Lawyers and legal workers in the first quarter reached their highest employment levels since the pandemic began, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics, inching closer to a full recovery. And while there were some negative points in the quarterly employment data, legal employment in the first quarter continued the overall positive trend that closed out 2021.
Lawyer employment increased to 1.15 million in the first quarter (up from 1.09 million in Q4 2021) and overall legal employment hit 1.89 million (up from 1.85 in Q4 2021), both representing pandemic-era highs. At the same time, legal support roles tacked on 15,000 jobs (climbing from 73,000 to 88,000), while paralegal employment took a 31,000-job tumble (falling from 483,000 to 452,000).
Though the 1.89 million jobs in the legal sector haven’t eclipsed the pre-pandemic Q4 2019 total of 2 million, they have surpassed legal employment figures from relatively recent pre-pandemic quarters, such as Q4 2018 and Q1 2019 (1.85 million and 1.87 million, respectively). This may signal that the legal field is nearing a complete recovery from the pandemic—or at least adapting to new realities of the workplace.
While overall legal employment numbers reflected growth in the industry, unemployment figures from the first quarter show that there is likely still room for the industry to grow. Unemployment rates stayed steady for lawyers, maintaining a pandemic-low 0.8% from Q4 2021 to Q1 2022, but they increased for legal support...
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