LawCrossing Announces Hiring Demand for Attorneys in 2005 Increased Substantially Across the U.S.; Need for Many Legal Staff Practice Areas Flounders |
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| January 01, 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| LawCrossing, the website with the largest collection of legal jobs in the world, has released a year-end statistical report on the changes in the number of legal jobs by practice and job-type areas. The report reflects changes in the demand for legal professionals from January 1, 2005 to January 1, 2006, across attorney and legal staff practice areas throughout the U.S. The statistics point to a strong increase in the demand for attorneys in the majority of practice areas, while indicating decrease in more than a half of legal staff practice areas. With more than 90,000 legal jobs in the U.S. at present, LawCrossing’s 200-strong team of researchers and editors monitors hiring needs of more than 1.2 million legal employers, and counts tens of thousands of law students, attorneys, and legal staff professionals as members. The released statistical data points to a very strong demand for attorneys by law firms, in-house legal departments, and government agencies in practically all regions of the country. While, all regions showed increases no less than almost 87 percent, especially great demand for attorneys has been by government agencies in all regions. “Government, on all levels, federal, state, and local, is becoming a leading employer of attorneys,” said LawCrossing CEO, Harrison Barnes. “In fact, with the federal government becoming bigger, many federal agencies and departments have really taken the lead in hiring lawyers.” According to the data, Northeast region of the U.S. has witnessed the highest increase in the demand for attorneys. With the numbers indicating increase in law firm, in-house, and government hiring topping 100 percent mark each, the news is especially welcoming considering that in the last several years, the Northeast region struggled with demonstrating growth. “The Northeast region has been struggling in the in the early nineties, with business leaving and the demand for attorneys shrinking,” explained Barnes. “2005 could prove to be not only a great year for attorneys around the country, but serve as a watershed with tide of demand for lawyers coming back stronger than ever.” The demand for professionals among the legal staff has been more ambiguous. Without breaking down increase/decrease numbers for legal professionals by a region, LawCrossing data shows that a majority of legal staff areas experienced decreased demand. The two bright spots in this category are information technology and marketing, which saw an annual increase of 177.39 and 84.8 percent, respectively. “We see that more and more law firms are hiring IT professionals in order to compete for and retain clients. To that very end, they are also increasingly hiring marketing professionals, becoming, in essence, much like any other type of business in the country,” explained Barnes. On the opposite spectrum are legal administrators and receptionists, demand for whom fell substantially. About LawCrossing: With more than 90,000 current legal jobs, LawCrossing is the most visited legal-job site in the world. Every day it attracts a community of users consisting of thousands of attorneys, legal staff professionals, and law students, who visit the website to search for jobs, read up on the legal news, and remain in the know about all things legal.
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