The Boston Legal Market In The Era Of COVID-19

COVID-19 and the resulting stay-at-home orders put an unexpected halt to hiring at many law firms and in a number of practice areas. However, not all firms and practice areas put lateral hiring on hold.

Take the Boston market, where a handful of firms are still pushing full-force ahead. And even among those that have slowed or ceased associate hiring, most are still hiring at the partner level. We will take a look at the numbers for the Boston lateral market now that we are three months into this unchartered pandemic era to see more concretely where lateral hiring is headed.

Associate Hiring: An Overview

On the associate hiring side, firms generally fall into one of three categories:

1. The firm conducted layoffs or furloughs and/or reduced associate salaries. If they are hiring at all, they are hiring only extremely selectively in COVID-specific practice areas, such as bankruptcy and restructuring, insurance coverage litigation, general litigation, labor and employment, and healthcare law.
2. The firm avoided layoffs and salary cuts but is playing it very safe. They are hiring only for COVID-specific practice areas.
3. The firm is busier than ever and confident as to its financial stability. The firm recognizes that this uncertain time offers a unique opportunity to seek out top talent with less competition than usual from other firms. They are moving forward with pre-COVID hiring needs, conducting Zoom interviews and even onboarding remotely. But even these firms are less likely right now to consider more “opportunistic” résumés, i.e., for practices or seniorities not covered by a concrete job opening.

In Boston, there are currently active associate openings primarily for the following practice areas: restructuring, general finance, borrower-side debt finance, general corporate/private equity, life sciences transactional, patent litigation, patent prosecution, insurance/reinsurance and insurance coverage litigation, cybersecurity and privacy, tax, and healthcare. These are all openings that have been posted since March 15^th.

Partner Hiring: An Overview

Economic ups and downs may force firms to reconsider their short- and medium-term strategic needs. So-called COVID-related practices may be more in demand these days. But given the right book of business, law firms will consider partners in any economy if that partner’s practice fits the firm’s strategic needs. Partners look to move in good economies and bad. Billing rate pressures are in fact driving many partners to consider a move these days to a firm where there is more rate flexibility. The lateral partner market is historically much stronger than the associate market during recessions. And our experience to date shows this trend is holding true in this COVID-19 era. 

Partner and Associate Hiring: The Numbers

Let’s take a look at the numbers^[1] to get a clearer idea of what is happening in the current Boston legal market:

• Between March 15, 2020 and June 15, 2020, a total of 33 partners and 62 associates were hired into Boston firms. (The numbers show 22 partners and 39 associates for this time period if we’re looking only at Am Law 200 firms.)

Let’s look at the top three practice areas for lateral hiring:

• Corporate: there were a total of 10 partners and 11 associates hired into Boston firms’ corporate groups between March 15, 2020 and June 15, 2020.
• Litigation: there were a total of 11 partners and 23 associates hired into Boston firms’ litigation groups between March 15, 2020 and June 15, 2020.
• Intellectual Property: there were a total of 5 partners and 11 associates hired into Boston firms’ IP groups between March 15, 2020 and June 15, 2020.

What does this all mean? Not all that much unless we compare it to the same period last year:

• Between March 15, 2019 and June 15, 2019, a total of 29 partners and 102 associates were hired into Boston firms. Of these hires, 5 partners and 30 associates were in corporate, 10 partners and 28 associates were in litigation, and 4 partners and 17 associates were in IP.

So what does this tell us? It tells me that the associate hiring market has slowed significantly, down 39 percent over the same period last year, but the lateral partner market is still strong.

Associate Hiring: New Searches

Hires made between March 15 and June 15 were for the most part already in process before March 15, before we understood the consequences of COVID-19 for the economy. What about new associate job postings?

New associate job postings in Boston (from our internal Lateral Link database, including published and non-published searches) were as follows:

• 82 new jobs from June 15, 2019 to September 15, 2019
• 55 new jobs from September 15, 2019 to December 15, 2019
• 50 new jobs from December 15, 2019 to March 15, 2020
• 32 new jobs from March 15, 2020 to June 15, 2020

Comparing only published active job openings for associates in Boston, we see 33 jobs on March 15, 2019 versus 5 jobs on March 15, 2020.^[2]

These new postings are still not 100% indicative of the state of the market. They do not take into account that most firms will consider résumés where there is not a specific job opening. But as I mentioned earlier, firms’ willingness to consider opportunistic submissions for associates has dropped to close to nil during the pandemic.

I have not included partner openings here as firms rarely publish partner hiring needs. A firm’s interest in a partner candidate often has more to do with a partner’s book of business than a specific need, or where there is a specific need, the firm will often engage a recruiting firm “offline” for a more measured and effective approach to the recruiting process. Here at Lateral Link, we work with many law firms in this way.

Conclusions

The Boston lateral market has been booming in recent years. A number of top international firms have opened new offices in Boston recently, and work in the life sciences and tech arenas in particular is abundant. Firms’ specific lateral partner needs are influenced by economic pressures. But there are always needs, when the book of business is right.

We expect the lateral market for Boston law firm partners to be stronger than ever in the coming months. Firms with the stability and the means are taking advantage of the uncertainty experienced by some other firms to bring on top talent and reach their strategic goals.

While associate hiring in Boston has slowed significantly, some firms are still hiring, especially in certain practice areas. This can be a great opportunity to move to a more financially stable firm and work on the most complex and sophisticated matters. We will keep a close eye on the numbers in hopes that the associate market across all firm ranks rebounds soon and quickly.

If you are a law firm or boutique or company of any size considering engaging a legal recruiter to assist with specific searches or for general hiring consultations, I’d love to connect. If you are a partner, counsel or associate who is considering a move, I’d be happy to have a conversation about specific firms that are hiring. I’m also always happy to set up an introductory call if you’re not looking to move in the near future but would like to stay in touch with a legal recruiter for legal market updates and career guidance going forward.

Please reach out to me at agordon@laterallink.com or find me on LinkedIn. I look forward to hearing from you.

[1] All the statistics cited in this post except those specifically noted as coming from the Lateral Link internal database were taken from the Leopard Solutions database. It is possible not all firms report data and that there may be a delay in reporting as well.

[2] Unfortunately, comparable data from our internal database for the March 15, 2019 to June 15, 2019 period is not available.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. This post is by Abby Gordon, Senior Director at Lateral Link, who works with attorney candidates on law firm and in-house searches, primarily in Boston, New York, and Europe.

Prior to joining Lateral Link, Abby spent seven years as a corporate associate with Cleary Gottlieb, focusing on capital markets transactions for Latin American clients in New York and for the last five years for European clients in Paris. A native of Boston, Abby holds a J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in government and romance languages, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College. Abby also worked with the International Rescue Committee as a Fulbright Scholar in Madrid, Spain. She is a member of the New York, Massachusetts and Maine Bars and is fluent in French and Spanish (and dabbles in Portuguese and Italian). You can view additional articles by Abby here.

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Lateral Link is one of the top-rated international legal recruiting firms. With over 14 offices worldwide, Lateral Link specializes in placing attorneys at the most prestigious law firms and companies in the world. Managed by former practicing attorneys from top law schools, Lateral Link has a tradition of hiring lawyers to execute the lateral leaps of practicing attorneys. Click here to find out more about us.