Wondering what the employment outcomes were for the rest of the students you shared a 3L Trusts and Wills class with in Fall of 2024? There’s a good chance that nearly a quarter of them are working for a large law firm with at least 250 other attorneys.
It’s early August, which means it’s time for the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) to release its annual “Employment for the Class of 2025 — Selected Findings,” which serves as a preview for the “Jobs & JDs: Employment and Salaries of New Law School Graduates” report. The 92.8% employment rate for 2025 graduates fell just short of matching the all-time high set by 2024’s class at 93.4%. Among other trends, 84.6% of graduates secured full-time, long-term jobs with bar admission required or anticipated, setting a new record.
While a smaller graduating class and a shrinking entry-level market for professional positions led to slight declines in some statistics, the employment status of the Class of 2025 remained robust. This was buoyed by a continued increase in biglaw placements, with approximately 20% of those polled working at large law firms with more than 500 attorneys. It also highlights a 1.7% drop in the acceptance of government-related and public-interest positions, driven by the elimination of federal positions and the rescission of offers by the current administration.
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The annual NALP summary reports are based on employment-status information for more than 97% of eligible U.S. law graduates from institutions that were accredited by the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association. Assessing employment status at about 10 months after graduation, the dataset gathered provides detailed information on placement rates and employment types for each year’s class, allowing trends to be tracked.
Part of the reason the employment rate stayed high for 2025’s law school graduates can be traced to matching declines. While the number of entry-level jobs available fell by 7.7% from last year to 32,619, the 2025 graduating class size declined by 7.0% from 2024 to 36,206. This meant the employment rate dropped 0.6 percentage points to 92.8% from 2024’s record 93.4%
An examination of the private practice market indicates that the intense battles for entry-level candidates that emerged as part of the post-pandemic “talent wars.” These have cooled a bit, with approximately 950 of these positions having been eliminated. This was somewhat mitigated by fewer candidates available from a smaller class than in 2024. Still, the numbers for those choosing the private sector remained healthy at 60.9% of employed graduates, a 2% increase over last year.
With fewer overall positions available, hiring at firms with over 500 lawyers dipped, falling from 34.2% to 33.2%. The placement percentage share ticked up at smaller shops, with hirings at firms with one to ten attorneys rising to 26.4%.
No Way to the DOJ?
Federal government employment, excluding judicial clerkships, fell by 37%, from nearly 1,100 graduates in 2024 to about 690 in 2025. The combined share of government, public-interest, and judicial clerkship jobs accounted for 31% of jobs obtained by the Class of 2025, a 1.7% drop from the previous year.
The fall was even more pronounced in the District of Columbia. Perhaps influenced by the reduced availability of government positions, the hiring decline in Washington was 5.5 percentage points steeper than the national decline for the Class of 2025. Perhaps confirming that the demand for desirable positions will always remain constant, judicial clerkship maintained the same hiring percentage as 2024.
A Raise Before Starting Sounds Great
For graduates who found jobs, the salary picture was encouraging. The Class of 2025’s overall median salary reached $100,000, up 5.3% from the prior year. Salaries in public-service fields rose between 1.4% and 4.2%, though they still trailed private-practice pay. Education remained the lowest-paying sector: its median salary slipped 1.6%, to $63,000.
Median private practice salaries fell 3.1% to $155,000, the second yearly decrease in a row. The NALP report attributes this to changes in job distribution and elevated merger and acquisition activity, rather than actual starting salary reductions.
Regardless of whether they’re in the private or public sector, most 2025 graduates appear to like where they are. Only 6.7% are actively seeking a new job, which is a record low. It’s possible that’s due to staying in familiar territory, as 65.6% are employed in the same state they attended law school in. That bodes well for increased participation at alumni events.
