Revisiting Seasonal Hiring

In terms of the legal profession, one of the first casualties of the financial meltdown was last summer's army of newly minted lawyers, as many law firms asked their new-hires to postpone their start dates.

At the same time, many firms were canceling their 2010 summer associate programs, with some even hinting that the policy change might become permanent.

So where does that leave the seasonal hiring outlook for 2011?

The most likely scenario would be one in which the economy does not improve by leaps and bounds (hey, I think we'd all be satisfied with baby steps in the right direction for now).

In this scenario, the stock market will tick upward, but that won't translate to a boost in hiring since employment rates typically lag behind the stock market.

Then, even when the economy and hiring both pick up, legal employers will have a huge supply of laid-off junior associates who already have desirable work experience. On top of that, there will be all the qualified 3Ls who didn't experience summer associate programs as 2Ls because of the program cancellations.

And even if Big Law returns largely to seasonal hiring, smaller firms formed by Big Law expatriates might feel the need to replicate the seasonal hiring of their old firms. As we previously blogged, Steven Molo of MoloLamken sums it up:

"Most boutiques also see a chance to cut costs by avoiding summer hiring. We don't have to hire first- or second-year lawyers, we're only going to hire lawyers who have had a few years experience at a minimum."

No matter how you look at it, there will be a significant backlog of educated and qualified potential attorneys. To make matters worse, simply start multiplying the above equation for each year the economy remains flat.

Except American Spectator recently featured Georgetown Law grad Russ Ferguson's observation that the backlog may naturally thin itself out, since many of those new-hires who had start dates deferred were subsidized to work for the "public interest", and they might not be coming back.

These new lawyers have found that their new jobs are more fulfilling and more interesting, and -- more importantly -- they've seen that they can live on a smaller salary. As one of my classmates put it, "Add up the hours I worked this week and add up the hours my friends at law firms worked. Divide our salaries by the amount of hours and you'll see -- I'm rich."

These firms may have given associates a sweet deal in order to retain top talent; but that deal may be backfiring as more and more of those associates leave the firm for good.

The real answer to whether there will be long-term strategic changes to new associate hiring may not be known for another year.

But seasonal hiring is an interesting trend to watch, because it was one of the first very public reactions to the economic change of fortunes and because it is one of the most visible, as it's not happening behind closed doors.