The entry-level legal job market hasn’t recovered from the hit it took during the recession, and isn’t likely to return to the robust days of the mid-2000s in the foreseeable future.

That was the takeaway on Thursday from a talk by NALP executive director Jim Leipold during the legal placement organization’s annual conference in Seattle. The sector shed 60,000 jobs during 2008 and 2009, and only 15,000 of those positions have returned, he said.