Pipeline to Big Law jobs stays narrow despite recruiting shifts

By Karen Sloan, Mike Scarcella and David Thomas

WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to D.Thomas@thomsonreuters.com)

The primary path to lucrative careers at large U.S. law firms still runs through a small number of elite law schools, despite optimism that changes in how large firms recruit law students would expand hiring to a broader array of campuses.

A Reuters analysis of data released by the American Bar Association last week showed that only 16 law schools in 2025 had 50% or more of their most recent graduating class land associate jobs at firms of 251 or more lawyers, many of which pay $225,000 starting salaries. On the flip side, 89 ABA-accredited law schools sent 10% or fewer of their 2025 graduates into large firm jobs.

Eleven schools didn’t have any 2025 graduates at large firms, according to the ABA data.

Put another way, half of all ABA-accredited law schools collectively graduated 10% of last year’s crop of 7,869 new associates at large firms. Just 21 top schools produced half of all 2025 graduates who went to large firms.

The disparities underscore the concentration of Big Law hiring among top schools — and the long odds of landing one of those sought-after jobs for students who don’t attend a large firm feeder school.

“There’s a lot of elitism in this profession and that closes off opportunities for a lot of individuals who are highly qualified and highly capable, but who don't have pedigree going for them,” said Nikia Gray, executive director of the National Association for Law Placement.

It’s not a new dynamic — large firms have long favored the most prestigious schools — but the continued trend is lowering expectations that changes to law firms' entry-level recruiting would democratize hiring.

For years, law firm partners decamped law school campuses for several days of back-to-back interviews with students hoping to be hired as summer associates — a temporary position that typically leads to a full-time job after graduation. Law firms prioritized the most elite schools partly because the logistics of on-campus recruiting limited the number of schools they could visit, Gray said.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced on-campus interview programs online in 2021, and they have remained remote since. The shift made it easier for firms to interview students from a broader cross-section of law schools. But that hasn’t translated into more hiring from non-elite campuses, in part because firms continue to push up their recruiting timelines, according to Gray.

Many firms now begin recruiting summer associates in their first year of law school, before they have a single semester of grades. With thinner law school track records to go on, firms are giving more weight to factors such as undergraduate grade-point averages, prior work experience—and law school prestige. That bolsters the advantage students at elite law schools already enjoyed on the large firm hiring market, Gray said.

“The timing shift has actually caused that funnel to narrow even further,” she said.

The schools sending the highest percentage of graduates to big firms vary slightly year-to-year — Columbia Law School topped the list in 2025 with 78% going to large firms, while Cornell Law School had the most in 2024, according to the ABA's data. The top feeder schools correspond closely to the influential U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. Twelve of the 16 law schools that sent 50% or more of their 2025 graduates into Big Law are also in the so-called T-14—the top 14 schools on U.S. News’ rankings.

Justice Department calls legal-fee bid unjust in lawsuit against Trump administration

The U.S. Justice Department is fighting a bid for legal fees from a university association that defeated the Trump administration in a lawsuit over a Pentagon research funding policy, marking a fresh clash over a 1980 law that allows some plaintiffs to recover compensation from government agencies.

The Association of American Universities sought $530,000 in fees after prevailing in a challenge to a Department of Defense policy capping indirect cost reimbursements to universities at 15 percent. The association is represented by prominent lawyer Paul Clement and a team from law firm Jenner & Block.

The fee provision at issue, called the Equal Access to Justice Act, allows individuals and small organizations to recover limited legal fees from the federal government if they win a final judgment and the government's position was not "substantially justified." The law has come into increasing focus as some lawsuits against the Trump administration draw to a close.

The government in its new legal filing argues its position was reasonable and justified. The Justice Department said the challenged Pentagon authority in the lawsuit was not a matter that had been decided in any prior lawsuit. The government also said any award would be unjust, since the university association and its members face no financial barriers to litigation.

The association declined to comment. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Study probes litigation funding effects

Lawsuits where plaintiffs have tapped third-party litigation financing are more likely to continue for longer and overcome motions to dismiss, according to a new study published this month by law professors at the universities of Iowa and Wisconsin-Madison.

More than 20% of the 63 federal civil cases researchers examined that were funded by third parties were dismissed by judges, compared to 46% of cases that lacked outside funding. The study also found that non-funded federal civil litigation lasted 342 days on average, while cases funded by third parties had more than double the lifespan — 852 days on average.

"Since litigation finance changes the plaintiffs’ position in the case, allowing the plaintiffs to continue litigation despite the attorneys’ fees and costs and despite the plaintiffs’ own operating costs, litigation finance may change the plaintiffs’ risk aversion and strategic decisions. As a result, plaintiffs may continue lawsuits
that they otherwise may have settled," the authors wrote.

The study, published last week in Arizona State University's Corporate and Business Law Journal, was in the works for four years, said co-author Miranda Welbourne Eleazar, a law professor at the University of Iowa. Because there's no uniform rule requiring disclosure of third-party litigation financing, the researchers combed through hundreds of court dockets to collect a sample of lawsuits to compare.

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