Hunton & Williams Abandons OCI At UVA Law School?

It’s hard to overstate the love between Hunton & Williams and UVA Law School. The firm sponsors a number of pro-bono fellowships at UVA Law, they come together to offer pro-bono services in the Charlottesville community, and there’s even a UVA Law building — or at least a sizable part of one — named after Hunton & Williams:

The firm and the law school go together like peas and carrots.
So you can imagine our surprise to learn that Hunton & Williams doesn’t seem to be on the UVA Law “on-grounds interviewing” (OGI) list.
Tipsters explain, after the jump.


Rising 2Ls at UVA are filling out their interviewing forms now. One surprised member of the class of 2011 wrote in to say this:

Hunton & Williams — an old line Virginia firm that has an entire wing of the UVA law school named for it — is also absent from the list of interviewers. I also figured they were (smartly?) avoiding new hires in a time of layoffs… but after the McKee news, it has me thinking.

Another tipster also reported that Hunton & Williams was suspiciously absent from UVA Law’s OCI (or OGI, if you want to be technical about it).
We fielded a few reports that McKee Nelson was absent from various OCI lists, but that was before the announcement that McKee was being acquired by Bingham McCutchen. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, McKee’s absence from OCI makes sense.
Hunton did lay off 23 attorneys and 64 staff back in May. Could it be that there is a hiring freeze in place for new attorneys?
Hunton & Williams did not respond to our request for comment about this issue.
But it could be that in this down market, Hunton & Williams is so well-connected that it doesn’t need to show up to interview random students. If a UVA law student wants an opportunity to meet a recruiting person at Hunton & Williams, one has to assume that UVA career services still has the firm’s phone number.
It’s a curious decision. But one suspects that there will be a lot of firms that are noticeably absent from OCI at many law schools this fall.
Earlier: Law Firm Merger Mania: Bingham McCutchen Acquires McKee Nelson
Nationwide Layoff Watch: Hunting 87 Employees at Hunton & Williams

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