The Professional Services Marketing Blog cites a study that says only 40.7% of law firm associates believe they’ll still be with their current firms in five years. So where are the other 59.3% of associates headed? Corporate positions, public service, and other firms each get a sliver (between 7% and 10% each), but 31.8% of associates simply don’t know where they’ll be in five years. A few will probably still be in law practice, but many will likely be elsewhere. Let’s face it: if they don’t like law practice enough today to say they’ll still be doing it in five years, they probably won’t be. At least not in the traditional sense.

This is relevant to legal outsourcing for two reasons: first, firms will need to find ways to replace the associates that leave. As the pool of associates decreases (due to lower birth rates, lower law school enrollment, and higher exit rates from firms), law firms might look more and more to legal outsourcing services to fill the gap. Certainly some of this work will be offshored, but some will — by necessity or fear — stay close to home. Because of this I think we’ll see more localized legal outsourcing opportunities pop up around the world.

Second, some of these associates might leave law firms not because they hate the law, but because they hate the law firm. Many of these associates will likely join the solo or contract-attorney crowd. This will increase the number of available attorneys to work with firms on a project-by-project basis, essentially creating a group of “consultant attorneys.” If enough of the associates join the ranks of this consultant attorney class, it might radically alter how law firms staff their projects. Instead of pulling in 15 lawyers from the firm’s corporate, IP, labor and employment, and environmental practice groups to staff an M&A transaction, the firm might pull in five lawyers from the firm and 10 outside “consultant attorneys.” This would essentially cause law firms to act much like many in-house counsel act now; that is, they oversee, coordinate and manage the project, but outsiders do much of the heavy lifting.

Only time will tell if the legal profession experiences an associate shortage. But if it does, how will it impact you?

Generation Gap Hurts Law Firm Marketing [Professional Services Marketing Blog]