Law

There were 418,000 law firms in the United States in 2025, according to IBISWorld, down from 446,850 in 2021. The global legal services market size was estimated at $1.05 trillion in 2024, according to Grand View Research. It is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 2.5 percent from 2025 to 2030. The largest law firms will have strong revenue growth in this time frame due to a projected increase in mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings.

Employment for lawyers is expected to grow by 5 percent through 2033, according to the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), but a growing number of law firm mergers and closures, competition from nontraditional providers of legal services, and other factors have created strong competition for top jobs. According to Robert Half Legal, a national staffing firm, “many law firms need more discovery, trial preparation and litigation support professionals, due in part to tight deadlines as courts continue to push through case backlogs. This places trial attorneys, legal assistants and paralegals in high demand."

Employment growth also varies by industry, and different sources provide different predictions. For example, Robert Half says that the highest demand will be in ethics and corporate governance, family law, labor and employment law, litigation, and privacy, data security, and information law. The law technology firm Clio predicts that the fastest-growing legal practice areas will be cannabis, cybersecurity, elder law, energy, health, intellectual property, labor, and student loan law.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) predicts strong employment growth for lawyers in the following industries through 2033:

• utilities: +67.1 percent
• warehousing and storage: +20.0 percent
• software publishers: +19.7 percent
• securities, commodity contracts, and other financial investments and related activities: +17.9 percent
• computer systems design and related services: +17.8 percent
• publishing, broadcasting, and content providers: +13.9
• management, scientific, and technical consulting: +13.3 percent
• social assistance: +12.9 percent
• insurance agencies and brokerages: +10.0 percent

The DOL predicts that employment for lawyers is expected to decline in the following industries through 2033:

• fossil fuel electric power generation: -31.8 percent
• newspaper publishers: -19.4 percent
• telecommunications: -7.2 percent
• clothing, clothing accessories, shoe, and jewelry retailers: -4.8 percent
• Postal Service: -3.0 percent

Law firms continue to lose market share to nontraditional providers of legal services (e.g., accounting firms, legal staffing consulting firms), which are often known as alternative legal service providers (ALSPs). These companies now comprise a nearly $29 billion segment of the legal market, according to the Alternative Legal Services Providers 2025 Report, from the Thomson Reuters Institute, the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, and the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law. This was up significantly from $10.7 billion in 2017. “Both law firms and in-house counsel are increasingly seeing the value of alternative legal services providers,” said James W. Jones, a senior fellow at the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law and the report’s lead author. “Meanwhile, ALSPs are expanding the services they offer to law firms and corporate law departments by providing specialized services, improving cost efficiency, and delivering greater flexibility in headcount.” The report also found that the emergence of ALSPs and other developments have prompted an ”evolving legal market in which the boundaries between alternative legal services providers, law firms, corporate law departments, and even technology and software firms are rapidly blurring.”

The top 10 percent of the graduating seniors of the country’s best law schools will have many opportunities with well-known law firms and jobs on legal staffs of corporations, in government agencies, and in law schools in the next few decades. Lawyers in solo practice will find it hard to earn a living until their practices are fully established. The best opportunities exist in small towns or suburbs of large cities, where there is less competition and new lawyers can meet potential clients more easily. Graduates with lower class rankings and from lesser-known law schools may have difficulty obtaining the most desirable positions—or even finding jobs in the field.

Starting salaries for new law school graduates have increased in recent years in most settings. New graduates from the class of 2022 received median starting salaries of $85,000, according to the NALP—up from $64,800 in 2015. Here were the national median salaries for the Class of 2022 by employer:

• law firms: $150,000
• businesses: $88,500
• government: $70,000

The employment outlook for others in the legal industry varies by profession. Lawyers who want to become judges will face stiff competition. Employment for judges is expected to grow by 3 percent (about as fast as the average for all careers) through 2033. The DOL reports that “budgetary constraints in federal, state, and local governments may limit the ability of these governments to fill vacant judge and hearing officer positions or authorize new ones. Most job openings will arise as a result of judges and hearing officers leaving the occupation because of retirement, to teach, or because their elected term is over.” Demographic shifts in the U.S. population may prompt demand for judges in certain geographic areas with increasing populations. In addition, more judges may eventually be needed to handle matters involving immigration, bankruptcy, and elder law.

Employment for paralegals and legal assistants is expected to grow by 1 percent (more slowly than the average) through 2033, according to the DOL. These workers will continue to find employment in private law firms (as these law firms try to increase the efficiency of legal services and reduce costs), but there will be increasing opportunities with corporate legal departments, insurance companies, real estate and title insurance firms, and banks. "However, employment growth for these workers may be limited by advances in technology, including artificial intelligence," according to the DOL. Paralegals with strong computer and database management skills and who graduate from well-respected paralegal training programs and/or those with previous experience (in other words, a quality internship) will find the best jobs.

There is good news regarding the employment of people of color in the legal field, although they are still underrepresented compared to their share of the U.S. population. In 2023, lawyers of color represented 21 percent of the profession, up from 11 percent in 2013, according to the American Bar Association. In 2021, only 2.5 percent of all lawyers were Asian-American, but that percentage has more than doubled to 6 percent in 2023 (which comes close to their share of the U.S. population, 6.3 percent). The number of Latino attorneys has increased in recent years—growing from 3.7 percent in 2013 to 6 percent in 2023, although this percentage is much lower than their share (19.1) of the U.S. population. The percentage of African-American lawyers has not changed much in recent years—increasing slightly from 4.8 percent in 2013 to 5 percent in 2023. They comprise 13.6 percent of the U.S. population. The percentage of Native American attorneys decreased slightly from 0.6 percent in 2012 to 0.5 percent in 2022.

More women are pursuing careers in law. From 1950 to 1970, only 3 percent of attorneys were women, according to the ABA. In 2023, 39 percent of lawyers were women, and females outnumbered males at American law schools. In 2022, 55.7 percent of law students were female. About 22 percent of all equity partners were female in 2020, according to the National Association of Women Lawyers. In 2012, 15 percent of equity partners were women.