Areas of Demand:

The Texas market for experienced lawyers and other legal professionals has been strong in several transactional and regulatory areas. However the demand for litigators is still depressed, especially in tort-related areas. The results of tort reform have hit Texas law firms, for certain, but certain areas of commercial litigation, such as IP litigation, are still in demand. Our in-house practice continues to thrive and expand in a variety of practice areas. In fact, we placed well over 100 attorneys with in-house clients in 2007.

As always, attorney demand at law firms is most common for 2-5 year associates with big law firm training and for partners with significant books of portable business. Many law firms now require lateral partners to have at least $1,000,000 in business, and a number of national law firms typically require at least $2-3 million. Although law firms focus on quality of experience for paralegals, a college degree and/or a paralegal certificate are often required, especially by larger law firms.

Corporations most often are looking for attorneys with 5-15 years of experience in a variety of transactional areas, but we have experienced an increase in requests from our in-house clients for litigators, as well. Our Texas in-house openings most often are filled by Texas lawyers with strong resumes, including large law firm training. However, out-of-state attorneys with extremely strong credentials (top law school, strong academic record and current employment with a prominent law firm or corporate legal department) may be pursued by the Texas employers that use our services, depending on their area of expertise.

Active Local Markets:

Houston and Dallas continue to lead the way in lateral hiring by both law firms and corporations, with an improving flow of opportunities arising in cities such as Austin, Fort Worth and San Antonio. We expect that the Houston, Dallas and Austin areas will continue to provide the largest number of quality opportunities in Texas for highly-credentialed legal professionals for the foreseeable future, which is why Prescott Legal Search has had offices in each of these cities for many years.

The Future:

We see continuing favorable economic conditions in the Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth areas in particular, as well as Central Texas, and our business levels mirror this. There is much reason for optimism and we see no signs of a slow down on the horizon for Texas, notwithstanding economic difficulties in other parts of the country.