Increase in Job Changes Among 3-7 Year Ace Employees
Companies Actively Compete to Attract Talent
"Work-Life Balance Valued Over Salary"
The rush of junior lawyers with 3 to 7 years of experience moving from large law firms to corporate legal teams is accelerating. An inversion phenomenon is occurring where large corporations, known for better work-life balance (WLB), are gaining favor over large law firms, which are traditionally considered the 'king' in terms of salary, in the career priorities of elite lawyers. Large law firms, having lost elite talent to corporations, are once again competing to recruit experienced lawyers from rival firms, leading to a repeated talent war between corporations and law firms.
According to the legal community on the 19th, Samsung Electronics' legal team recently hired several experienced lawyers at once from Kim & Chang Law Office and Bae, Kim & Lee LLC. The company has not hired any new lawyers in the past 3 to 4 years, instead recruiting only experienced lawyers with more than 2 to 3 years of legal experience, most of whom are known to be from large law firms. It is also reported that the HR department has set a hiring policy to focus on recruiting junior lawyers from large law firms.
The reason for the increasing trend of young elite lawyers, who were once the top priority for recruitment by large law firms, moving to corporations is 'work-life balance (WLB)'. Rather than becoming a law firm partner lawyer and facing pressure to bring in clients, they consider it better to be corporate lawyers who can work in a relatively comfortable environment and gain diverse experiences beyond legal work.
"These days, finding junior lawyers who won't leave is like 'shooting stars in the sky'."
At a top 10 domestic large law firm, the shortage of junior lawyers has recently become a hot topic. As the wave of 3 to 7-year lawyers moving to competing firms such as Kim & Chang, Bae, Kim & Lee, and Kwangjang continues, partner lawyers, tired of seeing their well-trained juniors leave, are reportedly becoming more neglectful in cooperation and communication with associate lawyers than before.
A partner lawyer at this law firm said, "The phenomenon of 'recycling' personnel who have left big firms to become corporate lawyers by recruiting lawyers from second-tier firms has become entrenched," adding, "There is even some self-deprecation that the know-how taught with effort is just used as a stepping stone for moving to other law firms or in-house counsel positions."
One of the biggest reasons large law firms worry about the outflow of junior lawyers is the sustainability of the firm. Even if mid-level junior partner lawyers handle urgent litigation support, if the 'inverted pyramid' structure with many seniors but few newcomers continues, the firm will inevitably fall behind in long-term competition.
Corporate Lawyers Are the Top Choice for Juniors
Originally, large law firms were the number one employment preference for young lawyers. This is because they offer high salaries and a good environment to learn the work. They have well-established overseas training and education programs, and lawyers can learn litigation and advisory work while gaining know-how from relatively senior partner lawyers. Benefits such as student loan support are also relatively good.
However, as more MZ generation lawyers prioritize WLB over firm size or salary, preferences for law firms have changed. A lawyer at a large law firm said, "Big firms demand significant results from associate lawyers," adding, "Especially nowadays, with the establishment of a co-parenting culture, young lawyers feel burdened by working late hours."
The fact that it has become harder to get promoted as large law firms have established systematic structures also affects turnover. With promotion bottlenecks making partner competition fierce, it has become more common for lawyers from judges, prosecutors, and major government departments to join firms as managing or partner lawyers.
On the other hand, corporate lawyers are often evaluated as having relatively lighter workloads and decent treatment compared to law firms. They can realize a 9-to-6 work schedule like regular office workers, and depending on their proficiency in company legal advice and contract review, their workload can be reduced. Even when legal risks arise in the company, they mainly connect cases to other law firms. A corporate legal team lawyer who previously worked at a large law firm said, "I am currently pursuing a doctoral program for a future career as a university professor, but at the previous law firm, I had to work until dawn and had no time to write papers," adding, "After moving to a corporate lawyer position, I have much more free time and can write papers in my spare time." Reflecting the recent preference of lawyers for corporate positions, the number of members of the Korean In-House Counsel Association increased by 37.1% (732 members) from 1,974 in 2018 to 2,706 as of March this year.
"Large Law Firm Experience Is for Building Credentials"
As corporate lawyer popularity soars, corporate positions are becoming increasingly competitive. From the company's perspective, they prefer experienced lawyers with work understanding and expertise over law firm-style apprenticeship training. Accordingly, some large corporations have switched from hiring new graduates to recruiting experienced lawyers through internal recommendations.
Because of this, among lawyers in their 20s and 30s, there is even talk that gaining experience at large law firms or as judicial research assistants (law clerks) is a credential-building step to become corporate lawyers. A managing partner at a Seocho-dong law firm, formerly a chief judge, said, "I heard that judicial research assistant lawyers first applied to large law firms to eventually join large corporations. If talented legal resources concentrate in large corporations and large law firms, it will become difficult for courts and prosecutors to secure talent."
As young lawyers change jobs more frequently, law firm recruiting is shifting from a strategy of preemptively hiring excellent new lawyers to a 'stove league (the period for contract renewals or trades)' competition focusing on recruiting experienced lawyers with expertise in specific practice areas such as construction real estate and capital markets.
Some firms have even abolished new lawyer recruitment. Since last year, Law Firm Dongin has restructured its hiring system to focus on recruiting experienced lawyers through rolling recruitment. A partner at a large law firm said, "There is even talk that the main task of law firm recruiting lawyers is changing from 'selecting' excellent talent to 'retaining' them."
Reporter Lee Soon-gyu, Legal Times
※This article is based on content supplied by Law Times.
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