Nationwide No Offer Watch: Winston & Strawn
As we mentioned earlier today, we're doing a series of posts on law firms no-offering their summer associates. Recently we heard this, from an operative in a law school career services office:
The first blow of what we expect to be a horrible recruiting season has landed. Winston & Strawn in Chicago was "oversubscribed" and is handing out no-offers and soft offers.
We contacted the firm for comment. From spokesperson Darryl Van Duch:
I am responding on behalf of firm management regarding your inquiry about Winston's summer class. In your email you stated that Winston & Strawn in Chicago is oversubscribed, and is handing out no-offers and cold offers.It is the firm's policy to not comment on individual personnel issues or hiring issues. However, we felt in this situation it was appropriate to address your statements. As to the issue of cold offers, we have not made and will not make so-called 'cold' offers. Additionally, the overall percentage rate of offers we made to summer associates in the firm this year was in the 90s, consistent with prior years.
What we've been hearing is roughly consistent with Van Duch's statement. Tipsters tell us that the firm's Chicago office no-offered 7 out of 67 summer associates, meaning that 90 percent of summers did receive offers.
Now, 90 percent seems plenty high. But it's certainly lower than the 95 to 100 percent offer rates that were par for the Biglaw course during recent boom times. According to the NALP directory, the Chicago office of Winston had an offer rate of 100 percent in 2007, with 37 out of 37 summers getting offers.
More ruminations on offer rates, after the jump.
Ninety percent -- which also happens to be the approximate offer rate at Wiley Rein -- seems a little too... convenient. One can't help wondering whether Winston and Wiley wanted to no-offer even more of their summers, but concluded that dipping below 90 percent would involve entering the reputational danger zone. It will be interesting to see, when the statistics are available on the NALP website, if other firms also clock in at exactly 90 percent.
We hear, through the grapevine, that members of Winston's no-offered 10 percent are unhappy (surprise surprise). They claim that they received no mid-summer review and virtually no feedback all summer, that they were given the impression that "offers were theirs to lose," and that the firm told them it anticipated and was prepared for this year's large summer class.
So the no-offers came as a shock to several of the unfortunate recipients. We hear that some of them were very hard workers, who came into the office early, stayed late, and didn't screw up -- at least not in any conspicuous, lesbian-kiss sort of way.
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of no offers (scroll down)
(92) Comments
First-HELLO YEA
60/67 = 89.552%
It would be interesting to know what schools the 10% went to...I would venture they would be more likely to no-offer non-T14 students so as not to damage their rep with their key schools.
Why did they no-offer those people? Can anyone come up with a rationale?
"we have not made and will not make so-called 'cold' offers"
oh, that's great. they don't leave you with any dignity for re-interviewing at other firms, they just knock you on your ass.
at least he didn't actually claim (contra the obvious difference in 2007 and 2008 numbers) that they were NOT oversubscribed. we'll take that as a "yes, we were."
60/67 = 89.55223880597015
What firm would admit to making cold offers? Isn't part of the point of cold offers that the firm doesn't tell anyone they're not real?
They no-offered over 10% of their class!!!!!!
7 - did the chicken come first or the egg?
let's be honest here. any kid who gets a no offer deserves it. he or she probably fell into the category of Entitled/Essentially treated the summer as a vacation/Has never held a real job/arroagant/etc.
let's not lose any sleep for these duds.
4: they sucked. What else do you want to know?
What is the big deal? Firms should not extend offers out to everyone. This is not kindergarden where everyone gets a gold star. Only the top associates should get an offer. To give everyone an offer is stupid, especially since summers are determined by only 1 or 2 days of interviewing.
winsTTTon
I am 3L and just reinterviewed with some firms for fun and information. Cravath told me they were oversubscribed, and met one ex-Cravath summer was reinterviewing for real.
10 & 11: If you would've carefully read the article, you would have noticed that, "Some of [the no-offered folks] were very hard workers, coming in early and staying late, and not screwing up."
Some no-offered employees deserved their fate, but not all of them. If you screw up, you will be no-offered, but if you were no offered, it doesn't mean you screwed up (see: basic conditional reasoning).
Hey, I'm impressed they're responding at all. They were way sketchier in years past (e.g. manipulated Vault surveys--only giving them to happy associates---to make it seem like associates were happier than they were---after this stopped, they promptly dropped off the "great firm" to work for list). Granted the statement is still far from straightforward, but it's still pretty easy to read between those lines. At least this way, kids will have some inclination of the type of firm they are and won't be surprised (or at least as surprised) if they get no-offered next summer.
14: "Cravath told me they were oversubscribed"
- Translation: "We don't want you. You are not good enough. P*ss off"
HTH.
plus Wiley and Winston's DC offices are right next to each other...coincidence?
3: Not true. HYS, for example, will not save you from a no-offer/cold offer if your performance sucks or you suffer from a severe lapse in judgment. True, the firm is motivated to give you an offer, but it would be folly to rest solely on your law school to bail you out. This isn't rocket science, folks, don't fuck up or act stupid and you'll be fine.
My high stakes botique firm that I co-founded after 4.5 years at Watchell only hires 10% or less of the summer associate class and 2) all are from HYS.
HTH.
60/67 = 89.552238805970149253731343283582%
20: A truly elite firm would hire only Yalies and SCOTUS clerks.
How many did they no-offer in their Bratislava office??
I'm surprised they took that many. I heard Winston DC doesn't have work for the associates its already got. Not that that's unusual in August, particularly during such a bad down-market, but still, the 90% should feel lucky.
At my firm (V20) the only summers who got no-offered this year were those from lesser schools. At the same time certain morons that everyone knew were idiots got theirs offers because they were from T14.
Yeah, but what's 60/67 to *31* decimal places, huh?
22: I'm a double Harvard grad and do not want or need Yallie panzies, unless they can compensate for it. I don't argue in front of the SCOTUS, so I have not need for former SCOTUS clerks, and they're typically bookworms/academics that I have no use for.
HTH.
Where's LOLCAT when you need him?
26, can't believe you actually counted how many decimals the tools here posted 60/67 to. Turns out you're an even bigger tool than them.
I feel the 7 students' pain. I summered at the Cochran firm two years ago. All was going well, I passed all of their "skills tests" such as 1)properly demonstrating glove sizing, 2)chasing an ambulance 100 meters in 1.5 minutes, 3)spelling mesothelioma and asbestosis forwards and backwards in an oral examination, and 4) looking good in a shiny suit with yellow gold cuff links.
-Touro 2006 (Now I am at Wachtell).
29: WRONG. He's precise and detail-orientated, like any top-notch lawyer should be. When and if I have an decimal quandary in our arithmetic practice group, I know who I want on the team.
Dumb question: What's T14?
Dumb question: What's T14?
What is HTH? Internet slang? What's up with these arrogant douchebags that think they own the world?
33: GULC, Cornell, Northwestern, Duke, Penn, Michigan, Virginia, Berkeley, NYU, Chicago, Columbia, Stanford, Harvard, Yale.
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Go to Baker & McKenzie, they give out 100% offers and treat their associates great, especially in the Chicago and ny offices.
"HTH" is the tell-tale sign that you're conversing with a high schooler who's too scare to post on auto-admit anymore.
34, may I direct you to this wonderful invention called Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTH
See first line.
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winsTTTTTTTon and sTTTTTTTTrawn
is it true that Stroock no-offered 20% of their summer class??!!?!!?
31 - seems like 40 is going to be the star of your 'arithmetic' practice group - he seems prepared for any and all arithmetic emergencies.
15 - but your premise is perhaps wrong (i.e., "If you screw up, you will be no-offered.")?
To borrow from 19: If you "don't fuck up or act stupid, [ ] you'll be fine." So if you are not fine, you fucked up or acted stupid.
Hmmm...
15 - but your premise is perhaps wrong (i.e., "If you screw up, you will be no-offered.")?
To borrow from 19: If you "don't fuck up or act stupid, [ ] you'll be fine." So if you are not fine, you fucked up or acted stupid.
Hmmm...
Dumb question: What is V100?
winston is a third tier firm to begin with. one might say that the firm is a few fries short of a happy meal.
We need a threat about WinsTTTon's stealth layoffs in the Bratislava office...
BB Texas (Houston, Austin, Dallas) has no offered 10-15% of the class.
Suffice it to say that probably all of the "WinsTTTon" posters were probably in the 7. And I can tell you that they were not all from lower ranked schools (and included a few T14 local schools).
I heard 100 percent offer rate in other offices, so maybe just a couple of fuck ups? It seems odd that Winston would risk seeming like it's fucked when even with these no offers they almost doubled their class size versus last year (including in the offices where they gave 100 percent offers).
I have never heard of a T14 grad not getting an offer.
Isn't it part of a cold offer to say that you're not giving out cold offers? If you're willing to essentially lie to an individual firm and say that Student X got an offer, then why wouldn't you lie to ATL and say that you're not giving out cold offers?
Winston revealed the identities of those who got no offered by not surpressing the email list of an email congratulating offerees, which did not include 7 email addresses. Don't reveal identities here, but let rampant speculation continue.
49 is right about Baker Botts Texas
3: not necessarily. And sometimes a firm (Weil did these years ago) will cluster its no offers at one school in particular, that way recruiting is only tanked at ONE school. Other peer schools to that school think "huh, well, i guess they just don't like people from School X, *i'll* be fine." They get no one from School X that year, but that's OK for the firm b/c a year or two down the road, and the incoming students never learn what happened . . .
Guys in my high school used to offer at 90% all the time. It was no big deal.
LAT dig into the Cravath cold-offer thing. Some says there are 70 of them.
I can't believe no Darryl Van Duch jokes
Even if Winston made a pre-determined decision not to offer 10% of its class for economic reasons (seems unlikely, but who knows), I imagine these 7 did something to merit falling in that 10%. Although 100% offer rates are great, I don't think you can really complain about 90%.
37 - Not sure if your post was sarcasm, but Baker & McKenzie Dallas no-offered a 1L.
When I summered in '07, the only non offer out of my class of over 50 was a HYS guy. Obviously he had major personality issues.
60: It makes me so tired to see people chronically kneejerk rationalizing bad behavior. "No, no, everything law firms do is the same as what I would do! My job is safe! My world is safe! Bad things never happen for anything less than a really good reason! Law firms are inherently fair, not ruthless! Anyone who gets no-offered or sent out for a long doc review or otherwise mistreated by a firm HAD IT COMING, see? So I'll work hard and everything will come up roses! B/c law firms are like nursery school!"
Isn't it about time for bonus news to start trickling in?
Were last week's comments about DLA no-offers true?
Wiley Rein no-offered more than 10% of their class. The firm has no work for its associates and oversubscribed themselves before the summer rolled around. They promised everyone all summer that they would hire the full class.
Wiley Rein had highest profits per partner and now think they are a able to hang with the big boys, doubtful after their actions this summer. Good thing for Dick he's on his way out.
Can we send Bert to the White House too and merge with Akin Gump, please?
61,
No sarcasm, just what i heard about Baker.
52, see tucker max.
"It makes me so tired to see people chronically kneejerk rationalizing bad behavior."
And it makes me so tired to see people default to the notion that every SA necessarily deserves an offer. For way, way, WAY too long, firms have given offers to underperforming summers for fear that they'd "look bad at OCI" or would "have trouble recruiting" the following year. And so, the person gets an offer, takes the offer, becomes an underperforming first or second year, and then gets the boot after two wasted, unprofitable years.
The only circumstance I understand giving a "cold offer" is when the SA did what they needed to do to earn an offer, but the firm's summer program was truly oversubscribed. Unfortunately, a lot of "cold offers" are just being used for the same bullshit ego-saving, pass-the-problem-on-to-another-firm reasons.
I have far more respect for a firm that no offers an undeserving candidate than one that passes the buck by giving a cold offer.
69: Never said every summer deserves an offer. But we're looking at firms who are clearly oversubscribed this year, giving out no offers (NOT cold offers) to sizeable hunks of the class. Clearly these are not all "undeserving candidates" although clearly the firm felt they were "less deserving".
Do you realize how stigmatizing it is to no offer someone? You're coming damn close to ending the career of someone who hasn't even graduated from law school yet.
Cold offers at Cravath would not surprise me at all. Death Star, according to NALP, had 486 attorney headcount, and hired 161 2L summers. There is no way CSM could absorb all of that, unless they are planning of getting rid of most of it within a couple years anyway.
Note that Winston also no-offered Heller.
This is a non-story.
Is Debevoise not in vogue anymore? I was always under the impression that was the cool law firm in NYC.
Speaking of Tucker Max, I hear one of those summers earned their no-offer, doing the one thing Tucker couldn't.
73 = winston partner
Winston & Strawn to Wow Bao!
70: You don't think that more than 10% of law students are undeserving of being handed a full-time job with room for advancement at $160k? I've seen the work my classmates do at a T-14, and I wouldn't put my money behind most outside of the top third. Also, within that top third are plenty of people who don't really know how to work. It's a shame their prospects are hurt, but I feel like the world would be in equilibrium if law students had to actually prove themselves in the workplace before presuming they have a job.
Winston announced at the summer associate retreat that they would be making offers to 90% of the class, so this was planned long ago.
The SF office was also oversubscribed (but only by a few people, as it's much smaller than the Chicago office), and at least one summer was no-offered. All the summers were hardworking and there was no inappropriate behavior.
Pillsbury San Fran no offered some people
word on the street in chicago is that jenner handed out no offers. can you confirm?
#65
Yes. DLA no offers were true. I've heard about 20% of the class (from two people I know who summered there this year). Very surprised it hasn't popped up on ATL yet.
Interested in more information on Jenner. Plausible enough, given what has been going on at the firm, but not a good sign.
79- They did not announce only 90 percent offers at the retreat
78: If you want to argue for a better system, go for it. Sure, there would be something to be said to switching to more of the MBA style summer system. But at the moment, that's not the system we currently have. Way things are now, when someone hears you got no-offered, they assume you got so trashed at a summer event that you puked on the hiring partner's lap after groping half the recruiting staff.
Did it ever occur to you that some summer associates don't deserve offers? A firm is supposed to give someone an offer, even if his or her work sucks?
It's at least possible that some of the alleged "no offers" actually received offers from other offices. Some summers from the Chicago office split with other Winston offices, and may have received / accepted offers from those offices.
what a rancid toilet
As a Winston & Strawn associate who was involved in the summer program, I feel the need to post a comment here.
I do not know the situation behind all seven of the no offered folks, but for two, I agree that they shouldn't have been given offers. Not only was their work not up to par, but they really grated with most of the attorneys.
Winston is not a place where you walk in and there are a 100 summers and you can waltz in at 11, go to lunch, and then go home. The summers do actual work, and are expected to act like real attorneys. Nothing should ever be handed to you on a plate. Maybe the reason Winston is weathering the economic downturn better than other firms is because they don't give offers to summers who will one day turn into shitty associates.
Again, I stress that maybe one or two of the no offered folks really got the short end of the stick, but the majority deserved it.
And on a side note, I can't believe that a 90% offer rate is getting this much news. When you give 70 or 80% offers, thats news. 90% is just sound business strategy.
ATL: Absolutely ridiculous.
38 Summers at Winston in Chicago in '07.
68 in '08.
Guaranteed they cut it back down, offer 100% next year, and never speak of this again.
89: Ewwww. Your FIRM obviously decided that it did not need to comment on the relative strengths or weaknesses of those no-offered; why do you think it appropriate for YOU to do so? Kicking people while they are down is a classless manuever. Plenty will assume the worst about this batch without your comments.
I know LA gave 100% offers, so maybe that means that you get an offer if you deserve it - novel concept. Also I know (I was there) that it was not announced at the retreat that 90% would get offers - rather it was announced that the recent economic downturn would not impact offers - those who deserved them would get them. I suspect that was the case.