The Lateral Market is Anything but Cooling

May certainly brought the flowers when it came to law firm job activity.

From January to May 2023, the Am Law 200 saw 4,544 lateral moves among associates, counsel, and partners. In 2024, this number ballooned to 4,863 during the same period.?

During this period, our predictions were within ten percentage points, indicating a relatively stable job market. However, the actual figures dramatically outpaced our expectations, pointing to a much more active-than-expected month, which is a noteworthy deviation from the norm.??

Jobs have exceeded predictions, but the lateral movements are shocking, considering how accurate our forecasts were during the first few months of the year.

Notably, in 2024, the number of new job postings in the USA crossed the significant threshold of 1000 for the first time, reflecting the current robust state of the legal job market.?

Leopard Solutions predictions are derived from our proprietary algorithm that quantifies job opening figures by analyzing the seasonality of employment opportunities and the trajectory of market trends observed in the preceding months.?

?Learn more about Leopard Jobs.?