An associate attrition benchmark is the market-wide rate at which law firm associates leave their firms in a year, used to judge whether a firm's own turnover is normal or a warning sign. For 2026 the benchmark is 19%: the average associate attrition rate for calendar year 2025 reported by the NALP Foundation across 141 firms in the US and Canada, down from 20% in 2024. Firms of 100 or fewer attorneys ran at 24%, and a record 83% of associates who left did so within five years of hire.
Attrition tells a firm how many associates it lost. It does not say who is likely to leave next. That signal sits in engagement data, so this benchmark reads the two together, drawing on the NALP Foundation, BTI Consulting, Bloomberg Law, Gallup, BigHand and the Survey Research Associates (SRA) Law Firm Feedback Benchmark 2026.
| Measure | 2026 benchmark | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Average associate attrition rate, 2025 | 19% | NALP Foundation |
| Attrition at firms of 100 or fewer attorneys | 24% | NALP Foundation |
| Attrition at larger firm-size cohorts | 16% to 18% | NALP Foundation |
| Departing associates who left within five years of hire | 83% | NALP Foundation |
| Associates somewhat satisfied or satisfied with their job | Nearly 3 in 4 | Bloomberg Law |
| Associates optimistic about growing at their current firm | 31% | BTI Consulting |
| Associates who say now is a great time to move laterally | 46.2% | BTI Consulting |
What is the average associate attrition rate at US law firms in 2026?
The average is 19%. The NALP Foundation's Update on Associate Attrition, released April 21, 2026, counted 4,442 associate departures and 6,335 associate hires across 141 participating firms during 2025. The rate fell one point from 20% in 2024, which the Foundation described as relatively stable.
Read any "2026" attrition figure with the calendar in mind. The NALP Foundation reports each spring on the previous calendar year, so the 2026 benchmark describes departures that happened in 2025. Compare it against your own January to December 2025 figure, not a rolling twelve months.
| NALP Foundation measure | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Average associate attrition rate | 19% | 20% |
| Departing associates who left within five years of hire | 83% | 80% |
| Total associate hires | 6335 | 6092 |
| Firms that rehired at least one former associate | 44% | 49% |
| Boomerangs as a share of associate hires | 6% | 11% |
How does associate attrition differ by firm size?
Smaller firms lose associates faster. Firms of 100 or fewer attorneys had a 24% attrition rate in 2025, the second year in a row they ran well above every larger cohort. The four larger firm-size cohorts in the NALP Foundation data ranged from 16% to 18%.
That makes the headline rate a poor yardstick on its own. At a 60-lawyer firm, 20% attrition beats the peer average. At a 700-lawyer firm, the same 20% sits above it. Benchmark against your size cohort first.
When do most associates leave their firms?
Most leave within five years, and the share keeps rising. A record 83% of associates who departed in 2025 did so within five years of hire, up from 80% in 2024. Departures also skewed slightly toward the first half of the year, which accounted for 52% of them.
Hiring patterns show where the gap is being filled. Lateral hires (3,296) outnumbered entry-level hires (3,039) in 2025, so roughly 52% of associate hiring came from the lateral market. Fewer of those hires were returning alumni: boomerang associates made up 6% of hires, down from 11% in 2024.
Is associate attrition getting better or worse?
The headline rate is flat. The pattern underneath it is not. Associates are leaving sooner, fewer firms are rehiring former associates (44%, down from 49%) and more associates are leaving the profession entirely. BigHand's 2025 resourcing research, drawn from more than 800 law firm leaders in North America and the UK, found the share of associates leaving the legal profession rose from 9% in 2024 to over 16% in 2025.
AI is the new variable to watch. The NALP Foundation's 2025 report asked for the first time whether a desire for AI training or support influenced associates' decisions to leave. The detailed findings sit in the full report, but the question itself shows where the next retention conversation is heading.
What do associate engagement benchmarks show in 2026?
Associates are more satisfied than they were five years ago but less convinced their future is at their current firm. Bloomberg Law's Attorney Workload & Hours Survey, with more than 1,400 responses in 2025, found nearly three in four associates somewhat satisfied or satisfied with their jobs, up from about half in 2021. Hours have not eased: attorneys averaged 51.7 hours a week in the last quarter of 2025, the highest since early 2021.
Growth is where the numbers turn. In BTI Consulting's Associate Satisfaction A-Listers 2026, based on more than 5,000 associate responses, only 31% of associates were optimistic about growing within their current firm and 46.2% said now is a great time to make a lateral move. Women associates reported job satisfaction 17% lower than men, a gap examined in what the 2026 data shows on women associates' satisfaction.
For wider context, Gallup found 31% of US employees engaged at work in 2025. Gallup's research also shows engaged employees are 47% less likely to be job hunting and that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement. In a law firm, that manager is usually a partner.
Why do associates leave when most say they are satisfied?
Because satisfaction measures current conditions, while the decision to leave turns on whether the firm offers a future. The Bloomberg Law and BTI surveys measure different things, and the distance between them is the retention risk. Pay is rarely the deciding factor: BTI found only 9.4% of associates are in it for the money alone, down from 17.2% in 2022.
The SRA Law Firm Feedback Benchmark 2026 ranks engagement items by the gap between how much each matters to associate retention and how well firms score on it. The largest gaps are supervisory, not financial, and they have widened in each of the last three editions.
| Engagement item | Retention gap (indexed) |
|---|---|
| Quality of partner feedback | -28 |
| Clarity of path to partnership | -24 |
| Work allocation fairness | -19 |
| Action taken on survey results | -17 |
| Compensation transparency | -11 |
Outside data points the same way on work allocation. BigHand found that 37% of matter resourcing decisions are based on personal preference over merit, and fewer than half of firms (49%) have full data on associate capacity and utilization. When partners staff by habit, associates outside the circle get thinner work, slower development and a weaker reason to stay.
Compensation transparency ranks fifth of the five. A firm that answers a retention problem with a raise alone is treating the cause that is easiest to see.
Read your firm against the full 2026 benchmark
The SRA Law Firm Feedback Benchmark 2026 runs to 64 pages, with every exhibit, cuts by firm size and practice area and the appendix on suppression thresholds. Every figure comes from instruments SRA administers directly as an independent third party. That independence shows in the response: median associate participation in SRA-administered upward reviews is 87%, against 54% when the same firms run the review in-house.
How should a firm benchmark its own attrition and engagement?
Pull six numbers and compare each against the right peer group and time window.
| Pull this for your firm | 2026 benchmark to compare against |
|---|---|
| Associate attrition rate, January to December 2025 | 19% overall; 24% at 100 or fewer attorneys; 16% to 18% at larger firms |
| Share of your 2025 leavers who left within five years of hire | 83% |
| Lateral share of your associate hiring | 52% |
| Boomerangs as a share of your associate hires | 6% |
| Share of associates optimistic about growing at the firm | 31% |
| Share of associates who think now is a great time to move laterally | 46.2% |
To calculate the attrition rate, divide associate departures during the year by average associate headcount over the same year and multiply by 100. Count every departure unless the benchmark you are using excludes some. Mismatched definitions are a common reason a firm's number looks better than it is.
Then cut the rate by class year. A firm at 17% overall can still be losing a third of a single class, and with 83% of leavers going within five years, the first five class years are where the benchmark matters most.
Finally, pair attrition with the engagement items that lead it. Partner feedback quality, clarity of the path to partnership and fairness of work allocation can be measured in an upward review or engagement survey months before they show up in exit survey data.
More on each driver: Performance & feedback, Engagement & retention, Talent strategy & leadership and Method & survey science.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good associate attrition rate for a law firm?
A rate below your size cohort's benchmark. In 2025 that meant under 24% for firms of 100 or fewer attorneys and under 16% to 18% for larger firms, against a 19% overall average, according to the NALP Foundation. A low rate still needs checking by class year, since early departures can hide inside a healthy average.
How do you calculate associate attrition rate?
Divide the number of associates who left during the year by the average number of associates employed over that year, then multiply by 100. Use a January to December window and the same definition of departure as the benchmark you compare against.
When are associates most likely to leave a law firm?
Within the first five years. A record 83% of associates who departed in 2025 left within five years of hire, up from 80% in 2024, according to the NALP Foundation.
Do higher salaries reduce associate attrition?
Not on their own. BTI Consulting found only 9.4% of associates are in it for the money alone in 2026. In the SRA Law Firm Feedback Benchmark 2026, compensation transparency has the smallest retention gap of the five items measured, well behind partner feedback and path to partnership.
What is the difference between associate satisfaction and engagement?
Satisfaction measures how content associates are with current conditions. Engagement measures how invested they are in the work and the firm. The difference matters: Bloomberg Law found most associates satisfied in 2025, while BTI found only 31% optimistic about growing at their current firm.
Get the SRA Law Firm Feedback Benchmark 2026
Sixty-four pages with all exhibits, the suppression appendix and cuts by firm size and practice area. Sent as a PDF, with no follow-up sequence.
Survey Research Associates, Inc. Founded on Wall Street in 1991. The performance intelligence practice within legal talent management. For US law firms, exclusively.