This just in: 2012 was not the year of the law firm associate. Hiring of associates at large law firms has not rebounded to anywhere close to their robust prerecession levels, and firms have continued to outsource some jobs traditionally handled by junior-level attorneys.
All told, the number of associates at the country’s 350 largest firms by headcount ticked up by just 603, or less than 1 percent 0.9 percent to be exact. The results stood in dreary contrast to the 5 percent associate growth during boom years before the 2008 recession.
