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Alston & Bird: Deferred Start Dates, Short Summer

Monday, March 30, 2009 2:23 PM - By Elie Mystal

alston bird logo.JPGWe’ve heard rumors for a while that Alston & Bird was deferring the start dates of its incoming first year associates, but the firm refused to confirm the news. We’ve finally gotten our hands on the memo. It appears that Alston & Bird is doing exactly what you would expect:

Entering Associates: we will defer the start date for incoming associates until January 19, 2010. We will be providing a stipend of $10,000 to help defray expenses during the deferral period. In addition, we have offered the opportunity to pursue a one year public service or pro bono fellowship — and we have a number of these we can make available - to a limited group of our entering associates. For those approved for a fellowship, we will provide a payment of $5000/month.

One incoming tipster is fairly upbeat about A&B’s plan:

[S]eems about in line with most other big firms and the public service stipend is pretty good money for Atlanta if you can actually find one of those jobs these days. they must be trying to make up for the economic and stealth layoff bloodbath of late.

It appears that incoming first years have known about the plan for at least a week. So, A&B’s desire to be stealthy with its issues in this economy has not unduly harmed its incoming first years in their attempts to find alternate employment for a year. Other firms should take note that the longer they wait to defer start dates, the harder it is for their first years to secure new jobs for a year.

Alston & Bird is also scaling back its 2009 summer associate program to nine weeks.

Read the full A&B memo after the jump.

ALSTON & BIRD — MEMO — DEFERRED START DATES

Over 2008 and this year, the Partners Committee has undertaken a number of actions to ensure we are being sound financial stewards of the firm while continuing our hiring and development efforts. To that end, we have made several recent decisions that take these goals into account.

Summer Program: we have decided that the maximum length of our summer program in any particular office will be nine weeks. This still allows us to provide a meaningful summer experience for us and our summer associates, while realizing appropriate cost savings and enabling us to ensure we have a solid level of work projects to assign to our summer associates. Our summer program still remains our main source for securing our long term talent. This balance of investing in our human capital while managing expenses will enable us to still have a robust, productive and engaging program this summer.”

Entering Associates: we will defer the start date for incoming associates until January 19, 2010. We will be providing a stipend of $10,000 to help defray expenses during the deferral period. In addition, we have offered the opportunity to pursue a one year public service or pro bono fellowship — and we have a number of these we can make available - to a limited group of our entering associates. For those approved for a fellowship, we will provide a payment of $5000/month. Further details are available to entering associates interested in pursuing this option. We’ll also be providing salary advances as well as covering bar exam/study course fees and moving expenses.

Many of you have offered suggestions to these and other related issues we have been discussing and addressing this year which have resulted in these decisions. I appreciate hearing from you and welcome your further creativity in finding solutions that work to our collective benefit. Thanks for your thoughtfulness and support.

Earlier: Stealth Layoff Watch: Alston & Bird

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Posted in: Alston & Bird, Deferral Stipend, Start Dates, Summer Associates

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