Kash, too long, did not read. You should have, instead, brought in an outside expert to tell me what kind of suit to buy for OCI.

What happens if you accept a cold offer? (i.e., show up for the job). Do you get fired on the spot?

Cold offers are just misleading to prospective employees, and have no real value. The problem is the "everybody else is doing it wo we have to also" attitude. If firms were more honest, maybe they wouldn't have such high turnover.

2 out of 7 summer associates at Sidley LA received offers. 2 out of 7.

Cheers.

Thanks for posting this thread. I've always wondered about cold offers.

I think I could take the letter at face value and work in a cubicle like Milton if I was paid $160,000 per annum.

5's joking, right? RIGHT?!

I actually know someone who accepted a cold offer.

AWKward...

"Please note, however, that what appears in the comments is unverified. So caveat lector."

So apparently Kash learned a thing or two from her royal debacle with the OCI cancellations yesterday.

A summer associate at Alston & Bird was no-offered despite having been given no indication that he had anything to worry about. Quite the opposite, actually. Apparently the reason was something about him choosing practice groups that had too high of an interest and too few of slots (even though general litigation was on his list). In fact, the firm told the summer associates earlier in the summer that this wouldn't happen. As long as work was decent, and you didn't make an idiot of yourself at summer events, the firm would find a place for you--even if that meant putting a litigation person in a transactional group. Not even a cold offer.

OHAI WE NEEDZ U TO MOVE TO DA BASEMENT MMKTHX

you cant really accept a cold offer, as the so called offer will be terminated faster than you can say i accept

Cold offers are very explicitly AGAINST NALP RULES. Law firms could get NALP sanctions if they made a cold offer and NALP found out about it.

I think the cold offer makes sense as a way of dealing with summers who aren't a good fit, but aren't staggeringly incompetent, stupid, or evil. It's a good way to differentiate between, "No hard feelings, but we think you should look elsewhere," and "We don't want you, and we think you'll discredit any profession you work in."

"You should have, instead, brought in an outside expert to tell me what kind of suit to buy for OCI."

If you don't already own a couple appropriate interview suits, you went straight through to law school from college. And no law firm is going to hire you, sorry.

But I will recommend Brooks Bros, they've never let me down.

I'm a 2L at CWT in Charlotte and they gave me an offer AND a former associate's wife, car, house, and suit!

#16 - you're an idiot. Just because you had some terrible job a Citigroup before law school doesn't make you a genius.

Go back to banking.

I will gladly put up with blatant in your face disrespect and a windowless cubicle with doc review type work if I have a job that pays $160,000 per year.

- Loyola 2L

Latham is a total class act.

5:01(2) - Which NALP provision?

How does the provision get enforced?

Shearman gave up 135 offers? If that's true, certainly many of them were cold.

I think that Latham is doing better than CWT these days.

16: Hey, it's #2. If I went to like IU-I or something like that, then yes, I'd be fucked.

/I'm @ a T6
//And, yes, since no one from Stanford, Harvard or Yale refers to the T6, that means I go to CCNB.

Hooray, L2L is back!

I know someone who got a cold offer at a pretty top law firm and accepted. Funny thing is, he did a great job and they ended up loving him. When he left 3 years later they threw a huge goodbye party.

#15

What makes a summer associate "evil?"

Both.

SHEARMAN???? NOT TRUE. YOU SHOULD DIG A LITTLE MORE NO THIS

Cahill gave all 48 summers an offer. Great summer experience. Anyone know the verdict at White and Case?

SHEARMAN???? NOT TRUE. YOU SHOULD DIG A LITTLE MORE ONTHIS

SHEARMAN???? NOT TRUE. YOU SHOULD DIG A LITTLE MORE ONTHIS

Er, make that 15. Wait, am I really arguing on the internet? Time to coax my testicles to drop and let it go.

Cahill gave all 48 summers an offer. Great summer experience. Anyone know the verdict at White and Case?

#26, clearly you have never met Summer Associate Patrick Bateman.

SHEARMAN???? NOT TRUE. YOU SHOULD DIG A LITTLE MORE ONTHIS

13 is right, cold offers are against NALP guidelines. See http://www.nalp.org/assets/library_2/526_0607offers.pdf

I say report that shit to NALP and your school's office of career services.

Guys in my high school used to accept cold offers all the time. It was no big deal.

I'm not sure if #5 is telling the truth or not but if he is that really sucks.

Although it isn't surprising. Sidley LA is a bad place to work anyway. Maybe they are really doing them a favor?

I got an offer - then I think it became cold (although I didnt quite know for sure) when I tried to transfer to another firm location and couldnt. Still went to the firm, ignoring this minor inconvenience -- They treated me fine and I made it work. Two years later I left on good terms for a good job with the government (after moving to the office i wanted that is). Sometimes you just gotta make it work for you and plow through any obstacles.

Cold offers are herpes of the law firm world. You have a chance of getting them if you're not careful, but should you get it, it never really goes away, no matter what you do.

Solution: VALTREX!

There were plenty of A&B SAs who made associates of themselves sufficiently enough to warrant no offers.

The CHLT office summer program was a train wreck.

How about a post on which firms are not giving all (or substantially all) of their summer associates offers? Especially if that was the practice at the firm before, that would indicate a great deal about the health and/or management of the firm.

SHEARMAN???? NOT TRUE. YOU SHOULD DIG A LITTLE MORE ONTHIS

4 - "Cold offers are just misleading to prospective employees, and have no real value. The problem is the "everybody else is doing it wo we have to also" attitude. If firms were more honest, maybe they wouldn't have such high turnover."

Abouth the whole high turnover thing - firms in the law/finance/accounting industries may pretend that their high turnover bothers them, but high turnover is an integral part of their business model. They need to keep the revolving door moving since there is not enough room or need for higher level associates and even less for those seeking to make partners. Firms don't work associates so hard despite the fact that it drives most of them elsewhere within a few years - they do it for that very reason.

IS the Shearman news true, or wha?

I'm going to the market. For lemons.

The Sidley LA thing really doesn't make sense since their NALP directory says they were shooting for 22 summers. 22 to 7 is a pretty solid jump.

Hey Morons -

Cold offers are GOOD FOR YOU.

As a law student, your choice is not between an offer or a cold offer such that if you tell on your firm, suddenly you'll have an offer. The choice is between no offer or a cold offer.

In making you a cold offer, the firm is decently allowing you to slink away, maintain a little bit of self-respect, and apply for other jobs without being branded as an undesirable slacker/social moron/idiot/you name the problem.

Which would you rather market - an "offer" or no offer at all??????

Report to Career Services about a cold offer? Ha! What do you say? "My firm told me that I was a great employee but that it would probably be best to look other places next summer when it really thought I was a worthless piece of crap that soiled the office with my presence"? Cold offers work for everyone involved.

can someone explain what a cold offer is? How do you know you have just experienced a cold offer? what is this passive aggressive behavior?

A&B has ALREADY given cold offers????

cold offer = useful if the no-offer was for other than performance reasons (e.g., economic)

cold offer = misleading if the SA was an unemployable mouth-breather.

Offering the whole class means the firm must be desperate for help - not everyone can or should be a fit for every firm.

SHEARMAN???? NOT TRUE. YOU SHOULD DIG A LITTLE MORE ONTHIS

So question: How do you know you actually got a cold offer? Will you be told outright or do you have to figure it out?

No news from W&C yet...

Giving 100% offers is usually a sign that the summer process is a complete joke.

Miner's Black Lung, LLC gave only cold offers to students from Appalachain State.

Skadden: 358 of 370 SAs got offers

Sidley LA definitely has more than 7 summers. At least 20.

Was there ever any question that SA programs are jokes?

55--don't worry, the firm will make it painfully obvious. The firm doesn't want to leave you with the impression that you have any ability to accept the offer.

61: some will at least trim around the edges up front.

can u sue a firm if they cold offer u, u accept and they reneg?

55, if you can't figure out, don't worry -- you wouldn't get any offer, cold or otherwise.

Skadden hasn't even announced/extended its offers yet.

56 - W&C almost always gives out 100% "offers" (summers are not given offers during the summer, but told that they may call and request an offer in the fall - a request that is almost never denied). The idea is to help out folks whose judges prefer they not have an open offer when they start their clerkship.

Our OCI starts on Monday. I need to know, given that its the summer, can I wear a pink shirt/white collar? Or just go with the classic French Blue/white collar shirt? What about business cards? Its standard protocol among MBA kids, should I get some printed quickly?

64, ever heard of at-will employment?

"a pretty top law firm"

What the hell does this mean?

I received an offer -- of $50 from Judge Halverson for my body

69 - ever heard of detrimental reliance?

It was a decidedly HOT offer from Judge H., I might add.

68 - WOW. Go back to your dorm at Cornell and don't come out until you learn how to dress.

34 - Patrick Bateman was not a lawyer - he was a banker. He went to "Harvard and then Harvard Business School".

Is that true about Shearman?

Or should we dig a little more on this?

37, shame on you. If you are going to do the "frat stud" you have to put some time and thought into it.....TTT

"guys at my high school accepted cold offers to spite the law firm and would then fuck up large deals all the time. It was no big deal"

Now someone please Lothario that one for us. Mafia stud accepted as well, might prove to be a good trend.

I received an offer of $50 from Judge Halverson for my sandwich.

68 - you yutz. colored shirts with white collars are fine... if you want to look like central casting's version of a lawyer or investment banker. Why not just add the dollar sign suspenders to go with it? And no, pink is not fine, solid or with white collar. Jeez, go out and get a blue or white shirt, or a subtle stripe or check pattern. How hard is this? The game is not to dress like what you think is hot shit and stand out...the game is to dress professionally enough to show that you'd fit in at an office, then have your clothes be the LAST thing that makes any impression at all, one way or the other.

Oh, and business cards? Recruiters even laugh when MBA dorks give them out, law students have absolutely no need to.

72 - how the hell would there be reliance if you accept an offer, then they immediately terminate you? What would you have done in those 3.2 seconds?

75, you are boring.

Yes, clearly that fictional character could never ever fictionally decide to become a lawyer in a fictional world where we're talking about fictional hypothetical "evil" associates.

48 is spot on. A no offer is a kiss of death. No firm is goign to hire an associate that didn't get an offer as a SA. Being a SA is the easiest job in the world, and no one wants to hire someone who couldn't hack it.

It another firm had three months to evaluate you and that firm was willing to take the reputational hit that comes with givng a no offer on the nalp form - then the SA is toast.

80 - who says you gotta accept on the spot? A cold offer is held "open" indefinitely, ain't that right?

Mafia stud?

The Sidley LA post above ("2 out of 7") is definitely not true. I wasn't a Sidley summer but I met a couple of them and they had over 20 SA's in their program this summer.

68. You got to be fucking kidding? White shirt only, unless you are cousin Vinny and do not want a job.

Tool.

Business Cards, shut the fuck up.

68. You got to be fucking kidding? White shirt only, unless you are cousin Vinny and do not want a job.

Tool.

Business Cards, shut the fuck up.

68. You got to be fucking kidding? White shirt only, unless you are cousin Vinny and do not want a job.

Tool.

Business Cards, shut the fuck up.

68. You got to be fucking kidding? White shirt only, unless you are cousin Vinny and do not want a job.

Tool.

Business Cards, shut the fuck up.

68. You got to be fucking kidding? White shirt only, unless you are cousin Vinny and do not want a job.

Tool.

Business Cards, shut the fuck up.

68. You got to be fucking kidding? White shirt only, unless you are cousin Vinny and do not want a job.

Tool.

Business Cards, shut the fuck up.

Detrimental reliance? ha. Who thinks 72 is a law student and not a real lawyer?

68 = Touro 3L.

#5's nonsense about Sidley LA couldn't be further from the truth. For starters, Sidley's LA office (the one that rented out the staples center last month) has somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 summers (not 7 as #5's post indicated).

Can we get a thread on pre-clerk summers? I have SO many unanswered questions:

1. Do all firms do them?
2. Do you have to do it at a firm you've already summered with? one you haven't?
3. Do you have to accept an offer before you can pre-clerk summer?
4. If you get a clerkship after 3L OCI can you apply to a new firm to do your pre-clerk summer at?
5. If you pre-clerk summer at a firm that wasn't the firm you summered at 1L or 2L year do you lose offers to your 1L and 2L firms?

AHHHHH.... tooooo mannnnnyyyyyyy questions!!!!!!

72 is a college student who just watched The Paper Chase for the first time.

Guys in my high school used to wear colored shirts to interviews all the time. It was no big deal.

77: Fellow students of my educational establishment were in the habit of considering, and accepting, a certain classification of offers employment that did not, in fact, offer the purported position. Said students nonetheless routinely accepted such "cold" offers, and subsequently, as "the people" would say, "stuck it to the man" by causing significant corporate transactions to go awry, with the attendant rending of garments, gnashing of teeth, and a general caterwauling that was found most pleasing by the perpetrators of same. It was not, to be truthful, a particularly auspicious or noteworthy occurrence.

--First-Time Fraternal Organization Lothario

Is a light gray suit a bad choice for interviews?

W&C (NY): 14 cold offers. Nice of them to give cold offers, at least, although no one believes they needed to hire 180 first year associates.

For the record, Sidley LA has 25 summer associates this year.

- Looking at the (Sidley LA) Summer Associate Facebook

99,

Light grey suit is perfectly acceptable.

102 - that's just cruel.

99 - no

102 -

Dark brown shoes, black, or either?

98, beautiful job on that

84, read this mornings docket you'll understand

- 77

68. You got to be fucking kidding? White shirt only, unless you are cousin Vinny and do not want a job.

Tool.

Business Cards, shut the fuck up.

@ 102: with a grey suit, either black or brown is fine. Just make sure shoes are darker than the suit.

103, what suit colors are acceptable?

51: A&B has given offers an no-offers, because their Atlanta summer program ended a few weeks ago. I don't know if they gave any cold offers. I know of at least one person who wishes they received a cold offer so they didn't receive, instead, the "kiss of death."

41: There's no question that a few of those Charlotte summers made fools of themselves at the summer retreat.

french cuffs OK for OCI?

Wow 68, there's so much wrong with your post, I don't know where to start. Nice flame if that is what you were going for. The business card bit was a very nice touch.

107: my preference with a gray suit is to go with burgundy or cordovan belt and shoes. But black or brown are also acceptable.

My firm tried to cold offer me. I think they were a little surprised when I accepted on the spot.

I start in October. I hope there's no awkwardness!

more details on W&C please

I dunno. I wore black on black with a gold tie to an interview and got the job. But then I was no-offered at the end of the summer.

Given the number of retarded questions about attire we're seeing, I feel the need to clarify 107's point:

You may choose either black or brown, but both shoes must be the same color.

68, are you asking if it is acceptable to wear a hitter shirt as a law student and therefore NOT a hitter? Don't be a fool, wear a basic white shirt.

for females do you have to wear a button down under your skirt suit or can you wear something else?

W&C got too high a hit rate and overhired -- it's as simple as that. Now that we know that a bunch of no-offers will not cause a splash given Cadwalader's recent black eyes, we're cutting as much of the non-T14 trash as we can with cold offers.

118: The less the better.

108,

The acceptable colors are as follows:

Black and charcoal gray.

Sooo, the cold offer provides a means for both the summer associate and the firm to, ummm, not quite exactly tell the whole truth during the fall interviewing sessions. What a great introduction to the profession. What a great example set by these firms. Not.

#113, go for it! But keep that resume handy.

10 - what office of A&B?

41 - you accept offer or not get one?

123 - Atlanta.

Fried Frank New York gave 100 percent offers, to 75 summers.

110: No, French cuffs are too formal. You would also need to be careful with your links. Button cuffs are universally acceptable.

wtf is a "hitter shirt"

68 here. This is no flame. Has anyone even looked what people wear outside today? Pink shirts are business standard and an alternative to the white. It has a less harsh contrast than a white shirt when used with a grey suit (I have a grey interview suit). Just wondering if I should go with the french blue shirt instead. Ciao.

121 - this color is no good?

http://www.uncrate.com/men/images/paul-smith-tonic-suit.jpg

121 - this color is no good?

http://www.uncrate.com/men/images/paul-smith-tonic-suit.jpg

whether a firm gives, and whether a summer associate received an offer is a useful bit of information for students looking at firms and potential employers, respectively. "cold offers" turns something useful into something misleading.

On repeated occasions, students at my exclusive boarding academy who were completely devoid of competence and social graces failed horrendously at a summer of cocktail parties and boat cruises and were later given faux invitations for employment out of pity. It was not a noteworthy affair.

Lothario is unfunny and annoying

128,

Just cause it is "business" standard doesn't mean its appropriate for any interview. While I would highly doubt that a firm would ding you based on what you were wearing why risk it. Just look the part--show them that you can be appropriate for the situation.

126,

Its not that french cuffs are too formal for an interview, but it makes you look like a tool.

133: ....and you are what, exactly? Other than a douchebag?

I know people that have accepted cold offers from PWSP and actually still work there almost two years later. I've heard that they cold offer about 1/2 of their summer classes.

Sorry, but frat stud is getting freakin old.

If I didn't receive an offer my 2L summer, what keeps me from telling my 3L interviewers that I did receive an offer but am choosing to look elsewhere?

68 & Others Worried About OCI attire>> You should dress such that noone remembers what you had on. Pink shirts, bad idea, even a blue shirt w/a white colar probably too flashy. Ladies, wear a skirt suit and a button-up shirt in a color that doesn't stick out. Your goal is to impress the lawyers you meet w/your personality, your ambition, and your potential. If they notice you're outfit, IT IS A BAD THING. You can jazz it up once you get an offer and show up for your first day of work.

Pre-Clerk Summer: I don't know if every firm offers them, but I know most do to the SAs that summerred at the firm as 2Ls. If you didn't summer at the firm as a 2L, you have less of a chance because the firm begins to suspect you're just doing it for the money. But, you have a better shot if you're clerkship is a one-year clerkship because the firm sees it as a legitimate recruiting expense and, therefore, worth the money. Best bet is to go back to your favorite 2L firm and maintain a good relationship there, so that option is open once you're done w/the clerkship. Or, accept your offer (if your 2L firm will let you) and just take the summer stipend many firms give.