Leopard Solutions Releases 2021 State of the Legal Industry Report
January 27, 2022
Legal intelligence company, Leopard Solutions has released its annual State of The Legal Industry report. The report provides a comprehensive look of trends and changes within the legal industry during 2021 featuring exclusive data from Leopard Solutions and commentary from leading legal industry professionals.
“2021 was a year of tremendous change,” notes Leopard Solutions CEO, Laura Leopard. “The legal industry was forced to innovate in ways no one had guessed and we saw lateral hiring reach heights we’ve never seen before.”
The Leopard Solutions 2021 State of the Legal Industry report provides analysis on the areas of the booming legal jobs market, geographical trends in office openings and closings, diversity within law firms, lateral hiring and more.
Some key takeaways from the report include:
- During 2021, Leopard Solutions tracked 14,000 lateral hires, significantly surpassing what was seen in 2019 and 2020.
- Leopard Solutions tracked nearly 12,000 job listings during 2021, a number higher than we’ve ever seen before.
- Our research shows that the overall percentage of ethnically diverse attorneys at firms remains virtually unchanged over the last two years. The percent of diverse attorneys in top 200 firms remains seemingly frozen at 17%.
- Since 2012 it now takes laterals 61% longer to make partner. For entry-level hires who stay with their original firms, the time to make partner increased by a staggering 136%.
Leopard Solutions, which offers continually updated and verified legal industry data, is a trusted provider of data for legal recruiting, business development, competitive intelligence and more. “We believe that data tells a story and helps companies in immeasurable ways,” adds Leopard.
“Understanding the current trends in the marketplace,” explains Leopard, enables firms, recruiters and legal industry professionals to make better decisions moving forward. Having current and accurate data has never been more important than it is today in this unprecedented and competitive hiring market.”
