Sullivan & Cromwell to 190K Bonsai Trees!

Think of law firm recruiting as a war. America’s top law firms are engaged in a battle to the death, vying for the best young legal minds in the country. And in this war, Sullivan & Cromwell is bringing out the heavy artillery.
Sources report that S&C is sending its offerees… BONSAI TREES!!!
We asked one bonsai tree recipient to speculate on what S&C is trying to say with these gifts:

There’s no message with them (other than a “Compliments of Sullivan & Cromwell” card). Bonsai trees live a long time. Perhaps they want us to grow old with the firm?

Or maybe to “bend over” like a bonsai?
Another theory: “[M]aybe it is a test to see if we can keep them alive by the time the summer rolls around.”
Interesting. Perhaps the firm can give a special prize to the S&C summer associate with the best bonsai tree at the start of the program?
More about S&C’s odd horticultural booty, after the jump.


These gifts, while strange, are being well-received by the recruits:

I’m a law student, not a botanist. But, I think the bonsai tree shows that they care. They also sent really high-end cookies: http://www.elenis.com.

Regardless, it IS Sullivan, and it’s hard not to accept an offer there.

From another bonsai recipient:

[A] little background: the head of recruiting at S&C is Patty Morrissy (previously head of recruiting at Paul Weiss)… She is *not* your typical young, chipper, pretty recruiting lady. She’s smart, hyper-professional, well-spoken, etc. Very much worthy of marketing the S&C brand.

This all shows during the recruiting process: she reserves the best restaurants, provides stacks of S&C umbrellas at winter receptions (versus the chip-clips Kirkland gives you and the reams of advertisements you get at Cravath), gives callback interviewees magnetically-sealed information packets with notepads personalized with the interviewee’s name, etc. A miniaturized tree waiting for us when we got home fits her style. (Remember, S&C gives its offers in person at the end of your final interview during the callback.)

So the purpose was to continue Patti’s tradition of high brow recruiting (no firm-branded keychains here), and yes it makes me more comfortable about the types of perks we’ll see at the firm.

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P.S. Advice to S&C’s media relations people: to ensure favorable coverage in the Wall Street Journal, send a bonsai tree to reporter Nathan Koppel. He’s really into bonsai trees. See here.

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