The NALP Foundation Releases Latest Update on Associate Attrition and Hiring (CY 24)

The NALP Foundation has released the findings from its newest annual Update on Associate Attrition, a detailed report on law firms’ associate hiring and departures for 2024. The Foundation has produced this signature report for over 20 years.

The 2024 data from 119 participating firms in the U.S. and Canada, detailing 6,092 associate hires and 4,125 associate departures, revealed:

Associate Departures:
• An overall 2024 associate attrition rate of 20%, up slightly from 2023’s 18%, but still well below 2021’s historic high of 26% with the highest attrition level reported at the smallest firms.
• While the most frequently cited next professional positions for departing associates remained law firm associate positions and corporate in-house counsel jobs, the rates for both climbed (41% vs. 2023’s 31% and 18% vs. 2023’s 15%, respectively).
• For the second straight year, associates continued to depart their firms earlier in 2024, within four years of hire, instead of the five-year historical pattern.

Associate Hiring:
• Reversing the last two years’ trend, associate hiring increased among participating firms in 2024, with the total number of entry-level hires exceeding lateral hires (55% vs. 45%), driven primarily by the largest firms.
• Slightly fewer participating firms rehired former associates than was the case the prior year (49% vs. 2023’s 52%), but rehires or “boomerangs” accounted for a larger share of overall associate hires in 2024 (11% vs. 2023’s 7%).

“This new data shows shifts in the talent market are emerging, with the rise in entry level recruiting as well as earlier departures by associates, with distinct differences by firm size,” noted NALP Foundation President & CEO Fiona Trevelyan Hornblower.

The 2024 report breaks out associate hiring and attrition by firm size (including data on firms with more than 1,000 attorneys) as well as by gender identity and demographic cohorts. This year’s study includes NEW data on:

• Career-related shifts to education and government, and
• Desire for remote or flexible work arrangements as reasons for associate departures.

The report also continues to detail information on entry-level vs. lateral hiring; recruitment timing for entry-level associates; sources for firms’ lateral hires; “boomerang” associates who leave a firm but then return; associates’ reasons for leaving firms, including practice or career related shifts, a desire for enhanced development/support, perceived advancement opportunities, and workplace policies on their departure decisions; as well as associates’ next professional positions.

The full report in PDF format is available for purchase from The NALP Foundation at www.nalpfoundation.org/bookstore.