Big Law is hiring fewer attorneys at the entry level. Students will have a harder time landing positions than they did even a few years ago, first at the top schools and then further down the rankings. If you're planning a career in a large firm, here's how the model is changing.
What the NALP data shows
NALP, the largest body compiling Big Law hiring data, recently reported that law firm leverage is changing quickly. In this context, leverage is the ratio of equity partners to the firm's other attorneys. Equity partners own and run the firm and share its profits; non-equity partners, counsel, and associates make up the rest.
Firms are making fewer equity partners while adding counsel, non-equity partners, and senior associates. People inside the industry had already noticed the first part. Hiring is concentrating at the senior end, rather than at entry, junior, or mid-level.
From pyramid to cylinder
The traditional Big Law model is a pyramid. Massive summer classes feed massive entry-level classes, the mid-levels thin out, and intentional attrition narrows everything toward a small partnership at the top. What the data points to now is a cylinder. Firms are stopping the overhire at the base. Summer classes have been shrinking steadily across the industry, and entry-level classes are stagnant or shrinking at many firms.
The exception is the handful of megafirms still growing, the Lathams, Kirklands, and Simpson Thachers of the world. Those firms can afford big summer and entry classes because they run a machine large enough to absorb them. The shrinking is concentrated in the tier just below: Gibson Dunn has reduced its summer class, Cooley has reduced its summer class, and many other firms are quietly doing the same.
The structural shift
AI can already do much of the work of an entry-level attorney. It cannot yet do the work of a senior attorney or a partner. So firms are shrinking the bottom of the pyramid and buying experience on the lateral market when they need it. Talent that used to be stockpiled at the entry level is now picked off laterally, through recruiters, at exactly the seniority the firm needs.
Lateral hiring becomes the talent strategy
The largest firms keep taking big entry classes, and many of those associates leave. They move to firms such as Orrick, Fenwick, Cooley, and Greenberg Traurig. Those firms can trim their own summer classes and hire attorneys who've already trained elsewhere.
There's a financial incentive too. Reducing headcount and leverage increases profits per equity partner, one of the numbers firms are judged by. Leadership knows that cutting junior headcount can improve that figure.
What it means for the JD classes of 2027 and 2028
The students entering firms over the next few years will feel the crunch first. NALP does not project it as fatal, and I agree. Most students at top schools will still land excellent Big Law jobs. The effect is a slow notch down the prestige ladder. Compensation will look identical, because Big Law pays lockstep salaries on the same scale at nearly every firm. The difference shows up in prestige: instead of Gibson Dunn, maybe you land at McDermott. As an associate your paycheck is the same. Over a career, the gap compounds.
As top-school students move down a notch, students at lower-ranked schools face the tightest squeeze. The recruiting path gets harder at each level.
Where this goes
Eventually, firms will need to train entry-level attorneys for the judgment-heavy work AI can't do. That could make junior hiring attractive again, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Big Law has never trained people particularly efficiently, and changing that will take years.
I don't think there's a fundamental capability gap between a first-year and a third-year associate. The third-year has had more chances to do the work. If firms can compress that training, junior recruiting may open up again. For the next five to ten years, though, I expect hiring to stay top-heavy.
Thinking through your place in this market?
Mosaic works with associates and counsel at every stage of the lateral market, and advises law students trying to read where the industry is going.
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