Employment of lawyers is expected to grow about as fast as average for all occupations through 2014, chiefly as a result of enlargement in the population and in the general level of business activities. The wider openness and affordability of legal clinics should result in increased use of legal services by middle- income people.
Also, arbitration and dispute declaration increasingly are being used as alternatives to litigation. Though, growth in demand for lawyers will be limited as businesses, in an effort to reduce costs, increasingly use large accounting firms and paralegals to perform some of the same functions that lawyers do. For example, accounting firms may provide employee-benefit counseling, process documents, or handle various other services previously performed by a law firm.
Competition for employment openings should keep on to be keen because of the large number of students graduating from law school each year. Perhaps as a result of competition for lawyer positions, lawyers are progressively more finding work in nontraditional areas for which legal training is an asset, but not normally a obligation—for example, administrative, managerial, and business positions in banks, insurance firms, real estate companies, government agencies, and other organizations. Employment opportunities are expected to carry on to occur in these organizations at a growing rate.
Some recent law school graduates who have been not capable to find stable positions are turning to the growing number of impermanent staffing firms that place attorneys in short-term jobs until they are capable to make safe full-time positions. As in the past, some graduates may have to admit positions in areas outer of their field of interest or for which they feel overqualified. This service permits companies to hire lawyers on an “as-needed” basis and permits beginning lawyers to expand practical skills while looking for enduring positions.
A law graduate’s geographic mobility and work experience assume greater importance, because of the keen competition for jobs. The enthusiasm to displace may be an advantage in getting a job, but to be licensed in another State, a lawyer may have to take an additional State bar examination. As well, employers are ever more seeking graduates who have advanced law degrees and experience in a specialty, such as tax, patent, or admiralty law.
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