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With most applications for 2Ls opening on Wednesday (with the exception of a few that are later and a couple that have been open since April), I was wondering if anyone has any predictions about what the hiring market will look like for transactional this year. The 2021-2022 boom seems like too much to hope for (as a soon-to-be rising 2L), but will things be at least more active than last year? I have heard that lateral activity is down for transactional, which seems like a bad sign for summer positions.

My v30 firm expects a bad 2024. There will be a decrease of headcount of the summer class.

BudFox58 wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 29, 2024 1:29 pm

will things be at least more active than last year?

Probably not. We're back to the pre-COVID norm. Fed meeting today probably won't announce a doveish turn and idk what else would cause someone to be optimistic about demand for transactional.

The banner corporate groups are getting fucking crushed at my firm. I'm admittedly pretty junior so no insight into actual hiring priorities, but sentiment among associates is we are (or hopefully are) hiring with a sizable group of people that anticipate doing corporate work.

Hearing pretty similar sentiments from law school friends at firms that chambers ranks as peers, but, again, they are also pretty junior so might just be hopefulness.

Very weird period. Things are busy but also feel like they could stop being busy at any time. 2020/2021 felt like there was literally no end to the work, you got a call on a new deal pretty much every other week, and addons to existing matters like every week.

2023 was a bad year, 2024 should be better but people have bad memories, 2019 was slow. Hiring should be normalized, if you’re a good candidate things should be fine.

Lateral market is much better than a year ago (especially for plausibly midlevels). But firms are still adjusting for over hiring juniors, so the next couple of summer classes are going to be small.