Are Clerks Welcome Back at Cahill?

If you are a Biglaw associate and are lucky enough to score a federal clerkship, congratulations. It is a nice feather in your cap.
But in this job market, are you wise to actually accept your clerkship offer?
As many of you know, clerks have to formally resign from their firms while clerking. In the before times, in the long, long ago, this was no big deal. You resign, clerk for a year or two, and then get “re-hired” by your firm when you are ready to return to private practice.
As the legal recession took hold last year, some associates who received clerkship offers worried that their firms wouldn’t hire them back. But for the most part, people decided to take a clerkship instead of staying at the firm and risk getting laid off.
At Above the Law, we’ve heard a lot of talk about these clerks trying to come back to work now, only to find the door back into Biglaw closed.
At Cahill Gordon, we’re hearing that clerks were not re-hired despite promises to do so.
Details after the jump.


Multiple sources report that Cahill has quietly told some of its people currently out doing federal clerkships that they will not be welcomed back to the firm at the end of their term:

I have Cahill gossip. I hear they are not hiring back the people who went to clerk. Cahill isn’t hiring him back or paying the bonus they promised.

According to other tipsters, this is after some clerks received specific assurances from Cahill that they would be re-hired. We understand that some clerks went to Cahill hiring partners — before accepting the clerkship — and were told they would be welcomed back to the firm.
Another source reports:

The problem here is lack the total lack of trust we now have in the partnership. Who wants to work at a place where you can’t trust what people say to your face? Getting a clerkship should be cause for celebration, instead they’ve turned it into a situation where we’re worried about getting stabbed in the back.

Cahill Gordon did not respond to our request for comment.
While some associates may feel the Cahill partnership isn’t trustworthy, is the situation at Cahill really any different then what is going on at other firms? There are rumors of this kind of thing happening at more than a few firms we cover.

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