While we still believe that the legal market is strong, we are no longer in the hiring boom that we saw for the past year or so. This has the potential to be good for those who are looking to make a move. As counterintuitive as that is, now may be a good time to look for your next opportunity.
For much of 2021 and 2022, the demand for corporate, M&A and real estate transactional attorneys put a lot of strain on the legal job market. Firms and corporations alike used an all-hands-on-deck method of recruiting these attorneys. To a great degree, those efforts were at the expense of making efforts to shore up other practice groups. Now that the hiring has become less frenzied, firms have more time to focus on their needs in other areas. We are seeing a fair amount of movement in the non-transactional disciplines and law firms have started to shift to hiring across their other practice groups.
For a lot of attorneys who either held on to their current position because they were too busy to move or because they weren’t in the “hot” practice groups, NOW is a great time to make a move. Most firms understand that attorneys may need to wait until the end of year for their bonuses, but interviews for those 2023 moves are happening now!
If now is a good time for you to make a move, then exploring your options sooner rather than later is best. Make sure your resume is up to date and talk to an experienced legal recruiter to see if they can help you!