Legal Job Losses Shoot to 64,000 as Pandemic Takes Its Toll

As coronavirus cases surged, the American legal sector lost 64,000 jobs between mid-March and mid-April—an increase from only 1,700 reported a month ago—as law firms and other legal employers struggled against a plunging economy.

The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics figures released Friday capture the first weeks of the pandemic taking hold in the U.S., pounding broad swaths of the domestic jobs market.

A dozen years ago, during the Great Recession, it took two years, 2008 and 2009, for the legal services sector to reach 59,000 job losses.

Law firms have acted quickly to impose a range of ...