A Would-Have-Been Thacherite Speaks
Thacher Proffitt & Wood made its dissolution official last month. Last Monday, the firm officially rescinded offers to approximately twenty 3Ls who were bound there after graduation.
One would-have-been Thacherite said no one was surprised to have the offers rescinded but that the soon-to-be law school graduates are still “bummed.”
The “firm did it right.” The partners in charge of Thacher’s summer associate program called all of the 3Ls on Monday. With the firm bound for nonexistence by May, the reason for the call was fairly obvious. The partners offered to do anything they can to help: forward resumes on, provide references, resend offer letters, etc. (Though those not rescued by Sonnenschein may be a bit busy looking after their own job prospects.)
Law students who placed their eggs in the baskets of failing firms Thacher, Thelen Reid, and Heller Ehrman may no longer be looking forward to cap-and-gown day. One Thacherite-would-have-been talked to us about what it’s like to see one’s Biglaw prospects dissolve. “When you take an offer from a 150-year-old firm, you think it’s pretty solid,” said the UnThachered 3L.
Full interview with “NoMoreTP”, after the jump.
The law school student, who summered with Thacher Proffitt in New York, was among about 20 summer associates who received offers from the firm on August 15. To protect anonymity, we’ll be referring to the 3L as NoMoreTP.
First Warning Sign
It was evident over the summer that there were problems at Thacher, says NoMoreTP. The first warning sign for incoming summer associates was having their summers with the firm shortened. Around two months before SAs were to start, the firm called to push the start date back by a week, to post-Memorial Day weekend. “We calculated that that saved the firm more than $100K, or the equivalent of someone’s job,” said NoMoreTP.
A Slow Summer
In the first SA week, five or six farewell e-mails went around the firm, which was mildly concerning. But the SAs thought people leaving might be a good thing, providing more opportunities for incoming associates.
Over the summer, work was slow. “We worked on some memos and research on the bank industry and securities, but there wasn’t much going on. They said, ‘Normally, we would have deals for you to work on. We usually have 10 or 20 a month. Now, it’s just 1 or 2.” But SAs at other firms were also saying they didn’t have much to do, so it didn’t seem that unusual. Thacher associates admitted it was slow, but didn’t reveal how bad things really were. There was talk around the firm of the possibility of a merger with another firm rather than dissolution.
There was lots of free time over the summer, but it was not filled with leisurely lunches and firm events. The firm was fairly miserly—“they were tight with everything.” In the first month, the firm took its SAs bowling and to a Yankees game (No box though— cheap upper deck seats). Events really tapered off in the second month of the program. Notice all the white space on the firm’s 2008 SA calendar for July.
Associates could only go on one SA lunch per week. Summer associates wound up going out to lunch two times a week, maybe three. They were “strictly capped” at $45 per person— if you went over with tax and tip, you had were responsible for anything over the cap.
But that seemed to be the general environment for most firms over the summer: “Every day, when we didn’t have work to do and turned to ATL, we saw people being fired.”
Associates and partners didn’t try to hide the firm’s problems—it was the elephant in the room—but they expressed optimism about the firm bouncing back. They tried to instill confidence in SAs at the end of the summer. After ATL wrote in July about rumors of the firm’s impending demise, firm managing partner Paul Tvetenstrand actually dropped into the offices of associates and summer associates to reassure them about the firm’s prospects. And, “when you take an offer from a 150-year-old firm, you think it’s pretty solid.”
No Hard Feelings
NoMoreTP says Thacher handled the offer rescission as well as it could. No one was surprised to have offers rescinded this week; most noticed that things were getting worse throughout the fall, and became seriously concerned after the King & Spalding merger fell through. Most summers were glad that Thacher was able to “save” the firm through the Sonnenschein deal.
What Now?
NoMoreTP did some interviewing in the fall, knowing that Thacher was having problems. But as we know, it was not a good fall recruiting season for 3Ls. NoMoreTP plans to start seriously looking for another job starting in March. NoMoreTP has been told that’s when firms will have a better sense of business in 2009, and whether they will expand hiring. Other would-have-been Thacherites are setting their sights on BigGovernment instead of BigLaw.
NoMoreTP still plans to take the New York bar and home state bar. As Thacher’s problems became evident, this 3L’s career services office reached out and has been supportive.
Most of the partners and associates that NoMoreTP worked with have gone on to Sonnenschein, but “they don’t know if there will be opportunities there. They said they’ll let me know in a couple of months.”
(138) Comments
Comments
LAST!!!
Figgiti-FIRST!
Captain FIRST!
pwned
FOURTH!!!
They made 20 offers in August and are out of business by December? That is not treating people right. In the grand scheme of things would it have killed them to not have an incoming class.
Several of my law school classmates started at TPW in October 08. They are all out of jobs now.
here....... SHEEEEEPY SHEEEEP SHEEEP! SHEEEP!
This is all very sad, and a big deal.
Just hoping to survive until this economy hell is over.
- Humbled Frat Stud
Sounds like the firm handled the situation in a much more professional manner than Thelen.
-Former Incoming Thelen Associate
Ah, welcome to unemployment, down here with the rest of us. You can always get one of those solid union jobs with GM that offer such great benefits. Or, um... you can get a job in construction. Or, hm... as a mortgage broker? Investment banker? Newspaper reporter?
What exactly are all these unemployed recent grads supposed to do?
I am so glad I work for Skadden.
CLS 06
My Georgetown Law career counselor suggested I get a part time job at Barnes and Noble. (No, I'm not kidding).
FYI TO ALL LAID OFF ASSOCIATES AND UNEMPLOYEDS
------------------
YOU DON'T HAVE
TO PAY YOUR
STUDENT LOANS
JUST TELL THEM TO FUCK OFF
--------------------
13-
you can't be serious...
When I was choosing between firms, a friend (BigLaw partner) said, "Cadwalader is like 200 years old; it's not going anywhere." No I'm not so sure; glad I didn't take their offer (and glad I cancelled my TPW call-back)
15 = racist
HEY 14
THAT RUINS
YOUR CREDIT!!!!
15 = liar and racist
SO WHAT?
IF YOU DON'T
HAVE THE MONEY
THEN TELL
THE LENDERS TO
GO F THEMSELVES
13 - Well, it helps to pay the bills while you're looking for a law job. No shame in that. Remember: If you're making under $50K / year, the interest on your student loans is tax deductible.
13-
And remember that government-backed student loans come with an emergency 2-year deferral that can be invoked if you become unemployed. Way better than defaulting.
17 - When you have no job, no income, and no steady supply of food or heat, your credit rating is relatively low on your list of priorities.
THIS month is January. The announcement was made in December--commonly understood to be LAST month.
17 Credit? C'mon. It can't be that much longer until Project Mayhem finishes their work and sets us all back to zero.
--Elie
How does GULC factor into all of this?
20,
Do you really think a person can afford student loan payments and bills and rent on a part-time job at Barnes and Noble? It really isn't a realistic option for a person who has nearly $100,000 in law school debt.
The same counselor who suggested the part time job route shuns contract attorney work. She claims that if grads take higher paying contract attorney jobs they will never find the time to seek the permanent positions they would like. This may be true, but a lot of new grads are not in the financial position to shun higher paying work to instead sell books for $10.00/hr.
"they don't know if there will be opportunities there. They said they'll let me know in a couple of months."
Doc review can always pay the bills. Any port in a storm...
Reminds me of Altheimer & Gray - except they didn't collapse and leave their 20 3L/incoming associates without work until May, after they had graduated and were studying for the bar. Classy.
I can't believe they took their summers bowling...I can't imagine any partner that I know in any firm in a bowling alley. "Hey winthrop, get me another pitcher of the High Life and bring a round of SoCo shots for everybody".
26 - Yeah, you can. You give up either paying rent (by living with your parents) or paying the student loans (by either deferring them or just refusing to pay them) until you find something better paying. Or you could do a combination of both (defer some loans, pay others, "rent" a spare bedroom / couch in a friend's place in the 'burbs until things turn around in a couple of years).
26 --
When I graduated from law school (Top 25 but not T14, unfortunately), I had $115,000 in debt and was making $34K / year in insurance defense (that was five years ago, and I've heard salaries have dropped since then). It's absolutely possible to get by and still pay the loans.
I'll second 30. Move back in with your parents or find a cheap living situation with a bunch of roomates. Thousands of liberal arts majors move to NYC every year. They get apartments in queens, brooklyn or NJ with 6 roomates and cut back on uneccessary expenses. In a couple years, most make a lot more money. No young lawyer wants to live this way, but it's definitely possible.
Even if you're only being paid by the hour, get a second job, work the kinds of hours that lawyers do in busy times, and you'll make ends meet. Eventually something will come around.
hey 31,
I am not trying to be a troll, but could you tell me how you did that? I am trying to support a family of 4 on a biglaw salary in NYC and I could not imagine not making what I make (and no my kids do not go to private school). I'd love to see a breakdown of how you managed to get by on 34k and make payments on your loans.
31 - That is the most depressing story I have ever heard. T-25 and doing...gag... insurance defense and being paid... double gag... $34K / year? Shoot yourself.
The same exact thing happened to me (and a number of my friends) when Brobeck folded. I never did get a phone call from the firm.
I signed up with a legal temp agency and did doc review for a while. I contacted an old professor and got an hourly paid research gig. I considered LLM programs.
I took a second bar exam for a state I thought I might return to in the future. That's one of the best decisions I've made, since the marginal effort is minimal and there is no better window of opportunity. Some states charge less for students and lawyers not yet qualified, so it was actually quite affordable and filled the days. I immediately went inactive there and pay minimal dues.
Most meaningfully, I worked out a lot and watched a lot of Buffy.
I eventually (7 months later) got another biglaw job in a countercyclical practice and waited out the storm.
I feel for these folks, but you have to keep moving and keep your eyes on the ball.
Incoming Thelen attorneys were supposed to start today. This is an awful day for us. Most of us are extremely qualified, yet remain unemployed. Unlike NoMoreTP, my summer at Thelen in '07 was fantastic. No expense spared, and lots of interesting work to do. I'm still devastated and sometimes still shocked at what's going on in my life right now. To all of you who still have jobs, be grateful.
The same exact thing happened to me (and a number of my friends) when Brobeck folded. I never did get a phone call from the firm.
I signed up with a legal temp agency and did doc review for a while. I contacted an old professor and got an hourly paid research gig. I considered LLM programs.
I took a second bar exam for a state I thought I might return to in the future. That's one of the best decisions I've made, since the marginal effort is minimal and there is no better window of opportunity. Some states charge less for students and lawyers not yet qualified, so it was actually quite affordable and filled the days. I immediately went inactive there and pay minimal dues.
Most meaningfully, I worked out a lot and watched a lot of Buffy.
I eventually (7 months later) got another biglaw job in a countercyclical practice and waited out the storm.
I feel for these folks, but you have to keep moving and keep your eyes on the ball.
33: Don't even start going down that path with these morons, unless you want the oh-so-helpful advice of giving up your Hamptons house and/or stop driving a fancy car and drinking lattes.
31 and 32,
My post said the career counselor suggested a part-time job. Neither of the scenarios either of you suggested involves survivng on a part-time salary.
I think that it would be stupid to follow the counselors advice and only work part-time.
I'm currently living at home with my loans in deferrment. I don't have a car. I spend my days applying for jobs and studying for a second bar exam. Unfortunately, the legal market is pretty dead for recent grads. (The legal jobs I see that start at $34,000 a year require upwards of two years of experience.)
38:
I don't own a house--Hamptons or otherwise--I dont' own a car, and although I have a latte every once in a while, I don't eat out a lot.
You have to run the numbers before you assume that every lawyer is living that way. 160 in NYC for a family of 4 is just not a lot of money.
39, I'm right there with you. I was supposed to start at Thelen today as well, and instead I'm sitting at home, without a car ,studying for another bar exam and looking for a job. I agree that part time work isn't worth it right now. I'm also looking at these $34,000 a year jobs, and it's really devastating. And even those jobs are few and far between. It's a far cry from the $160,000 biglaw lifestyle I was looking forward to, and I'm just depressed all the time. I hope the two of us have a better 2009. Keep your head up, and I'll try to do the same.
Your "Career Counselor" is full of shit. I'd take it to a higher up at the office or a Dean or something. For this person to recommend you take a part-time job at fucking BN is unacceptable. You're paying around 150k to go to LS and this is the best the person could come up with?!? What a joke.
13 - Not to be overly pessimistic, but are part-time jobs at Barnes & Noble even available at this point?
33 -
31 here. Yeah, sure, I can give you a breakdown. The key part of it was -- of course -- living with family, which takes rent and utilities out of the equation. On that $34K salary, my take-home ended up being about $2100 / month.
Of the $2100:
$1000 in loans
$250 in car insurance / gas / repairs
$120 in cell phone / gym membership
$600 in food / clothes / entertainment / miscellaneous
And a little over $100 for emergencies and rainy day savings.
Now, mind you, in addition to not having a place to live other than a spare bedroom in a basement, I also had to go without health insurance, retirement, etc. And $20 / day total in food, dry cleaning, buying clothes, and whatever entertainment I could scrape by on didn't leave me with much left over. I also had to build up a bit of a credit card balance (maybe $5K over the course of the year I did this for) on emergency stuff (doctor's visits and prescriptions were killers) and CLE courses. It's a bit of a spartan existence, and it does depend on the kindness of relatives willing to give you shelter, but it's certainly feasible for a single 20something.
NoMoreTP? Can't you even spare a square?
Talk to Gihan at GULC. He's the man.
34 --
31 here. Yeah, well, the thing is, if you don't graduate in the top 50% of your class at those schools in the 15-30 range -- forget about the schools below that -- you're kind of out of luck. And, well, half the class doesn't graduate in the top 50%. So you do what you have to do to get by. And five years later I'm making six figures but still less than a Biglaw first year. Oh well; that's life.
42,
I don't think the part time job suggestion was meant to answer the question of "how do I pay my loans while I'm looking for a job full time?" Getting a part time job is one answer.
Honestly, my heart goes out to all the new JDs that are struggling to find a job in this market. It's not going to be easy. The best thing you can do is keep networking and do everything you can to get some sort of experience, even if it means volunteering with a legal aid organization until the job market picks back up. If you can't pay the bills, you have to do whatever you can to minimize them.
Is this future Barnes and Noble employee from GULC a 3L whose TPW or Thelen offer was rescinded, or is this somebody who simply did not get a BigLaw offer through OCI?
LOL, 43. Big box retailers are closing everywhere in my state, so there aren't many part-time retail jobs around. I'll stick to spending my time studying for my second bar.
since when is being a cop such a lucrative career? screw biglaw or biggov. Suburb cops are where it's at. Connecticut suburb cops to $228K
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=3310671
and here's the news article
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/localnews/ci_11365662?source=rss
48,
I'm the person who received the advice. I asked what kind of job I should take to pay the bills if I wasn't supposed to do contract attorney work. The counselor suggested a part-time job at a place like Barnes and Noble. I think the counselor meant well, but the advice wasn't really practical.
52 - Why isn't it practical? Some income is always better than no income, and if you can put your loans in deferral, a part time job will give you some kind of cash flow while allowing you the time and flexibility to interview.
52-
Can you explain to me why, exactly, contract work is not advisable? You would be making hella more money than at B and N, you'd have your foot in the door at a firm, and you'd be beefing up your resume. When the job market turns around, you'll have x years of doc review under your belt and can apply to midsize or small firms that don't have traditional law school recruiting programs (i.e., that hire people who have been out of school).
54 - There's a perception among almost all attorneys that do doc review that it's a career killer. Once you do doc review for more than three or four months, the thinking goes, you'll never be able to get a position other than doc review. And this is pretty well established by the people who've actually tried -- once you've gotten into doc review for more than just a quick spell, you can't get hired by any firm, big or small. Nobody considers it "experience," since it's just mindless nothing-work, and the thinking goes that once you've done it for a while, you've stopped using your brain enough to be useless as an actual attorney.
52,
48 here. You're right. That's not real practical advice. It really sucks to be in your situation. Just keep the faith that you will eventually find other work. Even if it's not biglaw, if you're smart enough to get into GULC, you're smart enough to succeed whereever you eventually land. Good lawyers eventually do pretty well for themselves, no matter what the field.
I'd met plenty of really sucessful lawyers before I went to law school, and not one of them was a big-firm lawyer. The people who made the most money were actually involved in personal injury law.
53,
For my current situation it isn't practical. I have no car or access to public transportation, so I would need to buy a car to get a job. The expense of a (used) car, gas and insurance would eat away most of the money I would make in a part-time job in this part of the country. I think it makes more sense to spend my time studying for another bar exam and applying for jobs.
56 -
Plaintiffs' side lawyers can always make the most money on contingency cases, though of course there's tremendous risk -- but always the chance that you get a third of a 9 figure class action settlement.
54,
52 here. The counselors main reason for advising against contract work is that people who do it full time put finding a permanent job on the back burner. The counselor said that a lot of grads who start doing contract work will still be doing contract work a year later and are still not any closer to finding the kind of work they want to do.
I've also heard what 55 says, but that isn't the specific reason the counselor mentioned.
I think most of us went to T14s with the belief that we wouldn't have to do personal injury or insurance defense.
I think 55 might be right. A year spent doing document review work is probably viewed about as favorably as a year working at McDonalds. You're not building skills or experience that any law firm is going to value. My guess is that most firms would rather see you doing a job where you are learning to be a lawyer.
54: That is either an exercise in hyperbole; or complete bullshit.
59 - Yes, and a lot of us also believed that Lehman Brothers would still exist in 2009. A lot of beliefs have been disabused of late.
58-
I'm not quite sure what is so bad about "sill doing contract work a year later," since the chances of landing anything more remunerative or more prestigious within the next couple of years are probably ZILCH
63 - Trust me, speak to actual contract attorneys, who've been doing it for a while, before you decide to go that route. Your chances of escaping out of temp work are virtually nill -- nobody will hire somebody who's a long term (more than a couple months) temp attorney. Don't take my word for it; speak to some people who've done it.
35+39: another Thelen 07 SA...keep your heads up, we'll land something
it's tough out there and I'm getting sick of looking for jobs, but we have to do what we have to do
good luck
Do we even know if firms are hiring contract attorneys right now? I was under the impression that they didn't have work for their associates even.
63,
When the counselor made that statement back in May things in the economy didn't seem that bad. Maybe she doesn't think contract work is so bad now.
63,
I disagree. If you spend the next year taking appointed criminal cases to trial and negotiating settlements, a prospective employer is going to view that more favorably than a year spent clicking.
When the economy improves in a year or two, it's not going to hurt you to be a T14 grad with a couple jury trials on your resume. Being a T14 grad with two years of clicking experience will just get doors slammed on you.
What's with all the crying here? Seems to me people want things handed to them because they dropped a load of money on their education.
Grow a pair, pass the bar and hang out your shingle. You can't tell me there isn't work out there for attorneys. Being a solo (or even with a couple classmates in a small firm) may not pay like "biglaw", but you get experience, including management type experience, from running your own office.
Biglaw is big for a reason - they make a big SPLAT when the shit hits the fan.
69, a lot of us had jobs lined up and then our firms dissolved. We're now finding that very very few jobs exist out there. We're not "crying" but upset at our bad fortune. We're grads from top schools, and we expected more. We're capable, bright and hard-working, and there's just nothing out there. NOTHING.
70 - Trust me, you won't be alone. There's going to be a whole heck of a lot of offers being rescinded in the coming months, and you'll have plenty of company looking for the jobs that are left over.
I'm not sure if anyone on this thread actually has experience as a doc review clicker, so here's some perspective (just speaking as one person):
the commenters are correct that long term doc review can be a career killer, but people are missing the fact that doc review is a killer in the eyes of Biglaw. a lot of small/midsize firm recruiters don't even know what doc review is - so it's much easier to explain what you have been doing - in fact, since they're often clueless, you can make it sound like you did some real work without lying - one euphemism is "litigation support" or you can spin it as being a per diem attorney -
listen, I don't say that any of this is guaranteed to work - but I can state for a fact that overcoming doc review is much easier in the universe outside of Biglaw
69-
Are you seriously advising 3Ls and recent grads to "hang a shingle"? How does one even go about doing this? Form whence comes the capital, the clients? How are we supposed to have any management experience at this point, let alone practical legal experience? I remember reading an article in the Times a few months ago about a couple of BigLaw associates (from Proskauer, I think) who were sick of BigLaw and struck out on their own - and I seem to remember the one girl's rich BigLaw partner father "loaning" her like $50 grand to do it. But how is a Joe law-grad supposed to hang a shingle?
71, I know you're right, and it's just so awful. What a bad time to be a new law graduate. I just graduated from a great school, passed 2 bar exams, and nobody wants me. I know that it's not a refelction on me, but rather on the economy...but it still hurts. My friends from school are all doing fantastically well, and I should be too. It's just bad luck, and I know there's about to be even more competition out there. Sucks.
-70
Why go with NoMoreTP when you already established UnThachered3L?
73 - I have a friend who just "hung a shingle" straight out of law school, so I can tell you how to do it. First, you have to "intern," usually for free, for an established solo. Write up some stuff for him, follow him to court to see how that works, file some pleadings / motions, etc., just to get a feel for how the court system works. Do that for two or three months -- the equivalent of a summer -- and you should have a working grasp of how a solo office is run (most solos will do this for you in exchange for the free assistance).
Financing? A couple of years ago you could have opened a line of credit for $50K or so with a bank to start a firm, but those days are gone. For the moment, it's probably credit cards. Get a bunch of them to run operating expenses.
You don't need an office -- just a phone, fax, and email. You can always arrange with a local firm to use their conference room when you need to meet with clients or take depositions or something of that nature for a nominal fee.
And getting clients? Word of mouth, pounding the pavement. Help out friends and family with personal injury, drafting wills, whatever, hope they recommend you to people. Put up ads on Craigslist or in the phone book. The usual way attorneys get clients.
Good luck. It works sometimes.
69,
Who is crying here? People are just talking about their current situations.
I'm also curious as to how a recent grad w/ no money or experience can get a loan to start a solo shop. Recent grads can barely get bar loans at this point.
77 - This is 76, above. Like I said there, if you do it properly with a "virtual" office, no secretary, and no real expenses, you can shoestring a practice to the point where you can do it on credit cards.
RIP Thelen
RIP Thelen
I was a summer with heller, and here is what I have heard for the benefit (or anxiety) of others in this position. One of the other summers took a more proactive approach, and did not land a single interview after sending out dozens of resumes. I took the opposite approach, and only contacted people (non-hellerites, actually) I knew. I was told that most firms had frozen their hiring until after the holidays, but I can't imagine that things have changed all that much.
It is bleak... I wasn't planning on clerking for a few years, but it's increasingly looking like that might be the only viable route.
I'm curious what others are doing strategically/tactically.
81- I was at Thelen and have thought about clerking, except that most of the clerkships were filled back in September when we thought we still had jobs.
72: Exactly. People, please stop worrying about the paranoid, ridiculously harsh and judgmental BIGLAW view of the world. Believe me, the vast majority of law firms don't care about that hierarchical crap. One could also simply not put the temp work on his or her resume, particularly if it was very short-term.
As to putting your job search on the back burner while doing contract work, can temps seriously not tell their bosses that they're cutting out for a few hours for an interview? If so, that's preposterous. Go ahead and do the contract work for the money, but don't put your career aside in the meantime.
81 and 82, I'm one of the posters above who was a '07 summer at Thelen and is still out of work. I can't agree with you more. Things are so bleak out there, and the timing of our situation is awful. No clerkships and no jobs available. We were golden not too long ago, and now there's nothing. I honestly don't know what to do. The despair is just awful.
How ironic is it that those bottom half kids at GULC probably would have been in the top 20% at Brooklyn or top 10% at St. John's and would have gotten BigLaw at NYC (and with any luck, chosen a firm that will still be around when they graduate), but now they are clamoring to do contract work
I was top half at a T20 and still lost my job at Thelen. Most of us in my summer class were top half at T20s and above. We've just fallen victim to horrendous luck.
86- I was referring to bottom half kids go got nothing.
I feel your pain. Best of luck
-85
Thanks, 85. I still don't know what to do with myself. I'm so ready to work but nobody can take on new people right now. At least I have some perspective now. People whining about a few thousand in lost bonus just seems silly to me. I'm sure if I was in their shoes I'd be upset about my bonus too, but now at least I have the perspective to appreciate whatever job I'll eventually get.
-86
70 - Welcome to how 90% of the law school graduating class lives. There are a lot of people who aren't going to be the least bit sympathetic that you lost a $160K job that wasn't remotely related to your actual skill level.
BigLaw pays six figures for the "pedigree" that allows them to bill clients obscene hourly rates for associate "work" that could be done by anyone. They aren't paying anything for your personal "talent," because you probably have none. If you do, you probably haven't had the occasion to actually demonstrate it.
Pedigree hiring was and is bullshit. We've also since learned that most of the pedigree hires at the Wall Street banks were either completely incompetent or completely corrupt. The entire system, applied to an industry as opposed to a few truly select firms, is garbage.
Some of this work may be "beneath" you, but there's a reason contract law counts all money you make that you couldn't be earning at the promised job as mitigation of damages, and generally whacks people for sitting on their ass to sue instead of pursuing other positions.
There is no such thing as "inferior" money. Just inferior amounts of it. Unless you are wealthy - in which case I would recommend starting a troubled-asset buyout firm, not a law firm - you are not in a position to turn down work.
70 - Welcome to how 90% of the law school graduating class lives. There are a lot of people who aren't going to be the least bit sympathetic that you lost a $160K job that wasn't remotely related to your actual skill level.
BigLaw pays six figures for the "pedigree" that allows them to bill clients obscene hourly rates for associate "work" that could be done by anyone. They aren't paying anything for your personal "talent," because you probably have none. If you do, you probably haven't had the occasion to actually demonstrate it.
Pedigree hiring was and is bullshit. We've also since learned that most of the pedigree hires at the Wall Street banks were either completely incompetent or completely corrupt. The entire system, applied to an industry as opposed to a few truly select firms, is garbage.
Some of this work may be "beneath" you, but there's a reason contract law counts all money you make that you couldn't be earning at the promised job as mitigation of damages, and generally whacks people for sitting on their ass to sue instead of pursuing other positions.
There is no such thing as "inferior" money. Just inferior amounts of it. Unless you are wealthy - in which case I would recommend starting a troubled-asset buyout firm, not a law firm - you are not in a position to turn down work.
88,
The good news is that everyone knows what happened to Thelen and will appreciate that you got a raw deal. They'll know you haven't been out on the street becasue your a bad interviewer, or lack the grades. Things are bleak right now, but if it's any consolation I'm sure you'll be one of the first to be snapped up once the job market turns around. If nothing else, lots of firms in you area will be filled with former Thelen and Hellerites that will have a lot of sympathy for your plight.
89, something about your post tells me that you're bitter about some aspect of your life. I think I'll just ignore it. 70 was upset about his changed circumstances. The class of '09 actually is in a better circumstance than him because they've secured jobs at firms that are still standing. If their summer firms have dissolved, at least they're still in school and have the luxury of a few more months to look. For the class of '08, they've been out of work for months, and they have nothing going for them. Nobody said that contract work is beneath them. The point was that it might be a future killer. And there's lots of truth to that. So while a job is a job, some jobs ARE better than others. It's not necessarily only the $160,000 that 70 is missing, but the opportunities that would have come from working at a big firm.
I am so glad I accepted with Skadden. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.
CLS
Thanks for the productive input, 93! No amount of Skadden can remove your ass from your face.
92 - Yeah, exactly. Money's nice, but it ain't everything. You'll have a lot brighter future with two years of, say, indigent defense work on your resume at $40K / year than you will with two years of doc review at $100K / year.
Another Unemployed Thelenite here - yes very difficult, getting close to the contract work decision, very devastating...
has anyone gotten a job from the incoming class?
96, I know that a couple of the Thelen '07 class have found jobs. One at a small firm on Long Island, and another at a small firm in Manhattan. A couple are getting LLMs as well. I know of two others who are working (both because they were no-offered by Thelen and had the resources when the time was right to find a job.) As far as I know, the rest of us are still looking.
I heard that Thelen SF took much better care of their incoming first-years. The lawyers in NYC didn't take anyone with them to Nixon or any other firm.
I drink your schadenfreudeshake. I DRINK IT UP!
Many of these TPW summers will likely never have the opportunity to work in a large law firm again (except possibly as contract attorneys), seeing as how a majority of them are going to be graduates of such fine legal diploma mills (err...academies) as St. Johns, University of Detroit-Mercy, Hofstra, Pace, Cardozo, and Tulane.
It's almost a tease to let these soon-to-be TTT grads work in big law for a summer before unceremoniously dumping them into the worst legal market in years. Almost.
100-
Not sure how you can group Tulane and Cardozo (and maybe even St. John's) in with those other true TTTs. At least from the former two or three schools, graduates in the top part of the class routinely get BigLaw positions. Obviously, now is the worst possible time to be looking for such a position. But when things pick up, those folks will be just fine.
100-
101 again. I just looked at the TPW 2008 summer class. I must admit I am puzzled- what's with their penchant for "U. Detroit" students? But anyway, I stand by my original point - if Skadden or Weil dissolved, there would be quite a few Hofstra, Cardozo, and St. John's students who would be screwed
100 -
Those schools, again the two or three 101 mentions, work at all the same firms as T14 grads, just not in the same quantity because the offers from the firms are cocentrated in the top part of the class. Regardless, I'll take a $33,000 tease anytime.
85 -
There is absolutely nothing behind that comment. It doesn't make sense.
You keep telling yourself that your top 90% class rank at uva is justified because hey, if you had gone to some "crappy" lower ranked school like villanova you would be in the top 5%
sure, buddy.
now, go back to reliving and further harping on that lucky saturday morning two years ago where you did well on the lsat
Senior in undergrad here. Is Pace really a crap school? Someone talk to me
102 -
To explain the Detroit connection, a Thacher tax partner went to law school with the dean of Detroit Mercy, and apparently the slots for the Detroit summers were "favors".
105 - Unless you want to go into environmental law, then yes, PACE sucks. If you are in the top 10 (not percent) or if you get a full ride, then maybe it may make sense, otherwise do not let the proximity to NYC fool you into thinking that PACE is in any way, shape, or form even a remotely decent law school.
(Disclaimer-the above response was written under the assumption that you are serious and have not looked at rankings)
Biglaw Paralegal waiting out the storm before heading to law school.
104: I am with you. However, you can never, ever convince these people that perhaps they wouldn't have been at the tippity-top of the class at a lower-ranked school. Of course, they were never be put to the test and never will be, so their my-LSAT-score-was-3-points-higher-so-I-would-have-excelled logic is infallible, in their eyes.
I was top 35% at an Ivy and Thelen happened to me. Nobody is safe.
I would disagree that contract work is the kiss of death.
I'm a mid-level associate at a small (20 attorney) litigation firm. We hired two contract attorneys to work on a big case. One of them - who has been doing shit work for like five years - is a moron. The other - a 208 grad - is very sharp . She's a whiz at Concordance and will probably be able to spin the year or so she spends doing contract work into something that looks good on her resume.
She is also probably making more than me ... which kind of sucks.
107-
The top 10 at Pace getting BigLaw sounds about right - if you need to be in the top 25% or so at Brooklyn and Cardozo, and the top 10-15% at St. John's and Hofstra, maybe the top 10% at NYLS, then Pace is probably top 5%....
105-
Even CleMarsh is better than Pace
105: I hate to sound like an asshat snob, but do not go to a law school outside the T14 (and yes, while that is a ridiculously arbitrary cut off point, it's real) if your primary goal is working in Biglaw. There are success stories from every school out there, but there is NO way to predict law school grades. If you want to practice locally in a small city/work as a prosecutor/etc, then you might actually be better off at a solid local school than the T14 if you can get a scholarship (and make sure they can't yank it for grades - this is a scam the degree mills use to suck people in and make them pay the full bill after 1st semester) or save on tuition. But if Biglaw is the goal, the only safe bet is the T14, and even that isn't so safe anymore. Good luck.
Biglaw 1st year from HYS
105: PS - One last important note...Biglaw sucks, I'm giving up 2-3 years of my 20s to make great $ before I go into something I am more passionate about. If you truly love working like a dog/want to make a ridiculous amount of money at 25/26, go for it, but in no way did I mean to imply that the only way to be a "successful" lawyer is to make it in Biglaw.
113
113-
You do sound like an asshat snob. Not everyone will be able to get into those schools. It is certainly possible to excel at a lower-ranked school and get BigLaw. You can't predict law school grades, as you say, but you certainly CAN work your ass off. If somebody can get into, say, a T50 school with a fat scholarship (even a grade-dependent one), if that person is intelligent and driven it might be worth a run for his money to gun for that top 15 or 20% that get BigLaw (or at least did, in better economies). Of course, going into a T50 school with an ambivalent attitude will get you nowhere. But if you can gun it, why not give it a try? My experience, anyway, at my t50 school was that 25% of the students had no idea why they were in law school and didn't know their asses from a hole in the ground; another 25% wanted to do public interest; and 50% were aiming for BigLaw - so you were competing with about 150 kids for about 75 spots (give or take, the number of 2Ls big firms hired from my school). Those numbers aren't so bad
115 again-
but Pace is not a good choice, regardless
115 is right. In a sense there is a way to "predict" grades, at least at lower-ranked schools -- if you're smart and work your ass off you will be a step ahead of half the other people there, who act like they're still in college. The top quartile of students at T100 schools may be comparable to certain segments of the T14 population, but the bottom half is where things get shitty.
115: Please read what I wrote. If you wouldn't be happy with anything but Biglaw, then you are taking a substantial risk by attending a law school outside the T14. I also acknowledged the numerous attorneys who have succeeded in Biglaw from schools all over the map as far as rankings. Law school grades, while not completely arbitrary, are pretty close to that. When the difference between 160K per year and a temp job is that of an A to a B+ as is the case the farther down the school hierarchy, that's a pretty substantial gamble. Maybe your definition of "Biglaw" is different than mine, as I doubt 75 students from schools around 35-50 are landing Biglaw jobs.
113
98 is right. A lot of the Thelen SF first years managed to tag along to new firms. And I think one incoming SF 3L got picked up as well. Seemed to me like some of the SF partners (not O'Neal) were still trying to pull things together after a bunch of the folks in NY (not all of them) had bailed.
119 - Thelen NY got hit first by the downturn. Things were slower earlier in NY, so they knew how bad things were, while SF was still working away, thinking life was good.
115 and 113 both make good points. If you really want to be a big-firm lawyer, do your best to get into the best school you can. If you can't do that, go to the best regional school in or near the city you want to work in. Big firm offices in those cities will often hire from the best local school. For example, I went to the University of San Diego (about T50 or so); a smattering from the very top of the class went to big firms in NY/LA/SF, but more landed with San Diego offices. And larger local/regional firms will hire at the best local school.
Bottom line: If you can't get in to the very top schools, go to school where you want to live and work. If you didn't go to the very top schools with a national reputation, your odds of getting a job are best in the city where you went to school.
121: That is spot on. About how many/% (if you know) of your class landed SD Biglaw? Your bottom line is good advice, the alumni network will be strongest in the school's geographic sphere, so it would be wise to be somewhere you would be happy putting roots down
113
I think 121 is right. At least in New York, the v100 firms take quite a few students from regional schools such as Cardozo and Brooklyn. Less so from St. John's and Rutgers. Pace is not really on anyone's radar though.
113/118:
What you said was, essentially, if you want BigLaw but don't get into a T12 school, don't go to law school. I'm just not sure if that's sound advice (aside form the obvious point that many, if not most, 22 year olds have no f'ing clue about what kind of law they want to practice). Of course, I wouldn't advise just anybody to go to a T30-50 school. But to the person who maybe did a shade worse on the LSAT than was necessary for T12, but who has been succeeding in all other areas of life (e.g., performed very well at a top undergrad institution; is socially adept; has some interesting/substantive work experience; is generally a well-rounded and intellectually gifted person) - to such a person I would say, go to a T30-T50 and study your ass off every waking minute. This does not mean memorizing commercial outlines - it means engaging the issues and texts in a whole-hearted and rigorous way. Live, eat, breath, sleep Raffles v. Wichelhaus. Make sure you get on a journal and/or moot court. When OCI week rolls around, research the hell out of firms and be able to enthusiastically and intelligently market yourself toward individual firms with alumni from your school.
The above strategy worked for me (t50 school, several NYC BigLaw offers). Of course, many students think they can do the above and get to law school only to find out that everyone else has the same thing in mind. But my experience has been that the cream rises to the top. Things aren't as unpredictable as some would make them out to be - I can't think of ANY examples of really smart and hardworking kids from my law school who wanted BigLaw offers but didn't get them. The people who didn't get the offers couldn't bring it, academically or socially.
Sorry, forgot to sign the above post
-115
113 - Biglaw wasn't safe from a T14 even before the current crisis. I graduated from a T5 law school six years ago -- but I realized about ten minutes into my first class that I couldn't stand the snobbish egotism and oppressively disgusting cut-throat competitiveness that most of the students there exhibited, so I basically checked out for the rest of law school and took it easy. Graduated bottom 5% (maybe even dead last, I have no idea), but I assumed that an Ivy undergrad degree and an Ivy law degree would guarantee me Biglaw -- or at least well-paying Midlaw. Boy, was I mistaken. It took me five years to crack six figures.
Moral of the story, however, isn't to try hard in law school. If I had the chance to go back and do it all over again, I never would have gone to law school in the first place -- lawyers are almost universally insufferable scumbags who'll stab you in the back as soon as look at you. Much better to have not gone to law school in the first place, and gone and got a PhD in something actually interesting and worthwhile.
105: it is incredibly unlikely you'd wind up in biglaw from Pace. I have never even heard of a biglaw partner from Pace. If you don't desire biglaw than go for it, but if you're going because you think you'll make lots of money, you really should think again.
105- of course, you can always take the full ride at Pace for 1L year, kick a huge amount of ass, and transfer to Columbia or NYU
113/114, why didn't you go directly to do that non-law thing "
113/114, why didn't you go directly to do that non-law thing you are "more passionate about," instead of borrowing $150k for three years and spending 3-5 years to repay that $150k, after which you are back to where you started before law school, and with a law degree that would be useless in most non-law endeavors.
122 - 121 here. I don't know the percentages of how many USD grads got SD biglaw jobs (and I've been out awhile anyway), but you can get an idea from firm web sites that let you search their lawyers by school. For example, there are some USD grads at Latham (not many) Paul Hastings (some) and Cooley (a bunch). Almost all are in San Diego. DLA Piper probably has a bunch, since they swallowed a big San Diego firm.
You need to look at the reputation of the firm in the market in which you want to get a job, as opposed to national rankings. Harvard/Yale are strong everywhere. Vanderbilt is probably a fine school, but it doesn't mean much in California, and Hastings is probably a lot better at getting you a job in SF than it would be in Dallas or Atlanta. It is the difference between theory and practice. (Pun intended.)
126: Had you gotten a doctorate in the humanities it would've taken you about 30 years to crack six figures.
126-
132 is right, and even then, only if you were extremely lucky; more likely you'd be cobbling together adjunct gigs at local TTT colleges and paying out of pocket for health insurance.
-former PhD student turned BigLaw associate
124,
Being smart and a hard worker is no guarantee that you're going to do well in law school. This is anecdotal, but I had a friend who did really well in UG, did pretty well on the LSAT, got into a couple T14 schools and then took a full scholarship to a decent regional school. They worked their ass off, but didn't finish in the top 1/3. Long story short, they lost their scholarship and are now out of work with a ton of debt, hating themselves for that bad choice.
134-
As I said, the cream rises to the top. Obviously, your guy couldn't bring it so be was brought. I'm not telling everyone to go to a T30-50. I'm telling people who have kicked ass all their lives (not merely done "well") and for some aberrational reason can't get into a T12.
douchebagsayswhat.
Agree with 135. You can pretty much tell who the stars are going to be at a T100 during the first week of class. Some people go through the entire first semester without ever having understood concepts like stare decisis in even the most superficial way. Others party, a lot, like they're still in college. Others work, or do internships and clinics (at least during 2L year) to try to make up for their school's lack of academic prestige. The bottom line is that there are enough dumb/lazy/distracted people that a very smart and very diligent student can crack top half without breaking a sweat, and top quarter with a bit of effort.
I can't believe you are all now reduced to ranking law schools. Who cares? If you graduated law school and have a job with a firm that does not bounce its' payroll checks, you are in damn good shape.