Job Searches, Summer Associates

Accept Your Offers: Part the Fourth

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Today’s installment of our ongoing series about law students who are determined to screw around comes with information about Proskauer Rose’s summer program. According to multiple tipsters, Proskauer is not directly rescinding offers (like Akin Gump did), but they are encouraging students who have received offers to consider other options for the summer.

We’re pretty sure that Proskauer is not alone with these “stealth rescinding offer” phone calls.

For the latest in career services people freaking out, we have a T-5 School, and a top tier school.

From NYU:

After speaking with recruiting professionals at various law firms and participating on a recent NALP conference call to discuss the state of the economy, we would like to address the fall recruiting season. As you are aware, this recruiting season has been seriously affected by the economy. We have been notified by one New York firm that they are rescinding their outstanding offers for Summer 2009. In addition, we have been informed by numerous firms that their summer programs are oversubscribed due to the unprecedented rate of early acceptances.

The obvious impact of oversubscription is that these firms may not be able to extend offers to their entire summer class.

We strongly recommend that you review your options and accept an offer as quickly as possible. Do not wait until the expiration of the offer to make a decision. If you need any assistance in making a decision, please make an appointment to speak with a career counselor.

And from UT:

Dear Students,

We received reports yesterday directly from a few law firms and from some of our students that some 2L summer clerkship offers have been rescinded before the offer deadline. Current market conditions suggest that less deliberation of opportunities and quicker response time to offers is prudent. With unusually high acceptance rates and concern of over-subscribing summer clerkship classes, some firms have decided to rescind outstanding offers once their target class size has been met. While we are directly aware of only a few such instances, we recommend that you make your acceptance offers and communicate those results to employers as soon as possible.

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Despite the overwhelming evidence that sitting on offers is a terrible strategy, some law students continue to wear Bad Idea Jeans.

Some of these students weigh in after the jump.


What is going on in the minds of law students who are holding out for better offers? One commenter expresses a common theme:

I’m sitting on 5 offers right now. Why? Because I’m still waiting to hear back from my top choice firm. Why am I holding onto 5? Because that way if a few of those firms rescind offers b/c they’re oversubscribed, I will still offers to fall back on. Would I prefer to just turn down the firms I’m not really interested in? Absolutely–I don’t want to take up spots that could go to someone else. But if firms are going to go against the NALP guidelines by pulling offers, then I’m damn well going to cover my ass. And I’m still within the guidelines.

I do not think the word “oversubscribed” means what you think it means. What if all 6 of your firms are oversubscribed — the 5 your are sitting on and the one you want? What happens then?

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Last week, we thought that this was a problem of firms waiting for people to drop so they could make additional offers. Now it seems clear that firms are waiting for people to drop so they don’t have to deal with additional summer associates. Waiting for a top choice firm is silly because you’re endangering your offers with low priority firms, and you likely won’t get one from your oversubscribed top-choice anyway.

Meanwhile, quite a few law students apparently feel like this:

STOP TRYING TO THREATEN US. Would you expect people to accept an offer from Harvard Law over Columbia so the Columbia waitlisted people can get into CLS? No. It’s the same principle. People earned an offer from Columbia Law School, and they can sit on it until the deadline.

Sitting on offers is your right. You earned them; others didn’t. End of story. You worked hard on the LSAT, in class, and on tests, and you proved to multiple firms that you’re capable of doing good work.

I’m not trying to rob you, I’m trying to help you.

What do you think will happen once the summer starts? Do you think whatever firm you end up with is going to be giving full-time offers to all of their 2009 summer associates? We’ve reported on 2008 no-offers that were being handed around before the economy tanked. 2009 summer associate programs are sure to be 3 month long “interviews” in a way that we haven’t seen in a long time.

Next summer, when 20% of summer associates are whining about not getting an offer, we’ll be forced to ask how that happened. And part of the answer will be that some people who got cut started off on the wrong foot and could never make it up. The people who have already accepted, are already part of the “team,” they have a leg up on the 2009 summer competition. Those kids have already shown their firms that they are excited to be there. The people who are sitting on multiple offers right now are showing their firms that they are trying to better deal their future employer, or they are indecisive, or they are woefully unable to understand market forces. None of these impressions are the ones you want your employer to be thinking about over the summer.

It’s Friday. If you’re still sitting on multiple offers by Monday you are simply crazy.

Earlier: Accept Your Offers: Part III

Accept Your Offers: A Brief Follow Up

Accept Your Offers: Stop Screwin’ Around You Kids Screw Around Too Much

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