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Dude, Where’s My Job? The Future of Recruiting

Tuesday, April 7, 2009 2:02 PM - By David Lat

NALP logo.JPGTired yet of our coverage of the NALP conference — which, after all, ended last week? If so, read coverage by others.

E.g., Ari Kaplan, for Law.com (describing the plenary panel, where yours truly was set upon by an angry mob asked tough questions); Brian Dalton, for Vault (“Every time a pointed question came his way, Lat managed to defuse the tension through self-deprecating humor and by speaking really, really fast.”); and John Bringardner, for Legal Blog Watch (“[W]hile the law school staff, recruiters and related industry types at the show report lower attendance than in years past, it’s not all glum news.”).

Even if you’re getting NALP fatigue, we suspect that this panel will interest you: Recruiting During Recession and Recovery. Recruiter and law-firm consultant Frank Kimball — former hiring partner of McDermott Will & Emery, founder of Kimball Professional Management, and a talented dancer (we saw him getting his groove on at the MLA karaoke party) — spoke to a packed room about the challenges of running a recruiting program in tough times.

Read about his remarks — which took the form of advice to law firm recruiting departments, but which should also interest applicants seeking jobs with said firms — after the jump.

Kimball summed up the current climate by recounting an exchange he had with a candidate headed for a law firm:

Candidate: Do I get a starting bonus?

Kimball: Your bonus is, you get to start.

Seriously. With new associates getting pushed off into late 2009, 2010, and beyond, actually being able to start work at a law firm is now a privilege, not a right.

An essential feature of today’s recruiting landscape, according to Kimball, is the “velocity and transparency of change.” Fifteen years ago, firms didn’t know what their competitors were doing. Today, thanks to the legal media — Kimball gave a shout-out to Above the Law, as well as the American Lawyer and Vault — firms know a great deal about what their competitors are up to.

This knowledge results in more rapid change, both in periods of boom and bust. Thus, in 2007, associate salaries “got jacked up like a used Chevy in a chop shop.” Now, of course, compensation is falling — fast. Kimball predicted that this summer a top 25 firm would lower its starting salary from $160,000 to $145,000, or even $125,000.

In this climate, rumors rapidly fly. How should law firm recruiting personnel respond when recruits call to ask about the latest gossip? “With care,” urged Kimball. The rumor could be true — and the recruiting folks just haven’t been told yet.

The difficulty is that, in this grim economy, the recruiting process is “the tail of the dog”: it’s being subordinated to maintaining firm profitability. Firms are more focused on keeping up their profits per partner, and stopping partner defections, than on recruiting new talent. They may change firm operations to save money, in ways that would be relevant to recruiting, but the recruiting folks may be the last to know.

After making general observations, Kimball turned to providing practical advice for law firm recruiting departments.

How should firms change their approach to on-campus interviewing (OCI) during the downturn?

  • Become more selective — but don’t just mindlessly jack up your GPA requirement.
  • Instead, focus on candidates who have strong ties to your city.
  • Place weight on a candidate’s commitment to private practice.
  • Select recruits based on their work ethic and people skills.
  • Change the list of campuses that you visit for OCI. Prune it down to the schools that you actually get students from (as opposed to schools that are prestigious to visit, or schools that you recruit from because “we’ve always recruited from school X”).

    Once a firm decides which campuses to recruit on, how should they conduct their interview process?

  • Don’t disparage competitors (even if, in this economic climate, there might be fodder for disparagement and schadenfreude). It makes you look insecure and hostile.
  • Make sure your on-campus interviewers are “on message,” and have been briefed about how to respond to questions about layoffs, salary freezes, and other bad news.
  • Make sure your on-campus interviewers know the data cold — e.g., offer percentages, department sizes, etc. Law students these days are well-informed (and skeptical); they will ask challenging questions.

    What are some things firms should keep in mind about the fall 2009 OCI process?

  • Student attitudes will vary; some are in denial about how bad things are. Be prepared for that.
  • In this economy, you can take a harder line against students who want to split their summers. Kimball quoted this snarky line: “I’m not an ice cream parlor. I don’t do splits.”
  • If your program ends up being undersubscribed — congratulations!
  • Offer letters: consider being vague about salary. The “market” salary could change between the time of the letter and the time the recruits start. Why lock yourself in?
  • Keep an eye out for what your competitors are up to — e.g., by reading Above the Law — but avoid direct discussion with them, which could raise antitrust concerns. Every now and then, antitrust regulators get a bee in their bonnet about Biglaw.

    What are some of the more radical ideas for overhauling the recruiting process, for the 2009 recruiting season and beyond?

  • Will some firms move from fall to spring recruiting? Some firm may break ranks and do that, but Kimball is “not sure if it’s a good idea.”
  • Will some firms suspend on-campus interviewing in fall 2009 (and just have applicants apply to them directly)?
  • Will some firms cancel their summer programs entirely? (Of course, some firms have already done that for 2008. But there is the issue of killing your talent pipeline.)
  • Will some firms start to hire only experienced attorneys and/or clerks? Some midsize and regional firms already do that; perhaps a Biglaw firm will join them in this.

    How should firms handle the delivering of bad news — to summer associates, full-time associates, and the media?

  • Be forthright and honest. For example, if you “no offer” summer associates for economic reasons, be honest with them about why you’re not extending them offers. Manufacturing performance-based explanations is “cowardice.”
  • Be more candid in general about bad news. It’s interesting to see how rarely law firm websites mention adverse developments (compared with, say, corporate websites).
  • Avoid PR doublespeak. When you have bad news to communicate to the outside world, make your statements clear and to the point.
  • Don’t engage in “stealth layoffs.” It is counterproductive, ineffective, and unfair to the departing lawyers.

    Miscellaneous observations and tips from the remainder of Frank Kimball’s talk (which ranged over a number of different topics):

  • The tactic of deferring incoming associates, either for a few months or for a year, “has the potential to be a mess.” Will firms have the capacity to absorb when two classes show up at once? Deferral is really just a short-term solution, “a band-aid on the cash-flow chest wound of law firms.”
  • Entry-level hiring isn’t the only area being affected by the Great Recession. “There is more termination of equity partners going on today than even the blogosphere can understand.” (Hey readers — if you have tips on equity partner firings, please email us.)
  • Will there be “an end to equal protection,” i.e., the lockstep mentality that calls for paying everyone the same? Kimball isn’t expecting a total overhaul, but says to look for more variability in terms of bonuses (a trend we’ve seen in recent years). Some of this may be tied to variations in billable hours — even if hours are a crude tool for measuring performance, they are still useful.

    Hang on to your hats, everyone. We live in interesting times.

    Looking for Opportunity in Crisis at NALP’s Annual Conference [Law.com]
    NALP 2.0 [Vault]
    Conference Watch Part 1: The News From NALP [Legal Blog Watch]

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    Posted in: Interview Stories, Job Searches, National Association for Law Placement (NALP)

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