Nationwide Start Date Watch: Dewey Pushes Back to 2010, Debevoise Stages an Amazing Race

Incoming first years all over the country continue to find out that they won’t be able to start when they had hoped.

Dewey & LeBoeuf officially pushed back start dates for its new associates until January, 2010. The email went out last night:

After careful consideration, the firm’s Executive Committee has decided to delay the start of the first year associate class from fall 2009 to January 11, 2010. Our hope is that by postponing the start date for your class, workflows will have increased across our practices and we will be able to give you challenging assignments from day one.

Dewey emphasizes that just because you can’t start working at Dewey this fall, it doesn’t mean that you can’t start working as soon as you want:

For those of you who would like to start your career in the fall, you may wish to apply for a Community Service Fellowship. You recently received details on the firm’s fellowship program from [Redacted]. Those selected for a fellowship will be able to start with the firm, on secondment to a public service organization, as early as September 2009.

Above the Law has also received the details of the Dewey’s fellowship program. For those accepted into the program, the firm will pay up to $80,000 for associates to not work at Dewey for a whole year. But while the firm says that associates taking a fellowship are still “start[ing] with the firm,” it is not at all clear that associates will advance a class year upon completing the fellowship.

Those taking a fellowship will receive an extra $5,000 from Dewey to tide them over until January.

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After the jump, take a look at what Debevoise is doing.


Debevoise & Plimpton isn’t saying they are pushing back start dates. Instead the firm is saying they are offering an extra start date for incoming first years: November 16, 2009:

We’re looking forward to your arrival and are planning orientation and training schedules for next fall. Perhaps not surprisingly in the current economic environment, a large number of you have unexpectedly, in your initial returns, signed up for the first of the three start dates we proposed. Also unsurprisingly, we expect that the economic environment will affect work levels in some practice areas this fall. In order to increase the prospects that all incoming associates will be integrated into the firm’s practice with a sufficient flow of work assignments, we have decided to distribute more evenly the number of associates arriving at the New York office on each of our previously announced fall start dates: September 21, October 12 and October 26, and we are adding a fourth date on November 16, scheduling roughly equal groups for each date. As to dates that are over-subscribed, we will assign arrival dates based on when we receive (or have received) your response requesting a particular arrival date, including requests we already have in hand.

First come, first serve baby. Gentleman, start your emails. A tipster reports these feelings from incoming first years:

It is understandable that Deb might want to spread people out, but the new November 16 start date seems quite a push back for people who wanted to start September 21. That’s almost 2 months! If they hint at the fact that they anticipated this problem, why did they not discuss this up front? I like how the emails says that “perhaps not surprisingly” a large number have “unexpectedly” opted for the first start date.

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Hey, it’s a renter’s market in NYC. You might as well try taking your offer letter and your offer push back letter to your future landlord. Maybe they’ll let you off the hook until you actually start drawing a paycheck?

Below, the full emails from Dewey and from Debevoise.

DEWEY & LEBOEUF — MEMO — START DATES

After careful consideration, the firm’s Executive Committee has decided to delay the start of the first year associate class from fall 2009 to January 11, 2010. Our hope is that by postponing the start date for your class, workflows will have increased across our practices and we will be able to give you challenging assignments from day one. Of course, the firm will still pay for the costs associated with preparing for and taking the bar, and will reimburse for moving expenses, in line with our usual policies.

For those of you who would like to start your career in the fall, you may wish to apply for a Community Service Fellowship. You recently received details on the firm’s fellowship program from [Redacted]. Those selected for a fellowship will be able to start with the firm, on secondment to a public service organization, as early as September 2009. Attached are updated details on the Community Service Fellowship. For questions regarding the Community Service Fellowship, please contact [Redacted].

The firm will pay all those in the incoming class whose start date is deferred a second salary advance of up to $5,000, which may be requested beginning September 1, 2009. A further salary advance letter is attached.

If you have questions regarding a salary advance, please contact [Redacted]. If you have any general questions, please contact [Redacted].

DEBEVOISE & PLIMPTON — MEMO — START DATES

We’re looking forward to your arrival and are planning orientation and training schedules for next fall. Perhaps not surprisingly in the current economic environment, a large number of you have unexpectedly, in your initial returns, signed up for the first of the three start dates we proposed. Also unsurprisingly, we expect that the economic environment will affect work levels in some practice areas this fall. In order to increase the prospects that all incoming associates will be integrated into the firm’s practice with a sufficient flow of work assignments, we have decided to distribute more evenly the number of associates arriving at the New York office on each of our previously announced fall start dates: September 21, October 12 and October 26, and we are adding a fourth date on November 16, scheduling roughly equal groups for each date. As to dates that are over-subscribed, we will assign arrival dates based on when we receive (or have received) your response requesting a particular arrival date, including requests we already have in hand.

A member of the Professional Development Group will be calling each of you in the next week, in order to speak with you directly about this decision, but we felt that it would be best for all associates arriving in fall 2009 to receive the news simultaneously and therefore sent this email. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact [Redacted] or [Redacted].

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of start dates