Lawyers and other legal professionals looking for jobs this year may have success at firms and companies beefing up their litigation departments, a new survey finds.
Twenty-two percent of job opportunities in 2013 will be in litigation, while general business/commercial law and healthcare will each provide 19 percent of job opportunities, Robert Half Legal of Menlo Park, Calif., reports.
Other areas with jobs are labor and employment, bankruptcy/foreclosure, each at 8 percent of jobs; intellectual property at 5 percent; environmental law and international law at 2 percent each, according to survey results. Fifteen percent did not identify hot job areas for 2013.
The 200 lawyers who participated in the survey also weighed in on the difficulties of filling job openings in 2013. Tweleve percent said it will be “very challenging” to find “skilled legal professionals,” while 45 percent said it would be somewhat challenging and 37 percent said it would not be challenging. Another 6 percent do not expect to hire during 2013 or did not have an opinion.
For the survey, Robert Half Legal hired a research firm to interview 100 lawyers at firms with more than 20 employees and 100 lawyers working in-house at companies with 1,000 or more employees. All have hiring authority. The survey was conducted in November 2012, says Jamie Carpen, senior district public relations manager for Robert Half Legal.
―By Brenda Sapino Jeffreys
Can only say more avenues are going to be open to law as technology and policies grow and evolve. If you're just now entering the legal profession, then get ready!
Posted by: Joe Carson | January 25, 2013 at 12:25 PM