Allens came a close third, hiring 98 of the 211 clerks who cycled through the firm during their summers and winters in the past financial year.

Sparke Helmore signalled its intentions to grow, more than doubling its intake in 2019. The mid-sized firm hired 31 graduates, up from 14 last year.

MinterEllison's chief talent officer Mary Lyras said the firm had made 83 senior appointments over the past year and expected to increase in size. This would please Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe, who cut interest rates to a record low of 1 per cent on Tuesday, hoping to spur economic growth and put downward pressure on unemployment.

Royal commissions into banking misconduct, aged care abuse, and mistreatment of those with a disability were money-spinners for the top-10 graduate recruiters this year.

Ashurst flagged that its busy infrastructure practice helped boost its graduate intake by 18 per cent to 79.

Richard Knox, Ashurst's head of HR, said the federal government should respond to the RBA's call to kick off a round of infrastructure projects to boost the economy.

"There are a lot of infrastructure projects in train at the moment, but a lot of them are due to finish in the next year or two," he said.

"The life cycle and planning requirements of those big projects means we'd like to see these investments now, so those projects will come on board and supplement or replace some of the big-ticket items that will soon be completed."


Despite strong demand for legal services, and Australia's 39 law schools producing 8000 law graduates, firms are still struggling to find lawyers who have three to seven years of post-qualification experience.

Mr Knox put this partly down to new difficulties getting visas for overseas lawyers to fill the growth in demand.

Changes introduced by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton had "affected our ability to hire from overseas", he said.

Another industry-wide issue was young lawyers leaving after a couple of years.

Mr Knox said the legal industry was also dealing with four generations in the one workplace, all with different expectations from work and life, and meeting all those expectations was tricky.

Allens' head of resourcing and workforce planning, Jenny Della Picca, and Ms Lyras from MinterEllison also noted the high turnover of junior lawyers. They put this down to lawyers wanting to try new things, and possibly pursue different careers.

Many young lawyers are faced with tough choices around the benefits of interesting work, training opportunities and long hours, which were particularly brutal for young graduates at firms working for corporate clients at the banking royal commission.

"Graduate lawyers need to think about whether their temperament is well-suited to large law firm life," NSW Law Society chief executive Michael Tidball said.


He stressed the importance of maintaining good mental health, and said juniors and partners needed to be more "self-aware" about their relationships with one another. It was also important for "partners to help sustain juniors in times of pressure".

Law Institute of Victoria president Stuart Webb also acknowledged the struggle faced by young lawyers.

"It's challenging being a junior lawyer, because you want to be seen to be doing the right thing to the senior associate or partner," Mr Webb said.

"We are getting to a point where people feel like they can speak up in their firms, but if they can't speak up, there are other places they can go like coming to us at LIV."

But there was only so much young lawyers could do to change their circumstances, he said.

Ultimately "it's up to the firms' HR managers", Mr Webb said.