Each year we analyze hiring trends within the legal niche, including compensation and benefits in order to best serve you. It’s important to us to keep our finger on the pulse so that we continue to understand what law firms and legal technology professionals uniquely want and need so we can help you make the best decisions for your law firm or legal technology career. Here are ESP Legal’s 2024 Legal Technology market insights:
Retention, Attraction, and Job Satisfaction
2023 did not bring the anticipated recession, but layoffs and slow hiring trends led to some hesitation among legal technology professionals to leave the security of their current positions and seek new roles. According to recent Dice surveys, however, job security and salary dissatisfaction could lead to more turnover this year: 29% of those surveyed by Dice are actively looking for a job and 60% said they will likely change employers this year.
For employers seeking to attract ideal candidates and retain their best talent, offering higher pay, a sign-on bonus, and remote work flexibility, especially for positions with low unemployment rates and high demand, continues to be important. While employers continue to attempt to draw employees back to the office, the majority of technology professionals still prefer remote work. 73% of the tech professionals surveyed by Dice said it is “extremely” or “very” important that their next role includes the option to work remotely at least three days a week. We continue to advise both employers and employees to evaluate the “why” behind employees’ desires to work remotely and identify when and how they can be flexible. Law firms can use that knowledge to develop attractive policies and incentives for in-office work (which may include increasing compensation).
Pay Satisfaction & Transparency
Less raises and the continued strain of inflation has left 54% of tech professionals saying they are underpaid. While pay increases were higher in 2023 and 2024, averaging 4.8% and anticipated to be 4.5% respectively, just 55% of tech professionals said they received a raise in 2023. Employees are 50% more likely to leave their job if they feel they are underpaid.
Many cities and states have passed pay transparency laws in the last few years requiring salaries to be included on job postings and/or that salaries be transparent among a company’s staff. The aim of these laws, for the most part, is gender and racial pay equity as the laws force organizations to come up with a justifiable salary range for each role at their company.
In 2024, 60% of organizations surveyed by Payscale now say they publish salary ranges in job ads. While this has created some increase in employees asking questions about pay or becoming aware they are underpaid, the benefits for law firms seeking to hire outweigh any harm caused. Pay transparency on job descriptions leads to more applicants for your openings, saves you time, closes wage gaps and promotes a more diverse workplace, and can help you know what to pay and budget.
Benefits & Work-Life Balance
Benefits continue to be an essential factor for legal technology professionals’ decisions about employment. Medical benefits, generous paid time off, and remote/flexible work arrangements remain at the top of employee lists of desired benefits.
Benefits Legal Tech Professionals Value Most:
- remote work 3-5 days a week
- low family medical premium costs
- 4 weeks of paid vacation/PTO
- 10%+ bonus potential
- 401K with 7%+ profit-sharing contribution
- training and education
- flexible schedule
- paid maternity/paternity leave
There remain gaps between what employees want and what employers are offering for benefits. In addition to remote work, gaps remain for work-from-home stipends (35% gap), training and education (24% gap), and commuter assistance (22% gap). While each of these benefits are a financial expense for law firms, they may potentially be less expensive than pay raises or bonuses, and yet could serve as a differentiator for potential hires and retention. In addition, 71% ranked the value of a flexible schedule, 57% ranked the importance of wellness programs, and 34% valued child/elder care options as benefits.
Work-life balance remains important to employees, with many willing to switch employers in order to receive remote and flexible work schedules, better PTO, a four-day work week, and/or to work for an organization that values and promotes a reasonable work week and supports after hours being off limits for work calls and tasks.
High Demand and Growth Areas
In the last year, we’ve seen increased demand in the areas of User and Desktop Support, Systems and Network Engineers, leadership roles, including CIOs, IT Directors, and IT Managers, Software Developers, Security Analysts/Engineers, and Information Governance roles. In addition, several positions within technology have unemployment rates below 2%, including Information Security Analyst, Software Developer, Web Developer, IT Manager, and Computer Network Architect.
More insights can be found in our 2024 Legal Technology Salary Guide, along with salary ranges for legal technology professionals working at law firms:
View our 2024 Legal Technology Salary Guide
