Law School Recruitment vs. Lateral Hiring
 June 6, 2004

The debate continues to rage at many law firms as to whether the traditional law school recruiting programs produce better lawyers and higher retention than focused lateral recruiting. Unfortunately, statistics don’t seem to shed much light on whether a trend is emerging According to NALP, law school hiring dropped 8% in 2003 over 2002. In 35 of 38 cities entry level hiring dropped and only in San Francisco, Houston and Dallas did hiring stay the same or increase. But during that same period, large firm lateral recruiting dropped 32%. For 2004 lateral hiring seems to be increasing dramatically and, at the same time, law schools report a substantial increase in the number of firms signed up to recruit on campus this fall.