A Promising Spring: Legal Industry Adds 1,500 Jobs, Demand for Legal Services Increases
There is good news for lawyers in new statistics on jobs and demand for legal services.
The legal industry added 1,500 jobs in April after two down months, the Am Law Daily reports. Revised figures show the legal industry lost 300 jobs in March and 2,000 jobs in February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The legal sector had 1,114,700 jobs in April, compared to 1,113,200 a year ago, an increase of 1,500 jobs in one year’s time.
Meanwhile, demand for legal services rose 2.1 percent in the first quarter of 2011, compared to the same period last year, according to the Peer Index Monitor Report from Hildebrandt Baker Robbins. “Firms have responded by selectively adding more attorneys,” according to the report (PDF), which measures demand for legal services by billable hours.
Mark Medice, Hildebrandt’s program director for Peer Monitor, told the Am Law Daily that demand also grew in the fourth quarter of last year. “No one’s suggesting that we are in a highly robust economy, but things are certainly moving in the right direction,” he told the publication.
