Midlevel associates put their noses to the grindstone last year, and they didn’t like it one bit. While demand for legal services rose in the last year, staffing at the country’s biggest firms continued to lag behind prerecession levels. As a result, third-, fourth-, and fifth-year associates had their most demanding year since the recession began.
They averaged 2,037 billable hours in 2010, compared to 1,957 the previous year. While the increase was only 80 hours (or two weeks of work to most associates), it represented the highest number of associate billable hours since 2007. As one DLA Piper associate put it in the open-ended responses to our survey questions: “Firms got too lean [after the recession] and consequently realized that associates will work more and more if asked. Quality of life has therefore decreased.”
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