61% of Legal Leaders Say Hiring Got Harder — And Law Firms Keep Trying to Solve a Back-Office Problem With Headcount

New 2026 hiring data shows 61% of legal leaders find skilled talent harder to source than a year ago, 74% report project delays from shortages, and legal-occupation unemployment sits at 1.4%. Firms cannot hire their way out of this. The capacity that is actually available is sitting inside billing, trust, and reconciliation workflows nobody has automated.