifting Timelines:

NALP’s Perspectives on 2024 Law Student Recruiting depicts a 2024 recruiting season that was more accelerated than ever before — which should come as no surprise to NALP members. The report, based on responses from nearly 580 U.S. law offices to NALP’s annual recruiting survey, documents not only how the recruiting timeline for summer programs is shifting earlier, but also the ways in which recruiting methods are changing. This article provides a preview of some report highlights that can be explored in greater detail within the full publication.

Chart 1 shows how the use of several recruiting methods shifted between the 2023 recruiting cycle (for summer 2024 2L programs) and the 2024 recruiting cycle (for summer 2025 2L programs). Notably, on-campus interviewing (OCI) was the most popular method in 2023, with 93% of offices using OCI, but direct application was most popular in 2024, at 91% of offices. …

Chart 2 shows the percentage of all offers that were made for summer 2025 programs via each of these three main categories. …

In the 2024 survey, NALP asked law offices to report the number of offers that they made via OCI, law school early interview programs (EIP), and all other methods outside of a law school interview program. … Chart 3 explores how offer volume is changing by each method. …

Chart 4 compares the percentage of all offers made in 2023 by month for summer 2024 programs to the percentage made in 2024 for summer 2025 programs. …

Chart 5 explores how offer timelines vary by recruiting method.

NALP Press Release, Summer Associate Hiring Held Steady in 2024 as Law Firms Recruited Earlier Report Confirms Significant Changes in Recruiting Practices:

NALP released its annual Perspectives on 2024 Law Student Recruiting report today. This year’s report highlights a historic shift in recruiting — for the first time in decades, law firms are no longer primarily utilizing on-campus interviewing (OCI) to recruit students. As alternative methods like direct application and early interview programs (EIP) gained traction, the recruiting cycle moved earlier and extended longer into 2024, with most offers (78%) being made before August.

NALP Executive Director Nikia Gray said, “In total, law school interview programs (OCI and EIP) drove only 44% of offers. The majority of offers (56%) resulted from employers recruiting outside of law school interview programs, such as via direct application, resume collects, and referrals.” She continued, “It marks a change in how law firms are viewing OCI in their overall recruiting strategy. The pandemic-era shifts in technology and hiring practices facilitated direct engagement between employers and law students, without law schools being required as intermediaries, and gave law firms greater flexibility in crafting their recruiting strategies. We now know from the data that the market is coalescing around direct recruiting and other non-law school-based recruiting practices as being the preferred methods – or at least the most necessary – to compete for talent and OCI is taking a secondary or even tertiary role, used only to top off or round out summer associate classes as needed.”

In the 2023 report, for the first time, NALP broke out recruiting that took place via OCI from recruiting via all other methods (non-OCI). For the 2024 report, recruiting activity was reported separately across three categories: EIP, OCI, and recruiting via all other methods outside of a law school interview program. Firms were asked to provide office-level data to the extent possible within the survey, but in some instances, firms were only able to provide firm-wide or multi-office data.