The job market for newly minted associates is heating up, according to a survey released today from Robert Half Legal.

Nearly three in 10 lawyers surveyed, 29%, said their law firm or company plans to increase its hiring of entry-level associates in the second half of the year, 2% expect to decrease hiring and 52% anticipate no change in hiring activity.

Litigation is expected to yield the most job opportunities from July through December of 2015, according to 39% of attorneys surveyed. Within the litigation practice area, insurance defense was cited by nearly half of lawyers, 48%, as the leading driver of job growth, followed by commercial litigation at 33%.

“Competition for top talent is intensifying as law firms and corporate legal departments expand their teams to meet rising demand for legal services,” said Charles Volkert, executive director of Robert Half Legal. “When evaluating job seekers for a position, employers must move quickly to avoid losing top candidates to another organization. To assess legal professionals’ potential for success within their firms, hiring managers are placing more weight on personal referrals and prestige of former employers.”

Other key findings include:

• 64% of lawyers said finding skilled legal professionals is somewhat or very challenging, a 14-point increase from the previous survey’s findings.
• 39% of lawyers expressed concern about losing legal personnel to other job opportunities, an eight-point increase from the prior report.
• 39% of lawyers said that aside from increased compensation, challenging work or variety of assignments provides the greatest incentive for legal professionals to remain with an employer. Professional development opportunities ranked second, receiving 26% of the survey response, followed by flexible work arrangements, cited by 20% of respondents.
• More than half of lawyers polled, 56%, said previous work experience or prestige of a former law firm/company is the best indicator of a job candidate’s success. A referral from a current employee or member of a professional network followed, with 22% of the response.

The survey was developed by Robert Half Legal and conducted by an independent research firm. It included 200 telephone interviews with lawyers in the United States. It included 100 respondents employed at law firms with 20 or more employees and 100 respondents employed at companies with 1,000 or more employees, all with hiring authority within their organizations.