US legal employment just hit a record. More lawyers than ever. More desks filled. More LinkedIn “thrilled to announce” posts clogging your feed.
And yet, nobody believes it’s stable.
The market feels like a party where the music is still playing but the host is quietly counting coats. Firms are hiring, yes, but with one eye on rate resistance, one eye on AI, and a third imaginary eye on the next economic wobble.
Associates feel it. Partners feel it. Even recruiters feel it, which is saying something.
The boom is real. So is the fragility. Clients are smarter, meaner, and armed with dashboards. Bills are interrogated. Teams are trimmed. “Efficiency” now means “explain your existence.”
AI didn’t kill the job market. It rewired expectations. You’re not competing with the lawyer down the hall. You’re competing with a machine that never sleeps and doesn’t ask for parental leave.
So yes, the numbers look wonderful. But they sit on a foundation of glass. The profession is expanding into a world that trusts it less, questions it more, and prices it like a utility.
Plenty of jobs. Very little comfort.
