FIRST to say a lot of these firms wouldn't get Yalies, so it's a waste of attorney time (and therefore money) to go.

HK also does not go to Yale.

The ship be sinking...

why would you bother with a yale grad in this market anyway, the last thing you want is someone sitting around in the office all day saying "they'd never fire me, i went to yale"

I only hire Yale lawyers to cut my grass, so don't worry about not getting a job!

Yellow Journalism. When the economy recovers what will people blog about?

Never hire a Yalie, far too privileged and far too odd. Their minds are superior to work.

Yes, it *is* interesting that you have Morgan Lewis on that list.

Yale is the Harvard of Virginia.

I suppose that I should know the answer to this question, but is Yale Law School accredited by the American Bar Association?

Yalies bring this kind of crap into your law firm:

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/05/quinn_emanuel_redskins_reservations.php

And the author of that email, like Elizabeth Wurtzel, failed the bar more than once:

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/05/quinn_emanuel_associate_fired.php

Yale got the inspiration for not having grades from Northeastern, which has never had grades. Therefore, Northeastern > Yale.

Northeastern Administration

1. Same thought as (commenter #2).

2. If the firms make offers to minority students to come to New York to work, they might be liable under good samaritan statutes because New York is known to have police officers who may treat them badly or even violently.

Also, given the Gates incident and common knowledge about Yalies, any Yale summer associate (of any race) stopped by a police officer is likely to take offense and tell the police officer that s/he doesn't know who s/he's messing with, thus escalating the confrontation.

Any firm that knowingly sends recruiters to New Haven is clearly risking liability under good samaritan statutes and could be jailed or fined.

Quinn was only #2 in PPP last year so obviously they need to cut back/screw associate ranks even more.

17th!

14 = epic fail

14 = I see what you did there. 180.

some of these firms never recruited at Yale or only do some years but not consistently.

I've worked with two Yalies. They were both arses.

One of them couldn't take a joke and really flew into a rage when any good natured ball busting came up. He ended up leaving the account. The other was really good for grammar school stories. That's about it. He suffered from voice imodulation and had big hair.

yale doesn't produce good litigators compared with other schools, maybe because the students have other more noble interests.

Yale is not known for producing BigLaw grads that exemplify the best and brightest that become partners.

Yale is known for producing academics, judges, Senators, and baseball commissioners. In other words, those categories are not profit making centers.

Unsurprising that firms choose not to recruit in Yale. They know that they have little chance of retention and that many graduates are too academic oriented for practical real life doc review tasks.

These firms are just being realistic as to their costs vs reward. I'm assuming that their hiring stats show that few offers made to Yale students accept.

These firms will have the costs of traveling to Yale, lost billables (in theory) for interviewers, costs associated with callbacks (where the firm will have to put people up in a hotel, do lunch, etc), and finally costs of the "privilege" to pay for a slot in OCI at Yale. Doesn't seem worth it.

Yalies come to the firm for the summer, make some money, attend the parties, maybe come back the next summer pre-clerking, and then go clerk- probably promising to return. They never return. ever.

Why work when you have a TRUST FUND?

25 is spot on.

25

I don't recall either of the Clintons (who went to Yale) having a trust fund although I'm sure that Chelsea has one by now.

Clarence Thomas didn't have a trust fund when he went there. Although, I'm sure that his relatives now have trust funds.

Moral -- Come to Yale without a TRUST FUND and depart with the ability to make one!

NYLS > Yale

more like FAIL Universittty! amiright?

chelsea clinton has a whole new face as well.

Whenever I see an "amirite" comment, I always assume the speaker has subpar intelligence and will never be hired by a peer firm (either mine or PE's).

Enjoy life in the fast food lane.

#31 - you've been trolled.

also, I heard Chelsea Clinton got a bleached anus to go w/ the nose job.

Maybe... Just MAYBE, the partners at the large firms have finally realized that they need attorneys who actually have some business-sense. All Yale is good for is pumping out law degrees for kids whose law school and law review membership will look good for clients.

This is why law firms are in this mess in the first place.

The main problem with Yale, of course, is its admissions criteria which obsessively focus on extremely high LSAT scores and undergraduate GPA.

Yale Law School is the academic equivalent of a douchebag tree.

YLS = TTT

Yale is where you go if you want a roach and someone to light it with a Bic lighter for you.

Harvard is where you go if you want a roach inserted up your ass.

Columbia is where you go if you want a roach and get mugged in Morningside park.

Cornell is where you want a roach and you get oregano instead.

U. Penn is where you want a roach and get it from Penn State students.

Brown U. is where you want a roach and you share it with your stripper in a GFE and get robbed.

Dartmouth is where you want a roach and you have to drive over 3 hours to get a roach from New Haven.

I'm a Yale 2L who has the same haircut as Pete Rose. Should I be worried about this?

The reason Orrick is not going to Yale is simple. I did such a great job there this summer that they are ONLY going to hire Seton Hall grads from now on!

Seton Hall summer at Orrick!

Yale is the GW of the northeast.

Why would Yale grads want to work for these layoff plagued firms. Even when hiring picks up I don't expect many Yale grads will be jumping on the Orrick or DLA Piper ship. People will remember how firms treated there associates during the hard times.

Morgan Lewis is probably not doing OCI at Yale because they are not having a summer program. Genius reporting.

41:

"People will remember how firms treated THERE associates during the hard times."

Good thing you don't go to Yale then.

Yale is so TTT

If I may quote the immortal words of Admiral James T. Kirk:
"...I'm laughing at the 'superior intellect'."

-TTT Grad

Come on folks, we all know that most people don't go to Yale to be practicing attorneys, so why should firms investing in talent recruit there?

My group recently released a YLS grad whose work product was simply abysmal, both repeatedly inattentive to detail on items any competent attorney would catch, and clearly just not "getting it" as to the underlying subject matter. She was bad enough to make me wary of future YLS hires.

38 is pretty lulzy

abovethelaw is obsessed with the elite of the profession.

Example:

"quite frankly some firms know that they are not going to attract Yale talent."

"Some firms" is 99 percent of ALL law firms in america.

Git yer nose out of the crack of the elite.

46-

Aptitude can vary with subject matter. Even extremely bright attorneys may be markedly better in some kinds of practice than in others. What area of practice was it?

Since only the bottom of the Yale class goes to biglaw - the top 40% get federal clerkships, its not surprising.

22 FTW. Like 46, we had two Yalies in my summer class many years ago and both were no-offered for incompetence. I think it is the experience of getting burned that turns off most big firms from recruiting at Yale. Like others have said, the top Yale students become law professors, and most clerk out of law school. No reason to recruit the Yale rejects who must "settle" for Big Law. Bottom of the class is bottom of the class no matter where you go to school.

34 = awesome.

Let's play law firm poker:

Which of the following is more likely to not have a 2011 summer class because they have dissolved or declared bankruptcy?

1) Latham

2) DLA Piper

3) Morgan Lewis Backasswards.

I say its a close one between Pied Piper and Morgan Lewis Backasswards. Pied Piper made non-equity partners kick in their own cash so that partners could buy Xmas gifts; fired hundreds, and canceled next summer;

Morgan cut salaries, fired their own hundreds and has no clue what kind of law firm they want to be.

Latham, lathamed their future. Morgan Lewis Backasswards. RIP Feb. 1, 2010.

The winner is (the dissolving loser)

I would take a Duke or UVA grad over a Yalie anyday.

51 - I wouldn't go quite that far. I've worked with folks from the bottom half of the class from other top 10 schools and not had even remotely the same experience as with the Yalie; in fact, I think those guys were generally the smart but not obsessed types you actually enjoy working with and who make firm events slightly less painful.

I think the YLS kids are perhaps, by comparison, just coddled academic types with no idea (and perhaps no interest in) what it takes to successfully represent clients as a practicing lawyer.

-- 46

38 - I never comment on this site. But your comment made me snarf green tea all over my monitor. Just letting you know. Well done.

-Guy at a really shitty firm in Century City.

46,

Perceptions of "competence" can depend on the practice area. If you are in an unchallenging practice group maybe you mistook boredom for incompetence.

What a story! Another title might be:

"Failing law firms stop recruiting freaks."

58 = Suffolk Alum, Current Person Injury Solo Practitioner.

59 = 58's paralegal (also from Suffolk) who didn't spell check the word "Personal" before sending out his work product.

Clearly, more firms are now focused on WORKING lawyers, rather than the privileged/legacied candy-asses at Yale who are buried in their pass/fail philosophical musings.

All those Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Harvard kids need to take their head out of there arses and do some real work instead of talking about how they would run the country.

I heard S and C is gonna only give students 2 weeks to make their decisions this fall instead of 45 days, anyone know if this is true?

Ricky Herbst single handedly boned recruiting from Yale. No firm wants a self-righteous blowhard with a sense of entitlement who's just looking to draw a nice salary for a little while before moving on to academia/public interest.

64, I knew that individual while I was at YLS and while I agree he's not doing the school any favors, I seriously doubt that firms are not going to recruit at Yale b/c of one idiot.

that said, I am not surprised about this. I'm clerking now and got a call from the CDO asking about post-clerkship plans, while I was at work. the CDO lady mentioned that firms have been pulling out. And as many have stated above, YLS grads are not ideal biglaw types - most of us stick around for a few years, tops, and then go do something else. although an argument could be made that these days, firms want grads who plan on leaving soon, so who knows...

He just put a spotlight on the problems that firms already recognized. I'd bet it factored into Quinn's decision at least.

37 - you forgot Princeton.

I've known some good and bad Yalies at the firm. If they commit to the practice, they're usually brilliant and end up leading the group. If not, they're no good, just like anyone else who doesn't really want to be there.

Quinn didn't come to Yale last year...

Akin Gump didn't come to Yale last year either. I wouldn't read too much into any of this.

How 'bout OCI at Hofstra?

"Clarence Thomas didn't have a trust fund when he went there. Although, I'm sure that his relatives now have trust funds.

"Moral -- Come to Yale without a TRUST FUND and depart with the ability to make one!"

-

27- You'd be a fool to dispute Yale offers most people the opportunity to make a ton of money, but, FWIW, Clarence Thomas graduated unemployed and apparently still holds a pretty serious grudge against the school (he refused to sit for a portrait for them when he became a Supreme Court justice and seemed to imply, at least at when point, that his law degree was still sitting in the envelope in which they sit it in to him somewhere in his basement).

Say what you want, but in this psycho-competitive legal job market, would you really rather be a pretty good lawyer with a degree from a mediocre law school versus a pretty good lawyer who graduated from Yale Law School?

Hofstra or Yale?

You decide and I hire the associate.

~TTT insurance firm partner

(I'm inclined toward the Yale grad because of the prestige factor. Even if he's unworldly and impractical, I can carry him for a year or two on $20,000 a year.)

Nobody cares about Princeton.

With all those eating clubs, it produces fatties that are too stupid to get anywhere in life.

73, i fall into the latter of your two comparisons and frankly i'd rather not be a lawyer at all at this point, as a clerk trying to find a job.

73, i fall into the latter of your two comparisons and frankly i'd rather not be a lawyer at all at this point, as a clerk trying to find a job.

The economic recovery is still in its earliest stages, and law firms are still not doing well. Given the numerous layoffs during the past year, cutbacks by law firms on recruiting efforts should come as no great surprise, even at top-ranked schools.

Many comments on this thread, however, reflect insecurity or misconceptions rather than substance. There is no basis for concluding that these firms will not be recruiting at Yale this year for any reasons other than the current weakness of the economy.

The choices made by Federal judges, whose work is directly affected by the quality of their clerks, are revealing. The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) lists the following percentages of recent law school graduates clerking for judges: Yale 41.4%, Harvard 20.6%, Stanford 23.6%, Columbia 9.2%, NYU 8.3%, U Chicago 10.4%.

Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, NYU and Chicago are all unquestionably fine law schools, but the great majority of applicants offered admission to Yale choose to enroll there. This is due mostly to the intellectual strength of the student body and faculty. For someone who plans to spend the next three years studying hard and learning as much as possible, other considerations are secondary. Nobody chooses Yale based on weather. LSAC lists Yale students as having a median undergraduate GPA of 3.90, 75th percentile LSAT scores of 177 and 25th percentile LSAT scores of 169. Anyone who wants to check the numbers for other schools can find the data on LSAC's web site, http://www.lsac.org.

The notion that Yale courses are not graded, and that Yale students are not motivated as a result, is simply inaccurate. While Yale has a pass/fail policy for the 1L first semester, courses after that are competitively graded. The faculty know that if their students got into Yale, they can handle introductory 1L courses such as Contracts, Torts and Procedure. They're more interested in finding out how their students perform when faced with more advanced material. Yale uses an Honors, Pass, Low Pass, Fail system rather than an alphanumeric system (A to F or 4.0), but assessment standards are rigorous, and anyone who receives an Honors grade at Yale has earned it.

The notion that many Yale graduates become academics is also inaccurate. LSAC lists only 3.2% of recent Yale graduates holding academic positions, versus 35.5% working for law firms. People may have that misimpression because Yale graduates hold a disproportionately high share of law school faculty positions, since their academic credentials give them a competitive edge if they elect to pursue such positions. Most of them choose other career paths, though.

Personal work ethic, career experience and street smarts all affect the quality of any individual lawyer's work just as much as academic credentials. Nobody should make any automatic assumptions about any lawyer based upon where he or she went to law school. That is just as true about graduates of Yale as it is about those from any other law school. People who expect Yale Law graduates to be impractical or unmotivated, and treat them accordingly, may be in for a bit of a surprise.