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Every day, I see posts on LI and LinkedIn wherein the batch of 2025 is facing serious issues with respect to hiring. There are some factors that have led to such a condition. It can be said that the current batch of 2025 is largely a result of a combination of factors.
1. First, after the COVID-19 pandemic, firms began a hiring spree. The quality of entry-level associates fell like Greece's economy (at one point in time during the Greek Crisis). Students were getting PPOs even from their online internships. The graduating batch of 2022 and 2023 saw a massive hiring.
End result - firms saw that these are not the ones they assumed to be. Many left their jobs within months after joining. Some switched back to boutique law firms. The job market saw a saturation in the number of freshers being intake. This was felt for the batch of 2024, which saw a massive decline in hiring.
2. Consequently, due to such hiring in the years 2022 and 2023, firms become reluctant to offer PPOs straightaway from a single internship. Mailing to partners for jobs started to get slightly ineffective. Now, a proper procedure was decided to be followed - Internship -> Assessment Internship -> PPO/Associate.
End Result - Getting a job got a little difficult.
3. 2024-25 saw massive movement of teams between firms. This meant the PPO-holders also moved to the new firms with the team they were hired with. Although on paper this is not an issue, in reality, firms started to feel the heat. They expected these PPO-holders to stay back.
End Result - Firms are now more or less reluctant to provide PPO. Thus, the concept of PARALEGAL came to the forefront. Now its no more a Two-Tier test. But a 3-tier one.
4. Due to the abovementioned factors, now firms are playing the safe game. PQE is now sought even for entry-level positions.
To all those seeking a job desperately, do not get disheartened by this. Things will change, but this new norm is going to set the future course of the legal job market. At the end, everyone will get a chance to prove their worth. Just hang in there.
Note - whatever I said should not be considered as the gospel truth. Treat it as an insight, only not more than that, and not less than that.