Thursday, August 02, 2007 6:42 AM
The American Lawyer recently published its annual Associate Satisfaction Survey, see New Reality, Open Season and The Charts (last one requires free registration).
Since the survey really only appears to survey associates at mid-size to large American firms (to be included, a firm needed to have 10 associates respond to the survey, thus excluding many small firms), it is hard to use these findings as a gauge for all associates across America. However, the findings do underscore some apparent realities we have all been reading about the last few years, from escalating pay to high turnover rates.
Here were the four, high level findings (hit the above links for more context and detail):
- Associates aren't miserable, except perhaps in certain high-pressured New York precincts. The average satisfaction score hit a record high this year: 3.81 on a five-point scale.
- Associates don't plan on staying. Despite the high level of job satisfaction, only 44.9 percent of the respondents predicted that they would be at their firms in five years, and only 11.7 percent expected that they would become equity partners at their current firm.
- Despite all the hand-wringing over associate retention, law firms report that in nearly half the associate departures-49 percent-the firms were either neutral about the departures or happy to have the associates leave. (This statistic comes from the latest survey by the National Association for Law Placement.)
- There may not be enough lawyers to feed the hiring appetite. According to our survey of summer associate hires, Am Law 200 firms expect to bring on roughly 10,000 associates next fall [see "Endless Smmer"]. That astonishing number equals about one-quarter of all the students who will graduate from U.S. law schools next year. To put it another way, the top 20 law schools will only produce about 6,500 graduates.
I am sure these findings will be bandied about in the coming months, as firms reexamine their own hiring and retention practices and associates-to-be reevaluate just what type of firm they see in their future.
As for my own view, I was struck by the cynicism in the final sentence of one of the above noted articles:
A word for potential associates: Enjoy! The seller's market will last until the next downturn-by which time most of you will be on to something else.
Is this the new reality in law or a just one stage in an continually evolving story? I don't know, but it does give one food for thought about the whole state of affairs in legal.