Some firms still insist they'll still hire some people. The theory is they don't want any talent gaps, where they end up with no junior associates, which will lead to no midlevel associates a few years down the road, and no senior associates for a generation.
On one hand, it's stupid to hire people if there's no work to do (and trust me, there still isn't all that much work to do). On the other hand, if you think about the ramifications of all the 1st and 2nd year associates who have been laid off and now can't find any other work, combined with the lack of hiring for incoming classes, and it's easy to see that the predictions that Biglaw is now "broken" may have a grain of truth to them. A pyramid scheme can't run if the bottom layers of the pyramid are removed.
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