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Summer Associates Happier At Firms That Don’t Do Layoffs

Wednesday, September 30, 2009 12:34 PM - By Elie Mystal

Thumbnail image for Summer associate job market depressed.JPGYesterday, American Lawyer released its 2009 summer associate survey. We noted that, predictably, summers were terrified.

That is the “what” from the survey. Law Shucks has crunched some numbers, and given us a little insight into the “why.” Here are the top ten firms as ranked by summer associates:

Summer associates top ranked firms.jpg

Do you notice a theme there? The firms that summer associates liked the best were firms that didn’t conduct massive layoffs before the summers showed up. Hmmm ….

You’ll have to click over the Law Shucks to see the charts on how the firms with significant layoffs fared. But after the jump, there is a surprising correlation.

Somewhat surprisingly, not every firm that conducted significant layoffs was slammed by summer associates. However, firms that didn’t lay people off tended to do better than firms that had layoffs. Law Shucks puts it this way:

So the correlation is stronger at the top - the absence of layoffs was more likely to lead to summer satisfaction than layoffs were to lead to dissatisfaction. Somehow, a few firms with significant layoffs were able to achieve decent rankings.

Interesting. One would imagine that layoffs lead directly to unhappiness, while lack of layoffs (the mere absence of a negative) leaves people feeling neutral. But actually, job security was such a major concern for this class of summers that the lack of firm layoffs lead to increased happiness all by itself. Meanwhile, at least some firms were able to overcome layoffs to make summers feel a little bit better about their situation. Others were not.

Perhaps summers believed that layoffs were the standard, neutral position, with lack of layoffs being positively surprising?

Check out all of the interesting numbers at Law Shucks.

Most-Satisfied Summers Were at Firms Without Layoffs [Law Shucks]

Earlier: Summer Associate Report: ‘The economic times suck.’

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