Nationwide No Offer Watch: Finishing Up The Philly Circuit
We have reported extensively on the difficult offer situation for people who summered at Philadelphia area firms in 2009. Morgan Lewis & Bockius had an offer rate below 28%. Pepper Hamilton offered about 63% of its summers. Dechert told half of its summers that the firm would wait until January to make a decision offers, yet continues to interview 3Ls this recruiting season.
Let’s close the loop on the Philadelphia market with two other well known firms: Drinker Biddle and Cozen O’Connor. The Legal Intelligencer reports that Drinker Biddle did slightly better than its area competition:
The firm gave offers to about 68 percent, or 25, of the 37 2L summer associates it had firmwide in 2009. The offer rate was about the same in Philadelphia, where 13 of the 19 2Ls received offers, the firm confirmed.
After the jump, Drinker Biddle chairman, Alfy Putnam, explains the firm’s decision.
Above the Law reached out to Drinker Biddle about the firm’s offer rate. Here is part of Alfy Putnam’s response:
We wish we could have made more offers, but our current anticipated needs for the fall of 2010 did not support additional offers of employment. We always try to size our summer program to fit our needs and to be in a position to offer jobs to all qualified summer associates. Of course, economic conditions were different when we were filling our 2009 summer program, and it was clear well before the summer began that we would not be able to offer all the 2009 summer associates positions for the fall of 2010. As it turned out, by September we were actually able to make more offers than we thought might be the case when the summer associates arrived in May. We have adjusted our hiring expectations for next year’s summer class, interviews for which are currently underway.
You can read the full Drinker Biddle statement below.
It is worth noting that despite the firm’s offer rate, it is still starting all of its incoming associates on time. You’ll remember that Drinker Biddle introduced a new training program for its incoming associates. Those first years will see a reduction in salary, but also a reduction in billable hours. To appease clients, the firm will reduce the rates it charges for first year time.
Finally, tipsters report the offer news from Cozen O’Connor:
Philly-based Cozen O’Connor extended offers to 12 of its 16 summer associates, and 14 of 18 firmwide (2 summers in Seattle). The decision came down one week after Drinker Biddle, another Philly-based firm, announced it was offering jobs to 68% of its summer associates. Drinker’s news came days after Pepper Hamilton, yet another city firm, announced its 50% offer rate.It may be that some of the Philly firms were playing a savvy numbers game, waiting to see what the offer rate would be at other city firms, then making just enough offers to top the prior firm’s rate.
However they got there, a 75% offer rate in Philadelphia sounds awesome. We assume that 2009 summers at Cozen are pleased, relative to how the summer went for their colleagues in the city of brotherly love.
Good luck to all of our friends in Philadelphia. Remember nobody can ever take this away from you.
DRINKER BIDDLE — STATEMENT — OFFER RATES
We can confirm that our offer rate for summer associates for what will be our Class of 2010 was 68 percent.
We wish we could have made more offers, but our current anticipated needs for the fall of 2010 did not support additional offers of employment. We always try to size our summer program to fit our needs and to be in a position to offer jobs to all qualified summer associates. Of course, economic conditions were different when we were filling our 2009 summer program, and it was clear well before the summer began that we would not be able to offer all the 2009 summer associates positions for the fall of 2010. As it turned out, by September we were actually able to make more offers than we thought might be the case when the summer associates arrived in May. We have adjusted our hiring expectations for next year’s summer class, interviews for which are currently underway.
We’re looking forward to seeing the members of this year’s summer class in September 2010. We’re also busy now with final preparations for our incoming fall associates, who start on September 29 with the intensive six-month training program that we’ve designed for them.
Ultimately, our decisions are driven by our desire to provide the best service and lawyers for our clients. Notwithstanding conventional wisdom, we do not agree that law firms can eliminate or defer several years of younger, talented lawyers and still expect to serve their clients effectively in the long run. We believe that what we are doing is not only good for our clients, but also good for our firm and for the profession as a whole.
Drinker Biddle Makes Offers to Two-Thirds of Summer Class [Legal Intelligencer]
Earlier: Morgan Lewis No Offer Follow Up
Nationwide No Offer Watch: At Least Pepper Hamilton Breaks 50%
Nationwide No Offer Watch: Is Dechert Trying to ‘Trade-Up’ Its Summer Class?
Salary Cut Watch: Drinker Biddle Cuts Salaries AND Rates
(76) Comments
Comments
FIRST
Give the non-offered a Geno's cheesesteak and send them on their way
damn, second
Has Proskauer Rose made offers to its summers yet?
Where's my Biden caption poll?!?!?!?
-said the Biden caption Troll.
How you like me now?
any news on ballard?
What a great post! NOW REPEAT RE: CHICAGO FIRMS
The ship be sinking...
"a 75% offer rate in the Philadelphia sounds awesome"
"a 75% offer rate in the Philadelphia sounds awesome"
Idiot.
I'm a T-12 3L who's still waiting to hear from his shitty summer firm, which hasn't made offers and probably never will. In the meantime, I called Dechert (thanks for the tip, ATL) to see whether I should send over my resume & related docs. They said they'd be happy to review my application, but they'd want me to let them know when and what I hear from my shitty summer firm. This means that either Dechert wants insider info on which firms are doing badly, or they really want to hire students that other firms also want to hire. Or both. Or maybe neither?
Is there STILL no word about DLA Piper? It's been weeks since they started contacting summers.
13 is either a Cornell student, or a GULC student who can't spell T14
when does nalp summer offer info get published?
I'm in desperate need of some advice. My situation is a bit sticky. During OCI, I received a few call backs (but significantly below average). My first callback was with Proskauer Rose. I was really interested in what they do, you know all the professional sports stuff. The thought of working on cases for the Yankees or the Knicks was so enticing.
After my call back, I received an offer from Proskauer Rose. I immediately accepted without doing any other callbacks hoping to be the first that accepted in order to show that I was would be completely dedicated to the firm and that I strive for excellence. When I found out I was the first, I couldn't wait to tell my friends and family. I cancelled my other interviews, and some even had a much higher Vault (?) ranking!!! I bragged to my friends at school and my parents about the opportunity and the prestige associated with Proskauer. Two solid years with the firm and I'd could lateral anywhere! This small town boy had really hit it big.
Well, as many of you know and I found out recently, Proskauer is a toilet of a law firm. They have yet to release any information about offers to their summers. The lucky few who will receive offers will be deferred into eternity. They have also conducted layoffs (including first years), deferred incoming associates twice, and reduced salaries. I've started to interview with other firms in case things fall through with Proskauer Rose.
I would really like some input on what my next steps should be. How should I go forward in the job search? Do I have a chance at Biglaw still? Also, how do I save face with my friends?
17-Killself.
13--
If you think a law firm is going to rely on a worthless law student for that kind of information, you really do have a deluded sense of self-grandeur.
17 you are an idiot and must now deal with the consequences.
Life is hard
I too would like to know what the status of Ballard is. I mean, besides the part about the ship sinking. Everyone already knows that about Ballard.
Do DC next.
Comment removed by moderator.
Why is Kash so shellfish with her rump crustacean? Sharing is caring!
I have the tonguer.
Comment removed by moderator.
I've been coming to Morgan Lewis every summer of my adult life, and every summer there she is oiling and lotioning, lotioning and no offering 3/4 of the class. I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!
What about Duane Morris? Any final numbers on them. By the way- the cozen numbers, like the pepper numbers are inflated because they both reneged on a substantial number of their summer offers before the summer even began. If you take this in consideration-PEpper really only 25% (based on 24 SA's last year), ad Cozen (26 SA's last year) comes in around 50%.
I wonder how this is all playing out on the UPenn State philly campus? I wonder if this will put a damper on the good cheer from their football team's 2-0 start in the big ten?
Marshall Dennehey in King of Prussia to $51k !
This would never hapen at Widener
28- I think Joe Paterno is probably spinning in his grave right now and wishes he could disown that miserable UPenn State Warden law school
Remember all that talk about the class of 09 being the "lost class" ?
DBR is a terrible firm. They don't play fairly with their summer offer rates. They suck, suck, SUCK!
FUCK the "lost class." It really takes an especially whiny, self-important, melodramatic, and bratty type of person to come up with a name like that.
No one's career is made or broken during your first year out of law school, and anyone from the class of '09 who can't roll with the punches and writes himself or herslef off as part of a "lost class" is dogshit.
Can we have an open thread about firms still waiting to tell their summer class about full-time offers?
Who's Duane Morris? Wasn't he on What's Happening?
Isn't the law library at Penn State named for Biddle in Drinker Biddle? Strange that such a well known firm would have been strated by a graduate of a middling state school?
gawd i hope my firm will come close to matching these philly firms' rates.
No, Duane Morris plays middle linebacker for the Colts.
I remember visiting Penn State a few years back for this awful spring fling festival- complete waste of time- but what really struck me was that they have this hideous statue of Ben Franklin on a bench in the middle of a courtyard- and it of course looks really out of place, because I know Ben Franklin would not have been caught dead at a bottom-feeder state school.
39- I think you are combining Robert Morris and Duane Bickett
UPenn's law library is named for a Biddle, not sure if it's THE Biddle in Drinker Biddle. They were a big family. And DBR was started by a guy named Bullitt from Kentucky back in 1849. [yawn]
Do you idiots from NYC need yet another primer on why the law school in Philadelphia (the University of Pennsylvania, or UPENN) is completely separate and apart from the law schools of Penn State University (known as the Penn State Dickinson School of Law)?
I mean I knew that NYC-ites have their nannies, butlers, and other fairy godmothers do all of their thinking for them, but I at least thought that you possessed a modicum of reading comprehension.
43- are you saying that the Penn State system has two separate state law schools?
44
Penn State has one "unified" law school with two different campuses: one in Carlisle, PA and the other in State College, PA.
43
43 - STOP FEEDING THE TROLLS.
46
You are a troll yourself by making such a comment!
47 - you're right I am. Damn.
46.
I don't know why you would want to go to UPenn State's Philadelphia campus anyway-
a lower-tier state school in the middle of a horrible city- it's like the worst of all worlds
Mayer Brown has not had the decency to at least communicate with its summers, let alone make offer decisions.
49 - Clearly because they didn't get into one of the better BigTen programs, like Indiana Law School.
In response to #27--Cozen did not withdraw any offers last fall, one of the few Philadelphia firms that didn't. Last summer (2008), Cozen had only 10 2Ls and all of them received offers. The 26 number makes no sense.
Cozen O'Connor has been getting a lot of press lately about how its weathering the recession, planning on expanding and overall doing quite well in this day and age, thank you very much. The Phil Inquirer seems to love them.
Any word on Mayer Brown offers?
Duane Morris = BLOODBATH
4 of 12
33%
2L's BEWARE
Mayer Brown = NOBODY KNOWS BECAUSE THEY WON'T SAY A DAMN THING
53-
First off, B Tierney and his bankrupt newspapers are long-time buds with those Cozen idiots, and a bunch of them went to the same prep schools. They are sinking together-
But now is Cozen done trying to sue al quaeda for all the damages suffered by the insurance carriers (the "true victims") on September 11? Or did they finally give up after they lost their 10th appeal?
And the rumors that Pat O'Connor is AWOL and Steve Cozen is running the place into the ground- they are just rumors I guess?
Another day, another lack of communication from Mayer Brown
Jesus, that linebacker on the Colts was shot? What's that 4/12 thing mean? Is that his chance for survival?
Philly law firms are TTT! Do not work for them if you can. You will have a better career working for a smaller PA firm in the suburbs or Harrisburg. DBR, Morgan, Dechert, Blank, Pipper, Duane "Wayne" Morris - all crap firms. All 2L's should avoid interviewing with these firms because none of these can be trusted including the firm named after a Penn law library.
21 - rumor is that Ballard gave 14 offers in Philly to a summer class of 18. Seems like they aren't tanking by comparison.
These firms are pissing me off. Here's an idea: drastically reduce your summer 2010 class, knowing that 95% of the people you no-offered from the summer of 2009 would be happy to fill your demands come August 2011. Now you just saved $30,000 per person you don't have to take in the summer of 2010.
The summers of 2009 truly are the lost generation. Next summer's summer associates will take any increased work, and those who got no-offered are screwed.
Ridiculous...
61, Ballard "not tanking"? Cozen "doing well"? Then why do they both pay like law firms in Topeka? Ballard cut pay substantially a month or so ago, Cozen never raised it from 125K when everyone else did.
#63-Cozen pays $135k, about as high or higher than the rest. Good luck finding that in Topeka.
62 is right- if Dechert gives me an offer to start in Fall '11, even without any stipend for the off year, I'll be very happy. Hey Dechert- you can save $40,000+ on a new summer by giving a "deferred decision" summer an offer. Sweet deal!
Morgan Lewis- 18% offer rate in NY office- NEVAR FORGET!
Duane Morris 4/12 - that's a shameful rate! They also have been a miserly firm.
4/12 at Duane Morris. I was considering them as a possibility (I'm a 2L). Anything in particular that I should know about the firm?
4/12 at Duane Morris. I was considering them as a possibility (I'm a 2L). Anything in particular that I should know about the firm?
Ugh, c'mon 40 and 49. University of Pennsylvania (UPENN), located in the University City neighborhood of center city Philadelphia, is an Ivy League school. It is completely unrelated to Penn State, a state school not even in the vicinity of Philadelphia. I mean really, don't you people know your Ivys??
30,
Widener!? I barely know her!
68 - Duane and Morgan were both below 50% offer rates (well below), I advise, if you must stay in Philadelphia, that you go to a firm (like Cozen) that doesn't toss their summers out with their garbage.
to the above poster: Duane is strong in comm.litigation, health care, employment and BK. They are average in all other areas. It should be noted that they do have a history of no-offering a significant percentage of their summer associates. Historically, they seem to prefer laterals. One of the legal press groups tabulates year over year all the summer associate numbers... not sure which?
72 - Yeah, at least Cozen seems to be better than other philly wanna-be biglaw, but really TTTlawfirms like W&W or R&H.
72 - Yeah, at least Cozen seems to be better than other philly wanna-be biglaw, but really TTTlawfirms like W&W or R&H.
2009 Cozen summer here, with friends who worked in many other Philly firms over the summer.
I can tell you this: Cozen treated us very well, and gave us a fairer shake than any other Philly firm gave their summers. Right now, there are a lot of law students at my school wishing they had worked at Cozen.