In a broad sense, lawyer growth across the legal industry looked exactly the same in 2023 as it did in 2022, with firms increasing full-time equivalent lawyers by an average of roughly 3.3% each year.

But a closer look at head count shows large and midsize firms continued to employ “drastically different” approaches to staffing last year, according to a new industry report, “with the largest firms actively cutting back on associate headcount” while midsize law firms continued to grow them “aggressively.”