What’s Up With That Deer Valley Trip? A Quinn Emanuel Q-and-A
Has Quinn Emanuel’s unorthodox approach to the callback process ruffled some feathers? Maybe. Why does the firm brass keep on sending out emails about it?
Last Thursday, firm founder John Quinn sent out this email. Then, on Friday, name partner Bill Urquhart chimed in:
From: “A William Urquhart”
To: “Attorneys”
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:38:28 -0700
Subject:We have received several questions about the recruiting weekend at Deer Valley. Here are some answers.
Question: Who is attending the weekend?
Answer: There will be approximately 20 lawyers from the firm—both associates and partners. There will be lawyers from all the firm’s four offices.. There will be law students from Texas, Chicago, Harvard and Yale. All of them will have received call backs. As you know, the vast majority of those students invited back to our offices receive offers. If the on campus interview processes operates as intended, this number should be close to 100% because nobody should be invited back unless they meet our minimum objective standards. They should also have met our more subjective standards.
Question: How did you choose these schools?
Answer: These were the schools whose interviews were late in the recruiting season. If this experiment is successful, we may decide to have two such events next year—one in late September for the students of the schools which schedule interviews early (e.g. Columbia, Stanford, U Va, NYU, etc.).
More discussion, after the jump.
Here’s the rest of William Urquhart’s email message:
Question: May the law student receiving a call back still opt for the traditional office call back?
Answer: Yes. In fact, 2 of the 10 Chicago students have done so already. However, we want to strongly encourage the students to come to the weekend. We think that the weekend will provide them better opportunity to learn about the firm.
Question: Who pays for the weekend?
Answer: The firm is absorbing all costs.
Question: Will there be any driving?
Answer: The firm will provide transportation.
Thank God — ‘cause some law students are pretty crappy drivers.
So, do you like Quinn’s idea of substituting a weekend trip to a resort for a traditional callback? Let’s settle this one and for all. Take our reader poll:
P.S. We think Kathleen Sullivan is fabulous. But it does seem a bit weird to spend a weekend out in the middle of nowhere with a distinguished con law professor.
What’s next? Quality time in a hot tub with Erwin Chemerinsky?
Earlier: it looks like john quinn reads this blog
Fall Recruiting: This Is How You Do It
(48) Comments
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How about another option: Fine, since it's optional? I wouldn't personally want to go, but since students can opt for a traditional callback instead, this doesn't seem as crazy an idea as it did initially.
When Quinn the Emmanuel gets here, all the pigeons gonna run to him.
I would have done it.
Thank G-d Urquhart uses capital letters.
what's "A William Urquhart?" is there more than one William Urquhart around? or does Urquhart eschew punctuation like quinn does capital letters?
FTW. I didn't see any mention of groping.
Nominee for lawyer of the day? It looks like there's an opening in the U.S. Attys Office in Florida
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/14132485/detail.html
disappointing that Urquhart does not use the serial comma. That settles it. No Deer Valley for me.
This is the dumbest idea ever, but will attract the sort of people who would make a good fit for any firm that pulls this kind of stunt.
Think back to your first awkward callback lunch with gormless and dull associates Erd and Ord. Now stretch that out into an interminable weekend during which there is no escape.
I'd add that the potential for a PR disaster is amplified 10-fold
Let's see, an interview in a stuffy office with a bunch of busy attorneys or a weekend in the mountains at Deer Valley. Hmm.
Note that Penn wasn't included in the "Columbia, Stanford, U Va, NYU" enumeration. Perhaps we are part of the "etc." Classy.
Penn students are insecure and needy. Ideal for one-timers.
Why would a litigation firm hire anyone from Penn? I thought everyone at Penn was big on corporate law and overcoming the trauma of not getting into a better school.
BTW, does Penn still use So Close (Hall & Oates) as its law school theme song?
please cover this whole quinn emmanuel recruiting strategy. if possible, post about it every day. thanks.
Yes. Hopefully some summer associate-type stories will come out of the actual trip.
WTF Quinn!!!! No Michigan mentioned in your little list? I guess it's because Quinn is full of social retards (but we're cool cuz we wear shorts, I swear!)
4:19--and yet, they do: two litigators at Wachtell, nine at Cravath, and so on. Also, we don't have a theme song. We're not Nixon Peabody.
AngryMich: yeah, they burned you as well. Interesting that Boalt was likewise omitted, given the Cali location.
Someone needs to give john quinn lessons in public relations. He clearly realizes his emails will be posted, so he needs to target them to be friendly to all recruits.
It's events like this that show which associates the firm values most highly -- if you're an associate that's not invited, how does that make you feel next to a peer who is invited? I can't believe that Quinn didn't realize this might cause some jealousy amongst associates. (Note: I'm not saying it would be fun to go, but it's not a good sign not to be invited.)
Someone above is impersonating me. I am Al Groper. And I say that this is all about groping.
Someone above is impersonating me. I am Al Groper. And I say that this is all about groping.
Someone above is impersonating me. I am Al Groper. And I say that this is all about groping.
I am wondering why so many people posting here are such haters. Who really cares what that firm is doing, and even if you care, don't you think this degree of animosity is a little extreme? It doesn't seem like any of you spewing such sourness at Quinn, and at each other for that matter are any better - bashing each other's schools (Penn comments), other firms, and grammer usage. Who cares? Its pretty disgusting. Grow up a little! No wonder so many people hate lawyers and the jerks at law school... you are an ample representation of spoiled, bratty, self-important and self-obsessed A-types. Why don't you take this energy and focus it on a worthy cause? Seriously.
Quinn is trying something different and obviously couldn't include all the schools they interview at to give this a test run. Agreed its a weird idea to begin with, but again--- who really cares! If you were invited and don't want to go, don't go. If you weren't invited, and are spending all this time complaining about it, be glad you weren't invited and go about your own business.
I am sure this posting is going to instigate the shark tank feeding frenzy. Have at it.
6:05,
Ha ha! You said "grammer."
This is a retarded idea and Penn is a shitty school.
Why the hell would I want to spend a weekend with someone who failed the California bar exam on her first attempt?
Sorry to Kathleen Sullivan and David Lat, but that's just not very fabulous in my book. In fact, that qualifies Kathleen Sullivan in the bottom half of California lawyers, otherwise known as the realm of unaccredited law school graduates.
lol @ 6:05 ... what amazes me is how many people don't understand sarcasm and schtick ... they're usually the same types who use exclamation marks without ironic intentions, cursive fonts in their signature line, etc ... i bet 6:05 would have written that comment in teal if at all possible
6:05 -- inquiring minds want to know: paralegal or secretary?
6:57:
Who says that pointing out that nobody at Penn wanted to go to Penn is sarcasm?
6:57:
Who says that pointing out that nobody at Penn wanted to go to Penn is sarcasm?
actually i'm an ivy league law school graduate practicing at a top firm. i have earned the right to be a condescending prick according to your standards, i just choose not to.
sour grapes: Lucida Handwriting or Script MT Bold?
What exactly is the logical link requiring that callbacks from schools with late interviews need to be flown to a weekend retreat rather than just a trip to the office? Is it just quinn's sorry excuse for a justification to wine and dine the top law schools, or is there something more that I am missing? Nothing about the interviews being late in the season actually means the callbacks have to be extravagant vacations, right?
How come no one else is as angry as me?!?!? 6:05 was angry...but for all the wrong reasons.
From what I gathered, Quinn only recently began kicking around the idea of doing the retreat. And in typical Quinn fashion, they decided to just run with it. Several early recruits (e.g. from Columbia and NYU) said that they were asked for their opinions on a potential retreat. So there is no logical link between schools with late interviews needing to be flown to a retreat; rather, it seems like Quinn decided to just run with the idea this year even though the recruiting season is halfway (?) over. Must have seemed like such a great idea that they didn't want to wait another year.
lol why were people so pressed that Sullivan didn't pass the CA bar on the first attempt. Big deal-- I prob wouldn't pass if I didn't study either. A lot of taking the bar is studying how to take the bar, time management, and refreshers on areas of law that you will never see/use again in your life.
Quinn retreat-- a little odd but whats the bfd? People are joking about all the Penn stuff right?
I was thinking that this would be a great trip, if a student had an offer from some other firm that he or she thought they would accept instead and just wanted a nice weekend. But then it is probably like a time-share-pitch weekend from Hell, so even that strategy wouldn't work. Damn.
It is definately great wanting to go to Penn no matter what anybody says.
Ignore snipes!
Sue Law is right.
Penn is a tarrific law school.
10:11: made my morning.
"A lot of taking the bar is studying how to take the bar, time management, and refreshers on areas of law that you will never see/use again in your life."
Sounds exactly like first year of law school. If OneL grades are so important for someone's career, why shouldn't the bar exam?
yeah but she took the CA bar after she'd already been practicing for like 20 yrs. i agree it's bad, but it's not ridiculously bad.
So, the illusion that the callback interview is for applicants to see what the firm is actually like (as well as for the firm to evaluate the applicants further) is now completely dispelled?
If applicants are going to Deer Valley, they're not getting much of a sense of firm life.
If the firm expects to offer "close to 100%" of attendees summer associate positions, it's not doing any meaningful evaluation.
So, what exactly is the purpose of the retreat? Evidently, it's just a recruiting ploy to attract law students who are stupid enough to choose a firm based on something so obviously unrelated to actual firm practice.
question: couldn't you say that anyone who didn't get into yale/harvard/stanford is only at the law school they are at because they didn't get into a better one? why is this gripe specific to penn?
4:37 - its specific to penn for no other reason than the people posting on this site are idiots and the majority of them couldn't have gotten into penn anyway so they have to complain about it.
amen to that!
pregunta sounds cute. i like your style. u in philly? lets hook up.
It's specific to Penn because people who end up at other schools accept that they didn't get into a better school and move on. At Penn, the students are haunted by the fact that Penn was the best school they could get into.