Reed Second

Boring. Tell me more about PH NY.

This would have never happened at Emory.

- Emory Law Troll

MacEwen and Filler are correct, I was one of the (great minority) posters who thought the Fordham Dean acted way more inappropriately. Here is the main point: Reed Smith was not going to hire any Fordham students this year anyway for its program. Showing up would have only wasted everyone's time.

Yeah it sucks they didn't alert the school first, and they were wrong for not doing so, but like many firms they are probably concerned more about ongoing operations rather than OCI recruiting at Fordham. Reed Smith may be a shitty firm, and in trouble (I understand the Richmond office is likely gone soon, as well as some other offices).

Law schools and apparently Deans need to realize that their industry is no different than others today. How many companies have gone bankrupt or shut down operations in the last 18 months, and how many "interviews" did they likely have with prospective employees prior to going under? Many. And those that got screwed likely aren't boycotting future employment opportunities or burning bridges.

So yeah Reed Smith may suck, but if they turn it around they probably aren't going to hire too many Fordham student/grads in the future, and it isn't as if there are many firms beating down Fordham's door as it is.

5 - I agree with you. Would it have been better for Reed Smith to pull a McGuire Woods?

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/08/canceled_summer_mccarter_mcguire_woods.php

I don't think so.

5:

Though its never good to limit law students options, people keep forgetting Fordham is arguably number 3 in NY, its basically a near top 25 school, and in good or even average years has no trouble placing students at very good firms.

Reed Smith is a TTT Amalgamation of regional firms that would beg for schools like Fordham in good years and is only being perused by the likes of Fordham this year because its a weak market.

In the end, Fordham students aren't hurt because as soon as the economy recovers, no one will want anything to do with that TTT firm and while the economy is crappy, they don't even have the decency to either show up or cancel enough in advanced.

The dean wanted to take a stand and Reed Smith was the perfect choice. They are so crappy that no one loses if they cant work for that crap hole.

Had cravath done this, there would not have been a peep. BUt cravath would NEVER do anything like this

All Fordham's decision does is to encourage law firms to show up just to hold sham interviews and waste everyone's time. If a school really wants to put its leverage to good use, it should ban law firms that lay off any of their first years. Of course, only the elite, such as Yale or Harvard, might be able to pull something like that off. But at least they would be actually helping their students.

Staffers at PH-NY got an email that their next paychecks will be short by one week. They were told that they could cash out a week of vacation to make up the pay. Sure looks like PH is having cash flow problems.

I can state for a fact that Fordham Law School is accredited by the ABA and the AALS.

10 - you a high school student? The AALS doesn't accredit.

People on this blog side with Fordham because most of them are students. Anyone over 22 knows that Treanor's reaction was bizarre (except perhaps for the Fordham alums still trying to convince themselves they went to a big time law school - e.g., #7). Insecure much?

4 - It would never have happened double at UGA! There's like three reasons why you're stupid for going to a way better school than UGA!

- Idiot

Fordham's dean really got his panties into a knot on this one. Great bold stuff. It proved that maybe there is a dick or a wanna be dick somewhere in his panties. Problem is that it is a dick without a purpose.

Look, folks, any firm does Fordham and its students (and any other law firm) a favor by doing OCI. It costs them real money. If I wanted to thwart the Dean's strategy and Hillary like ball proving behavior, all I would do is post an ad in the college newspaper. Applications for $100k plus position being accepted, please send to....

The firm would save for lunches. Save their Partners' time, and do their OC recruiters a great favor by not having them have to look at snot-nosed kids dressed according to Fashionista.

Over 600 comments in the offer rate thread from three days ago and no follow up...

Kash flow occurs monthly.

Nice posts by both MacEwen and Filler.

Surprise, Surprise. Adam Smith Esq. pandering to its base. His commentary, other than saying he is confused, is less than helpful.

11 -

Are you an idiot? The AALS does accredit law schools. There is an AALS monitor on each ABA site inspection team. Some states will let you take the bar exam if you are a graduate of an ABA or AALS accredited law school. Do some research before you speak out your ass.

Reed Smith made an offer to interview. Many Fordham students accepted. It doesn't seem fair to rescind such an offer after acceptance, particularly when the economy sucks just as much as it did whenever Reed Smith dediced it would visit Fordham.

That being said, I don't think Fordham's sanction will strike fear in the hearts of other firms. The market is saturated and about half of the country is capable of doing the demanding document review and due diligence work of a first year attorney.

I'm pretty sure that if the top students at Fordham are good enough for V5 firms, they are good enough for Reed Smith. Treanor couldn't allow the precedent to be set.

10, I'm not sure if we ever figured out if Fordham Law is accredited by the ABA. I thought they had to take the NY equivalent of the baby-bar after graduating 1L year? Can anybody confirm?

To my knowledge, Fordham is not accredited by the ABA.

Now I'm really curious. What happened to the Vault rankings?

@ Emory Law Troll,

You're right, our Career Services department would never stand up for us under any circumstance. That would require them having any respect at all for us.

@ everyone else...

Treanor is my hero. The fact is ReedSmith had already received their list of interviewees when the bailed. That means they looked at the candidates and decided not to make the effort, not that they couldn't predict their hiring needs two years out.

Additionally, OCI has nothing to do with predicting staffing needs two years out, its about your summer program.

The kids at Fordham wasted their bids and their time applying to a firm that didn't even have enough respect for them to show up.

I know we've come to accept being treated like subhuman scum as aw students, but its nice to see Treanor thinks his students are people who might just deserve respect.

--Em0ry E@gle--

24 - Yeah I sure do wish that our career services department would "stand up for us" by banning firms from recruiting Emory students.

- Yet another Emory student

P.S. What's with all the Emory students?

22, thanks, that's what I thought. Have you heard one way or another about the baby bar issue?

26 - I have not. However, trusted sources tell me that it doesn't matter because if you go to Fordham you're screwed no matter what (supposedly not even Reed Smith recruits there anymore).

7 hits it spot on.

RS might not be offering FLS students positions this year... but what about next year or the year after (assuming the economy ever rebounds)?

RS will be crawling back for FLS students but won't be allowed to participate in OCI because of this stunt. Seems to me that FLS experiences no loss but RS loses big because it has to recruit at Cardozo, etc instead.

And on that note Cardozo, Hofstra, NYLS, BLS students -- cut the crap. Everyone knows you were rejected by Fordham and had to go some where else so take your bitter, "Fordham students are screwed" bull out of here because at least they're going to get a job some day -- you won't.

- CLS 3L

I don't see why ReedSmith couldn't have made this decision a few months ago. The economy has been in the pits and will be in the pits for a while. Yet you cancel on the 11th hour? What changed so suddenly that you cancel OCI after you have a slate of candidates who've used up bids? It's piss poor planning on ReedSmith's part.

I am not a Fordham alum, I don't go to Fordham, heck, I didn't even apply to Fordham. However, I even I recognize its 30 spot in US News is misleading. Fordham students have the benefit of being in the NYC market and it's a cut above Cordozo, Brooklyn Law School, etc. Sure, student quality is worse at Fordham compared to say, Minnesota or WashU, but NYC law firms don't want to travel to the twin cities of STL. Heck, Chicago firms don't like traveling all the way out there. Fordham will be fine when things get better because of its location alone.

26, I'm aware of the dismal placement rates, but don't many Fordham grads end up as solo practitioners, public defenders, and at various other jobs where accreditation status of the alma matter doesn't matter much? I think I read something about that in the NYLJ.

Good grief, there isn't a single firm in the United States that couldn't get by without interviewing at Fordham, this year....or 5 years from now. The sense of overestimation and entitlement kills me. Do people even begin to understand how oversaturated BIGLAW is with attorneys, especially in NYC? If spoiled Fordham law students don't want a BIGLAW salaries, there are plenty of stealthed (or outright laid off) former V-10 associates that will happily take the money.

The issue isn't jobs, or rankings, or salaries, its common decency and respect.

32 - No. this issue is about law students and their rediculous sense of entitlement. Grow up.

Does every single law student actually go to every single one of the interviews they get from OCI? Of course not. what are the repurcussions?

33....yeah we do. Or we get banned from OCI for the next season.

It has nothing to do with entitlement, stop being so bitter. Sorry things didn't work out for you, not our fault though.

Its about professionalism and respect. ReedSmith suddenly discovered they could predict need after seeing the candidates? Funny cause the still interviewed at UVA today... hmmmm

Guess the could predict the need for UVA students but not Fordham students.

28: does it make you feel better about going to Fordham instead of CLS/NYU when you log onto ATL and pretend to be a CLS student?

30, you're way off base. Many Fordham law grads end up in biglaw as paralegals.

28:

Don't drag CLS into this by thinking that your point would sound better if you claim you were from CLS rather than Fordham. CLS and NYU student's do not care about what goes on at the other NY schools. They are too busy arguing who is closer to HYS.

What Treanor is trying to preserve, as are his colleague deans throughout the country, is the illusion that, in this new economy, his school has something of value to sell to the law firm market. It is not true today, and will not be in five years. The market is bringing the practice of law back to the value equation. There will be lots of opportunities for Treanor's students in this world, but not if he relies on the role of OCI in the world now past. Whether he makes up with RS is irrelevant -- he is acting based on a model that is now defunct, and the sooner he realizes it -- for his students' sake -- the better.

I wonder how many people that interviewed (or even worse, accepted offers) at Thelen, Heller, Wolf Block or Thacher Proffitt would have appreciated those respective firms' honesty?

If Reed Smith goes belly up, and I have no reason to expect it will other than the general outlook in the industry is incredibly poor (and I do believe it is possible), Treanor is going to look like the biggest academic jackass since the idiot Dean at Duke during the lacrosse debacle.

Academia is simply out of touch these days.

What about the absurdity of Fordam (and most law schools for that matter) allowing OCI to creep earlier and earlier. I have only been out of school about six years, but back in my day, most OCI was late September and early October. All this Reed Smith should have known earlier talk is stupid. They just finished summer 09, have made offers and are just learning what their acceptance rate (and future needs) will be.

Fordam and most schools have moved up OCI chasing an "early bird gets the worm" mentality, but sometimes the early bird is out searching for food before the worms wake up.

Reed Smith is not going belly up. I work there, and yes there have been lots of layoffs and lots of non-equity partners forced out, but I am guessing that has happened everywhere. The fact that we are even having a summer program next year when many of our peer firms (I think Morgan Lewis and DLA both canceled right?) are not tells something. The work in China is holding up ok, which helps.

We should have just shown up for the phony interviews, better PR, but we make SO MANY dumb mistakes like this. Arghhhhhh.

33 - I assume you are a 23 year old who has never worked a real job in your life. So I forgive you for being clueless. I'll break it down for you, in 1L outline form

1. Economy real bad (firms need to cut costs)

2. Supply (law students and experienced lawyers) far exceeds demand (jobs in law firms)

3. Law firms used to compete for qualified law students, but now firms have all the market power because what they offer (jobs) nis in short supply.

4. Law firms who need to cut costs will look at resumes of 23 year old law students who have no experience or qualifications other than making it through the first year of law school at an OK law school (Fordham).

5. Law firms who do not see anyone that they will consider hiring from Fordham cancel OCI because they need to allocate their resources where they will get return on their investment - like OCI at UVA which has more qualified law students.

6. Law firm decides that it will save everyone time and money by pulling out of OCI at Fordham, rather than wasting money and providing sham interviews which will not result in any jobs.

41- First, nice try but Morgan Lewis and DLA are not peer firms with Reed Smith. Reed Smith is a regional firm, those firms are national. Firms like Cozen and Pepper Hamilton are peer firms of Reed Smith.

And this has not happened "everywhere." Reed Smith is a regional firm that is failing in its efforts to compete with large, New York-based, national and international firms.

43, ummm, this is 41. I work in California and our largest office is in London. Not sure what you are talking about.

41/43: I think your dumb mistake was scheduling interviews at a non-accredited law school like Fordham. Canceling was probably wise.

29 - I don't get your point. The reason that Fordham's #30 ranking is misleading is because student quality is BETTER than many top 25 schools. Fordham suffers from being in NY and from being attached to a university without a national reputation. If you think that Fordham has worse students than Minnesota, you know nothing about Fordham. I believe only 15 schools in the country have students with better entering stats than Fordham.

And Dean Treanor rocks!

46, you're a fool. If anything, being in the NY market would inflate their rankings. Or do you suppose Fordham would be more highly ranked if they were lucky enough to be located in Lincoln, Nebraska?

47, I think you're overlooking that geography is a secondary consideration to accreditation. Have we established whether Fordham is ABA accredited and, if so, whether or not such accreditaion is provisional?

I work at Reed Smith and am looking forward to the move to San Fran, especially with the Bart strike. Rock on Reed Smith! Keep being Reedy.

When I was in law school, I had a sham interview. The firm in question (a T50 firm, though not one I particularly respect), had a huge malpractice award levied against them early in the interview season and cancelled their on campus recruiting after bids were already in. As far as I can tell, they cancelled their entire summer program, though we didn't have ATL back then, so I don't know for sure.

I received an "interview", which consisted of some non-lawyer calling me during the evening and asking me 4 or 5 of the standard BS questions. That was the last I heard from the firm (I don't even think they bothered sending a rejection letter).

Had I had the choice between the sham "interview" I received and them just manning up and cancelling interviews entirely, I would have strongly preferred that they just not waste my time.

Is Reed Smith still recruiting out of Yeshiva and Brooklyn law this year?

Why not Fordham?

Why did Treanor over react?

Is the economy the only reason they pulled out from oci?

Think about it

Pittsburgh, city of champions. Steelers, Pens and now Reed Smith knocks out the bitches at Fordham ...

time for the Pirates to step up.

43 - You're a dumbass. Reed Smith is one of the 20 largest firms in the country, with 20 something offices.

It's not a quality firm, but that doesn't make it regional.

51, I'm pretty sure Yeshiva and Brooklyn are accredited, so that's a big difference right there.

46,

I dont even want to start hammering away at your reasoning. But I can't help myself. There are so many things wrong with what you said re: Fordham's ranking.

Keep in mind that when students cant get in to the very top schools, they are often faced with choices like Fordham v. GW v. Emory v. a law school where they are from like Minn, WashU, or Iowa.

Fordham does not get more qualified students than any of these schools - except maybe Iowa.

53, I would say it is quality for certain, just not super elite across the board. lots of elite practice groups though.

I just wanted to say that the career center at Fordham Law School sucks! Any Fordham alum feel the same way? I mean the people that work there are really incompetent -- much like most of the administration at Fordham.

If they're not recruiting at Fordham, I highly doubt they're recruiting at any of NY/NJ's true TTTs (Carbozo, St. Johns, NYLS, Brooklyn, etc). Common sense, people!

57 -- I agree. Fordham's career center is terrible.

57, I concur. I was in the top 17% at Fordham, and they still couldn't help me find a job. They said that the school is "actively seeking accreditation," but it's been years and it still hasn't happened. Very frustrating.

Does anybody know if the rules about the bar exam/reciprocity change if the law school is granted accreditation after you graduate?

46, you're on crack if you think Fordham's student quality is in the top 15. Mean LSAT of 165? Median GPA of 3.63? Sure, the students are good, but the class isn't in the top 15. The class isn't even in the top 20. Maybe it's in the top 25.

Look at USC's class for the same year, mean LSAT of 166. Vandy had a mean of a 167. Again, maybe Fordham's entering class stats put it in the top 25. However, even Illinois at #23 had a mean LSAT of a 166.

You also need to consider why Fordham gets good students. It's because it has access to the NYC legal market. NYC helps Fordham more than you think.

-29

MacEwen is totally in the tank for Reed Smith. Search his website. There is more than one fawning tribute to Reed Smith's leadership there.

Wow, it's really weird how much people hate this firm. Crazy.

11 – I see nothing in 7's statements that indicate insecurity, just facts. Fordham is ranked 30 in USN&WR, historically has always been ranked around that area, and does have stronger placement rates in large New York City law firms than law schools around its ranking.

Reed Smith's New York City office does appear to have fair amount of law schools that are ranked considerably lower than Fordham so it is fair to assume that historically, the New York office has not been very marketable to Tier 1 law schools and certainly not to T14 law schools. (It also appears that most of their Fordham graduates are there by virtue of Reed Smith's acquisition of Anderson Kill partners and associates last year so I am not sure how many Fordham law school students historically have ever even had an interest in being an associate at that firm.)

13 – I call bullshit on that one. It costs Reed Smith dick to have them send an associate over in a 10 minute cab ride across town to spend a few hours on campus, especially when it doesn't even have enough work to give out to its associates to make their billable hour requirements.

21 22 26 27 30 36 45 48 54 60 – Nice troll moron. Your smoking break is over. Time for you to drop that axe you've been grinding all these years from being rejected by Fordham Law School. Now logoff from that computer at McDonalds and get back to work, you missed a spot on the floor with your mop.

i think these supporters of Reed Smith are missing the importance of the timeline here. Reed Smith cancelled on fordham AFTER they got their interview schedule, which basically means, they didn't like the students that they were interviewing with. Hence, Treanor's comment on a lack of professionalism. And why Reed Smith deserved the ban - part of the success of an OCI program is that a firm gets to meet the unexpected candidate, not just the top 10 students of the class. If that were the case, OCI would be a wasted endeavor.