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Law360 (November 6, 2020, 4:27 PM EST) -- The legal industry has banked six straight months of job increases following a huge hit at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, with the sector most recently gaining approximately 4,800 jobs in October, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor.
There were approximately 1,117,400 people employed in the legal industry in October, a 0.4% increase over September, according to seasonally adjusted numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While job figures have incrementally increased since the spring, the overall six-month gain of more than 25,000 jobs is still far short of the approximately 68,000 positions that were lost in April, according to the data, which the agency adjusted on Friday from previous estimates.
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The larger category of professional and technical services, which includes the legal industry, has lost a seasonally adjusted 178,200 jobs since October 2019, a 1.9% decrease for the period. From September to October, the sector gained approximately 55,800 jobs, according to the bureau.
While it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which jobs were permanently lost and which are coming back, anecdotal evidence suggests that support staff represented a large portion of the former and that attorneys are increasingly part of the latter, according to John A. Cashman, president of legal consulting and recruiting firm Major Lindsey & Africa.
California's Bay Area is leading all regions of the country in job growth in the legal industry, as many technology companies, which have been doing well amid the pandemic, are centered there, Cashman said. Job growth is otherwise uniform in other parts of the country, he said.
"It's pretty broadly spread across the industry," Cashman said on Friday.
In recent months, several BigLaw firms, including Seyfarth Shaw LLP, Baker McKenzie, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and Nixon Peabody LLP, have announced that they have rolled back previous financial cuts but simultaneously confirmed layoffs, particularly affecting staff.
Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP announced Nov. 2 that it was planning to lay off a "limited number" of attorneys and already furloughed business professionals while simultaneously hiring new lawyers and restoring salaries that were cut this spring.
"We will be parting ways with wonderful colleagues whom we will miss," the firm said. "To position Katten for continued success, however, we must be vigilant to align our business with the challenges and opportunities presented by the current and future environments."
--Additional reporting by Xiumei Dong. Editing by Alanna Weissman.
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