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Fall Recruiting Follow-Up: Part I

Tuesday, October 7, 2008 2:34 PM - By Elie Mystal

Not Hiring sign.jpgWhat can men do against such reckless hate?

Unless you are in the top 3rd of your class at a top school, or in the top 10% of your class at a lower ranked school, fall recruiting is kicking your ass. After sifting through nearly 300 comments to our fall recruiting open thread, one dominant theme emerges:

What’s different this year is that the bottom 60% at top schools and the bottom 90% of lower-ranked schools is not doing well.

In Part I of our fall recruiting follow-up, we’ll explore some general themes and discuss which markets are particularly struggling. In Part II we’ll look at which law schools are doing fine, and which ones are not living up to their promises of milk, honey, and money.

Many commenters had stories of great fall recruiting success, much like I have awesome “stories” about that one time I had sex with this one girl … and her sister, in Canada. But even if we leave aside some of the unattributed tales of personal greatness, the consistent meme is that top students are still doing just fine.

For everybody else there seems to be a clear move by firms to limit the size of their summer classes:

offer guarding seems prevalent; firms don’t want to accidentally end up with big classes that they have to no-offer because too many took summer positions.

Here’s another take:

T-20 school, top 20% w/ journal. I had 14 callbacks all within the V25 in NY. I ended up going on 9 of the 14 and took an offer at a V15 because I honestly was exhausted by the process and didn’t think I would take any of the remaining firms over what I had if they panned out. Of those 9 however, I only received 3 offers. I was told that last year 67% of callbacks in NY resulted in offers. I could be inept, but since I had around a 70% callback rate, I don’t think that’s likely. Additionally, almost none of my friends have offers. I really think the firms are trying to exercise more control by only extending offers to those they are certain are going to accept.

Reports about which legal markets are worth avoiding after the jump.

Specific markets seem to be doing worse than others. It should be obvious that San Francisco is not the best place to be looking for work right now:

In San Fran, most firms have seriously cut back their summer programs, many by half.

I have received and accepted an offer, but many of my classmates are getting ding after ding…it looks like many of us won’t have a home this summer, and people are (appropriately) freaking out.

But the problems in the D.C. market are somewhat more surprising:

T10, top 15%, opted not to do journal, other extracurriculars though. Have some callbacks at V10’s in NYC. But as for like the top 8 firms/offices in DC, zero luck. I have plenty of other offers/callbacks from other firms in DC (including some ranked 10-15 by Vault in DC) but those top DC firms were extremely ruthless this year.

Whenever things get tough, many campus career services types suggest trying out secondary markets. But this year no city is offering a particularly soft landing:

I’m at a T25, 20%, LR, and went a solid 4-26 at OCI’s with firms in my secondary market, and I’m a pretty socially adept person. Did a mass mailing campaign, and netted five callbacks within a week, most with phone screens. Either I’m extremely ugly, or secondary markets are really taking a hit in my school’s market.

Not even below the Mason-Dixon line:

Miami and ATL appear to be cutting way back…miami especially…

The only market that our commenters felt positive about is Chicago:

I’m interviewing from HLS in Chicago and I haven’t seen any sign the economy is hurting recruiting.

Everybody I know that interviewed at Mayer Chicago has gotten a callback.

All but 1 among people I know got a callback at Katten Chicago.

Most people have gotten callbacks and Jenner Chicago.

Latham/Jones Day/Sidley/Kirkland/Winston/McDermott all have yet to do callbacks (Sidley/Winston/McDermott haven’t interviewed yet).

Basically, as far as I can tell, Chicago is doing just fine at HLS.

And no matter where you are interviewing, if you are a 3L you might have a better chance of getting a call from a dead relative than a hiring law firm:

T14 3L, had a firm (as opposed to cold) offer at a v20 firm, only 2 callbacks (none directly through OCI), haven’t heard back yet.

Hard times to be a 3L, good luck everyone.

One tipster writes in to say:

3L’s doing recruiting at HLS are getting nothing in terms of callbacks. every 2L class complains that recruiting is hard — but 3L’s getting no callbacks at all is sorta empirically solid evidence that recruiting is indeed very hard”

Ah, yes HLS. All is not well at HLS (except apparently, in Chicago). But is it the legendary “toxicity” of HLS students causing this breakdown in the hierarchy of the legal universe, or is it the HLS tradition of starting OCI so late that people think they are interviewing for the 2010 summer class?

In Part II we will explore which law schools are doing well during this cold winter of fall recruiting.

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