Lawyers: The job market IS improving. Here's how.

Plus: Firms experience client attrition, but can it be stopped?

Raise The Bar

Oct 10, 2024 • 4 min read

The legal job market might be coming out of a slump, as the U.S. Department of Labor reports an increase in jobs in the sector for the first time in four months. Even with a strong legal market, do firms need to worry about client attrition? Plus: Will the Menendez sentence be recalled? Their lawyer thinks so. It's time for today's edition of Raise the Bar.

In today's newsletter:

A reverse in legal sector job declines
Why are firms seeing more client attrition?
Firm co-founders discuss client development
“Hybridity” between human, AI capabilities
Election board deals with impact of Hurricane Helene

DOL reports growth in law jobs

After a decline in legal sector jobs over the past four months, the U.S. Department of Labor reported an increase of around 1,600 for the month of September. This is consistent with job growth overall, with the U.S. unemployment rate decreasing to 4.1%. Law firms are experiencing a strong year financially as well, with an increase in average revenue of 11.4% in the first half of 2024 compared with the same period in 2023, according to information from Wells Fargo’s Legal Specialty Group.

Check out the growth numbers for yourself.

Clients rethink outside counsel, attrition rises

According to a survey from legal software company BigHands, around 80% of North American and U.K. lawyers surveyed have seen less work from current clients and all have seen client attrition in the past 12 months. The report suggests that corporate legal departments are bringing more work in-house and spreading it to mid-level firms along with higher cost top-tier firms. That could be good news for firms who are able to stay on clients’ smaller panels of outside counsel.

Law entrepreneurs who had a non-traditional path

On the Jabot podcast, Calyssa Zellars and Kya Henley, co-founders of Saint Park Law, talk about their non-linear paths to entrepreneurship and how they prioritize mental health and focus on the intersection of their strengths. Even with a relatively new firm, they take the time to evaluate whether to take clients after each discovery call or meeting. “We allow ourselves the space to do gut checks with clients. So there is the, ‘Do I have the actual technical expertise to handle this matter?’ Yes. ‘Is it in an industry that I feel comfortable working in?’ Yes, but also, ‘Is this a client that I want to work with?’ And we really are very honest about that,” says Henley.

Listen in here.

Is the AI/human mind meld the best use of AI in law?

Humans – especially lawyers – can be quick to write off the usefulness of AI based on its errors. But Cleary Gottlieb’s Michael Gerstenzang and Ilona Logvinova encourage lawyers to embrace “hybridity,” combining AI’s ability to capture, summarize and present data with the unique human ability to assess and analyze information. “By integrating the high-performance capabilities of these machines into our human workflows, we can work smarter and augment our outputs,” they write.

Read more.

N.C. improves voting access in hurricane zone

In the wake of Hurricane Helene, North Carolina’s election board voted to provide more flexibility for voting by mail and delivering absentee ballots for residents in the hard-hit western part of the state. The emergency provisions also allow county boards to change early voting hours and schedules. The provisions, however, do not extend the voter registration deadline.

How will elections be affected by hurricane?

Thank you for reading Raise The Bar.

Every Thursday, you'll hear from our team about the most pressing issues facing legal practices today. We'll also try to include some quick-hit reads that touch on interesting cases and precedents being set worldwide.

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Written by Suzi Morales. Edited by Katie Parsons.