Georgina Bond
New Zealand’s legal recruitment market is experiencing its strongest period in years as law firms respond to a sharp rebound in demand for legal services.
For Altitude Recruitment managing director Louise Hall-Strutt, the pace tops anything she has seen during a decade in the industry.
“I’ve been doing this for 10 years and this is the busiest I’ve seen the market,” she says.
What’s striking is not just the volume of hiring, but how broad it has become, and how quickly firms have had to adjust.
While recruiters had expected momentum to build through 2026, those LawNews spoke to this month say hiring has accelerated more sharply than anticipated, with a noticeable mid-year surge across a range of practice areas.
Hall-Strutt’s observations are supported by findings from Thomson Reuters’ 2026 Report on the State of the New Zealand Legal Market, which found overall legal demand grew 5.6% last year, reversing declines recorded in 2022 and 2023.
The report describes law firms as entering 2026 in their healthiest position in several years, with rising profits, near pre-pandemic revenue levels and a broad-based recovery in demand.
A market where all areas are busy at once
Legal hiring has traditionally moved in waves, with transactional teams busy one year and disputes-heavy practices the next, Hill-Strutt says. But, in this market, that pattern has largely disappeared.
“Usually, you’ll see transactional roles boom for six months and then the market swings towards disputes work,” she says. “At the moment it’s both.”
Property, corporate, banking and finance, litigation and resource management are all generating strong demand, with experienced lawyers highly sought after across nearly all specialisations, she says.
The Thomson Reuters report points to a similar trend, noting that while transactional work continued its recovery during 2025, counter-cyclical areas such as litigation, workplace relations, insolvency and insurance defence also emerged as major growth drivers.
Dispute resolution alone now accounts for a quarter of all legal demand, making it one of the profession’s largest practice areas, the report says.
Practice areas driving the hiring surge
Other recruiters LawNews spoke to say several practice areas are standing out as particularly active.
Anand Ranchhod, managing director at CoLegal Recruitment, says construction work is one of them, with rising project costs and economic pressure driving both disputes and increased demand for front-end contract work designed to reduce risk before problems arise.
Energy law is another fast-growing area, driven by what he describes as a structural shift rather than a cyclical one, as New Zealand transitions to renewable electricity, including the gradual phase-out of natural gas and major investment in solar and infrastructure projects.
Employment law is consistently busy, supported by restructuring activity, legislative change and its reputation as a relatively “recession-proof” practice area, he says.
Transactional banking remains under pressure from a different dynamic: limited movement within the market and the steady loss of mid-to-senior lawyers overseas, which continues to leave gaps in teams.
And family law demand is being driven by increasingly complex family structures, with disputes over relationship property, asset protection and child custody arrangements becoming more common.
The experience sweet spot
Ranchhod says demand is particularly noticeable for lawyers with three or more years’ experience, a group firms are increasingly prioritising as workloads rise.
Junior hiring, by contrast, remains uneven.
“Demand for junior lawyers is patchier as employers are valuing lawyers that can hit the ground running with a reasonable level of autonomy,” Ranchhod says.
Sam Lindsay, director and search partner at Chisholm Clarke, says firms are focusing much of their recruitment activity on experienced practitioners.
“The strongest hiring activity continues to be at the mid-to-senior level, where firms are looking for lawyers who can combine technical excellence with commercial judgement and leadership potential,” Lindsay says.
Challenges for junior lawyers
Despite the overall strength of the market, the picture is more difficult for junior lawyers and recent graduates.
While law schools keep providing a large numbers of graduates, firms have become more selective about entry-level hiring.
“The junior jobs market is harder than ever,” Hall-Strutt says.
“And there are plenty of lawyers with one or two years’ experience looking to move, but firms aren’t hiring heavily at that level.”
Read more about the pressures facing junior lawyers in this LawNews article: Junior lawyers struggling as entry-level jobs dry up.
Recruiters say this reflects a broader shift in hiring behaviour, with firms prioritising efficiency, autonomy and commercial justification for each new role.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is also beginning to shape those decisions.
The Thomson Reuters report suggests artificial intelligence is already influencing workforce planning, with 44% of New Zealand law firms now using organisation-wide generative AI tools, while corporate clients increasingly expect firms to leverage technology to improve efficiency.
As a result, firms may become more selective about junior hiring while investing more heavily in technology, knowledge management and specialist capability.
Competition for experienced lawyers
The shortage of experienced lawyers is becoming one of the defining features of the current recruitment market.
That means firms are facing a double challenge of rising workloads and not enough experienced lawyers to meet demand.
While some lawyer movement overseas is contributing to shortages, particularly at mid and senior levels, recruiters say this is being compounded by strong local demand and limited supply in key practice areas.
Ranchhod says lawyers at the three-to-seven-year level are increasingly heading offshore at this time of year, creating a recurring talent gap that firms struggle to replace.
This is creating strong competition for experienced practitioners, with firms increasingly open to hiring partners and investing in succession planning.
Hall-Strutt says salary gaps between New Zealand and Australia have narrowed over the past year as firms attempt to retain talent.
“People used to think they needed to go overseas to get career progression, but those staying are finding they are getting the progressive work because AI is taking away the grunt stuff,” she says.
Firms remain selective despite growth
Across firms, that mix is creating a distinctive market: busy, but cautious; expanding, but selective.
“Employers are still cautious when hiring, ensuring there is a sound business case and being selective with who they hire,” Ranchhod says. “But we are starting to see more growth-related hiring as well.”
Lindsay agrees the market feels noticeably more active than it has been over the past couple of years.
Some firms are responding to increased workflow and stronger instructions. Others are revisiting succession planning and recognising the need to invest in talent earlier.
There is also an element of delayed movement, with some lawyers who might have considered a move 12 to 18 months ago, but chose stability during a more uncertain period, now revisiting those conversations, particularly in relation to overseas opportunities.
“We’re seeing more firms hiring proactively and more lawyers willing to have conversations about what’s next in their careers,” Lindsay says.
“The firms having the greatest success in attracting talent are those that can clearly articulate who they are, what they value and why lawyers would choose to build their careers there.”
Outlook positive, but risks remain
Despite the strong rebound, the Thomson Reuters report warns that firms still face several structural risks.
Transactional work still makes up just over half of all legal demand, leaving firms exposed if deal activity slows. The report also identifies AI adoption, salary pressures and broader economic uncertainty as ongoing challenges.
Nevertheless, recruiters remain optimistic.
“It’s a market that’s constantly changing, but the speed of change right now is quite rapid,” Hall-Strutt says.
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