One year after the legal job market for the Class of 2021 was named “one of the strongest on record,” a report from the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) details record-breaking employment for 2022 law grads.
For the Class of 2022, the overall employment rate increased to 92.1 percent, the highest since the Class of 1987 (92.2 percent). The vast majority of graduates, 79.9 percent, obtained “bar passage required/anticipated” jobs, which is the highest since 2001, when the NALP started to use the current job classifications. Graduates also garnered higher pay. The national median salary ticked up to a record $85,000 from 2021 graduates’ median $80,000. And 2022 graduates reported feeling content with their jobs, with a record low of 7.8 percent currently looking for a new job.
The number of graduates entering private practice increased by one percentage point from the Class of 2021 to 58.0 percent, the highest in the last 20 years. And their median salary in private practice increased to $150,000, a 14.1 percent increase from that received by 2021 graduates. At the biggest firms (more than 500 lawyers), the median salary rose to $215,000.
The percentage of 2022 graduates entering into public service (30.7 percent) also increased slightly from the Class of 2021 (30.5 percent). This increase was driven by those entering jobs in government and public interest. Judicial clerkship positions declined slightly from 10.7 percent to 10.1 percent.
The report also identified a trend away from law school graduates entering business, which has historically employed the second highest number after private practice. In 2019, a shift in graduates away from business started to occur, and it continued among 2022 graduates. Just 9.8 percent of the Class of 2022 entered into business, making it the lowest since 1992.