115,770 versus 107,209
Above is a graphic that shows the increase in the number of employed lawyers broken down by sector. The takeaway is that in-house is growing much faster than the government and law firm sectors.
This graphic was originally published in Post 003 (through 2016). Thus, I thought it was time for an update.
From1997 (the first year of comparable data from the BLS) to 2020, the number of lawyers employed in-house has increased from 34,750 to 115,770 — a 3x increase. Yes, the rapid pace of growth is noteworthy, but equally significant is the relatively large size of the in-house sector. As a point of comparison, there are 145,600 lawyers (partners, associates, and other attorneys) working in a domestic office of one of the nation’s 500 largest law firms (NLJ 500). (Another 28,100 NLJ 500 lawyers work outside the U.S.)
Continue Reading In-house is bigger than BigLaw (262)