{"id":162649,"date":"2026-09-11T11:25:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T19:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/11\/biglaws-first-year-associate-hiring-plunge-may-be-just-the-beginning\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T11:25:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T19:25:57","slug":"biglaws-first-year-associate-hiring-plunge-may-be-just-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/11\/biglaws-first-year-associate-hiring-plunge-may-be-just-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"Biglaw\u2019s First-Year Associate Hiring Plunge May Be Just The Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The pattern is showing the majority of large firms will have smaller first- and second-year associate populations. The further out I look, the greater the level of uncertainty about what their needs are going to be.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/i><\/span> \u00a0Gretta Rusanow, head of advisory services at Citi\u2019s law firm group, in comments given to Bloomberg Law<\/a>, concerning the sharp decline in Biglaw\u2019s hiring of first-year associate<\/em><\/strong><\/span>s. Hiring for the class of 2025 fell 7.5%<\/a> compared with the class of 2024, and the downward trend is expected to continue. According to a recent Citi survey, two-thirds of Biglaw firms expect to hire even fewer first-years in 2028 than they did in 2025.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Staci Zaretsky<\/a> is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky<\/a>, X\/Twitter<\/a>, and Threads<\/a>, or connect with her on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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The post Biglaw\u2019s First-Year Associate Hiring Plunge May Be Just The Beginning<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The pattern is showing the majority of large firms will have smaller first- and second-year associate populations. The further out I look, the greater the level of uncertainty about what their needs are going to be.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/i> \u00a0Gretta Rusanow, head of advisory services at Citi\u2019s law firm group, in comments given to Bloomberg Law<\/a>, concerning the sharp decline in Biglaw\u2019s hiring of first-year associate<\/em><\/strong>s. Hiring for the class of 2025 fell 7.5%<\/a> compared with the class of 2024, and the downward trend is expected to continue. According to a recent Citi survey, two-thirds of Biglaw firms expect to hire even fewer first-years in 2028 than they did in 2025.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a> is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky<\/a>, X\/Twitter<\/a>, and Threads<\/a>, or connect with her on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day. The pattern is showing the majority of large firms will have smaller first- and second-year associate populations. The further out I look, the greater the level of uncertainty about what their needs are going to be. \u2014 \u00a0Gretta Rusanow, head of advisory services at Citi\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}