Dear law firms:
It is December 15th. Christmas is ten days away. January 4th is a mere 20 days away.
I bring this up because some of you seem to be having trouble with the Gregorian calendar. Some of you have incoming associates that are set to start at your firm on January 4th or soon thereafter. These incoming associates have already been deferred by your firm.
Perhaps you have the desire to defer these people again? Sorry, but you missed your chance. It’s too late. You should have deferred them (again) sooner. To do so now is just cruel. A lot of these people have signed leases, bought plane tickets, and truncated holiday plans — as you would expect of good employees.
Evidently calendar mastery is not something that can be taught on the fly. So just take my word for it. It is too late to defer January starters again. It’s time to suck it up, clear out some office space, and get your pro bono partner on the ball. Trust me.
Your friend,
Common sense and basic decency.
The above message came too late to help incoming Nixon Peabody associates, but maybe we can teach other firms that mistreating incoming associates is wrong.
Details after the jump.
On Sunday, Above the Law received this note from an incoming Nixon Peabody associate:
How about a story about firms that have yet to tell their deferred associates (to start in Jan.) what’s the deal?
Nixon Peabody hasn’t said a word, and other firms are doing the same thing.
Thanks
When I received this email, I thought “Uh oh, you are so not a winner.”
So I did a little poking around. Late last night, a source reported:
Nixon’s hiring partner called its incoming class today and informed them that 1/3 of the class would be starting in January 2010. The other 2/3 are going to be deferred indefinitely and they will try to be phased in quarterly and will be paid a stipend. There was no information given on the stipend amount. Nixon waited until December 14 to say this. Unbelievable.
Unbelievable. It is truly, unbelievable, that a firm could not get its act together to figure out how many people it wants to work for them in January. January. I’ve bought food for my dog for January already. How could Nixon not know what it was going to do with two thirds of its incoming class until last night? That is just ridiculous.
Are there other firms that are even more delinquent than Nixon? Who is supposed to start in January yet still can’t get their firm on the phone?
I mean, we’re almost at the point where somebody is going to show up at work on January 4th only to have a hiring partner say “Oh sh**. Sorry, I completely forgot that you existed. Umm … you are like, deferred, again. Please go home.”
Earlier: Nixon Peabody: This Is Not a Love Theme Song
Prior ATL coverage of start dates
FIRSTY McFIRSTERSON!
Especially when Nixon Peabody did recruiting this season and hired summer associates who will apparently be put to work sooner than their deferred graduates.
Common sense and decency would be to simply let these people go and tell them to get in the unemployment line. Then again, when has this profession ever involved decency?
Take them to the rails for it, ATL!
Hizzah!
-FMcF
Who else plans to quit as soon as possible?
Wow. Just wow.
I’d put this disgusting act right down there with firing 1/2 of your first year class 2 months after they start. And that’s just a few steps removed from having the hiring partner personally come over to your grandmother’s house, kicking her to the ground, and urinating on her as she cries.
Despicable.
Does the restatement section 90 cover situations where one reasonably relies on a promise that one will be winner when, in fact, one is a loser?
It’s “wrong”?
A lot of things are wrong.
Laying off good, hard-working employees is ten times more wrong than deferring someone who hasn’t even started.
That’s pretty horrendous. As an incoming first year in January at a different firm that has been in touch, this still makes me shiver. At least give them more than a month so that they don’t sign a year-long lease in NY, which along with student loans, is about all any stipend would pay for. Extremely rude.
2. Welcome to the future. Law gradates are interchangeable. So they made promises to the class of 09, so what? they’ll make the same promises to the 5 class of 11 who got summer offers. And if they are very lucky those guys will start ahead of class 13.
Law graduates are interchangeable, and a cost drain in the new economy. Best firms can hire the top 10% of the top 10 law schools and satisfy their staffing demands for the next…oh forever. Why? Because there aint going to be crazy, investment banking, booming times coming to Western civilization any time soon. And since those paid the bills, you better relax and contemplate the coming stagflation. Meritocracy is dead for anyone outside of the top 10 of top 10. Unless you make it on your own. Everyone else, fuck off.
” It is truly, unbelievable, that…” Eat these commas, because they DON’T BELONG! How did you pass basic English AND get a degree from HLS? So many other people are much more deserving.
GROIN
Hey, hiring partners . . . let me put this in terms you can understand:
To do what Nixon did here is akin to an associate coming into your office an hour before a filing is due in court, saying, “Sorry I couldn’t get to writing that brief for you . . . I was really busy. I haven’t started it yet. You should probably do it yourself.”
In that scenario, say hello to your newest malpractice suit. Here, the associate feels similarly. They’re utterly screwed unless the stipend can completely cover expenses. I’m sure it doesn’t.
So . . . what do you know today that you didn’t know November 14th? October 14th? Did a client just completely pull all its business? Are partners threatening to leave in droves? Seriously? What the fuck?
This IS despicable because there are so many incoming first years who relied on a hard start-date by actually getting their LIVES in order! What did NP expect? For incoming first years to live with their parents or in a box until January 3rd? And those 2/3s first years are absolutely screwed – even with a stipend, I bet a lot of them are going to have trouble making ends meet with city rents, food costs AND student loan payments (p.s. good luck getting loan companies to defer yet again and get it done right, they’ll start sucking the $$$ from you yet). It sucks EVEN MORE when you think that these first years now have to scramble for jobs just like the rest of us and only have 3 weeks notice DURING THE HOLIDAYS.
For soon-to-be grads, the lesson is clear – don’t trust anything your firm says and find a safety net. But it sucks for the rest of them who were hopeful (read: naive) enough to think that a firm is like any other employer and that a start-date is not a “suggestion.”
Mission Accomplished!
12, “the associate feels similarly”? Really? You think the partners give a rat’s ass about how the associates “feel”?
CHECK YOU HEAD
12, you are an ignoramus. Any partner worth his weight will demand to see the filing in draft form at least the day before it is due.
On opinion and belief, I understand that the situation at NP is that many partners are considering jumping ship. Perhaps this was done to stave off a HE like dissolution?
If this is true, the incoming associates who are still scheduled for January should seek other opportunities as well. You may not be out of the woods yet.
Seriously – these incoming associates are the ones that are stupid. Was there EVER a doubt that a large proportion of them were going to get deferred again? It’s easy to place blame at the doorstep of the law firms, but you’ve gotta man up and be cognizant of the situation. These incoming associates should have been planning all along that they would be re-deferred (there I just made a word up!).
Whiny comments from 3L’s and incoming associates begin in 3, 2, 1…
Wait, so Nixon doesn’t give a crap about differed associates? WTF?
could one hang a shingle during deferment?
10: it looks like it’s time for you to…you know, get a life.
What’s the problem? NP has a right to hire and fire as they see fit. Deferral is no different. Whatever stipend they provide is just charity. You not yet new associates are fucked, so get used to it. This is the new world. Even when the economy comes back, it will be a weak limp dick sort of economy, and associates will be treated like all other worker bees.
Dear Mystal,
The above post contains the following offensive, sexualized phrase:
“It’s time to suck it up…”
This is inappropriate and unacceptable. Please be cognizant of the critical role you play in maintaining ATL’s vibrant diverse, collegial and supportive student culture.
- Northwestern Speech Police
PS: did you know we’re the #1 law school in America according to our dean?
Nixon Peabody is mostly made up of second-rate attorneys. They are doing you a favor by indefinitely deferring you. Go find somewhere better to work.
Winston – Seyfarth merger. Info, please!
life’s a bitch –then you marry one—–
Mystal is about to merge with a 3 foot meatball sub.
19- so, should these kids have signed a lease on 1/3, then? Maybe they should have stayed in a hotel until 1/5 just to be safe? Come on, man, at some point you should be able to rely on your employer’s promise of employment. I’d say that 30 days out is a pretty reasonable starting point.
19 — what exactly would you suggest they do? Find another big law job? Thanks for the help, champ. In reality, we don’t really have much choice other than to rely on the firm’s integrity to not go balls deep on us less than a month from our start date, regardless of how cognizant we are of the situation.
/whiny comment by incoming associate
It is amazing to me that a firm would do this so late in the game. What it tells me is the NP does not know its ass from its elbow.
If it did not realize until now that it had no business for its associates, then the partners really are unbearably bad businesspeople — they do not even understand their own business. If it did know and simply didn’t feel like getting around to notifying these incoming associates, then the firm clearly treats its employees like crap and I’m glad I don’t work there.
For the few predictable people whining about the nerve of 3Ls to be upset about this development, get a life. No *good* firm is so unaware of its own business that it would wait so long to make this move.
I’d like to request that all raging TTT students/grads refrain from posting their opinions about deferred biglaw associates. I’m talking about you RAGING TTTs like FIU, Stetson, Touro, Mercer, and any school with “Loyola” in the name or two directions in the name – like Southwestern and Northeastern, but not Northwestern. Don’t comment about deferred biglaw associates. None of you ever had a shot at one of those jobs. You are completely irrelevant, a stain on the profession, and you were f’d worse than these deferred associates the first day you walked into your pyramid-scheme lawschool. The worst part of all this is that you know it.
Nixon Peabody is a joke. You can blame all those partners they picked up from Thelen. That’s really when NP went down the toilet fast.
the biglaw ship be sinking.
19 – So the incoming associates shouldn’t have bought plane tickets or signed leases starting in January if they’re moving to a new city because they should have assumed they would be deferred? They had to get their lives in order to start work on January 4th. They would have been idiots not to.
Forget PE, I want to know what the AFLAC duck thinks of this
I have to return some video tapes.
Forget PE, I want to know what the AFLAC duck thinks of this
here here, 32
36 comments and nobody has mentioned that EVERYBODY’S A WINNER AT NIXON PEABODY. this is odd.
17 -
OK . . . if that’s the case, then these incoming associates should have attempted to confirm that they were starting in January, right? And when the firm said, “Yes, we’re scheduled for January,” everything should’ve been OK, right?
But it wasn’t OK. For 2/3 of the class (read: MOST of the class), it wasn’t OK. Were incoming associates wrong to rely on the firms assurances? No. People should not be able to string others along up until the last minute and then dump this crap on them. I know that the day of white shoe law firms is essentially over, but that doesn’t mean we can also abandon all human decency.
So, to all the people involved in making this decision: When you’re sitting around with your families during the holiday season, remember the people whose lives you upturned – and know that but for your procrastination, others would be able to enjoy this time as well.
-a friend of someone who was supposed to start at NP in Jan.
Not one of you is entitled to a job, even those of you to whom we offered jobs. Get over your sense of entitlement, especially to things to which we agreed. Damn whiners.
@26 Winston – Seyfarth merger?
What?!
I’d like to see the minutes of the committee meeting where they decided this. Maybe Nixon will Latham a secretary who will then Simpson Thacher over the transcripts.
Here, here 33. The “acquisition” if you will, of Thelen, brought the firm down. Especially the west coast additions more than anything else.
That plus being merger happy. NP was and always will be a small firm that became big through a series of ridiculous mergers.
Irresponsibility got firms into this mess, maybe they are hoping irresponsibility will get them out?
29,30,35
Yes, they should NOT have signed leases or book tickets etc. They should have continued to live with your parents (I’m assuming that’s what many of them did). Look, I feel bad for the deferred associates and NP is being unfair to them, but the fact remains, that they could NOT have reasonably assumed that they would start on time.
-19
PHJW has been silent about start dates for at least a month now.
Dear Law Firm Creditors:
Here are the firms currently on dissolution watch:
1) Nixon Peabody
2) Winston Strawn
3) Arent Fox
4) McDermott, Will & Emery
5) Seyfarth Shaw
6) Alston Bird
Watch their cash flows carefully, and lend accordingly.
47,
1/3 of the associates are sscheduled to start January 4. That’s apparently not guaranteed until they show up the 4th. If their parents don’t live in the city where they’re working, where should they sleep the night of the 3rd? How about the 4th?
10 nailed it; 22 feels inadequate.
Oh yeah, and 47 is wrong. If you’re told to start on Jan. 4, there’s no reason not to assume you’ll start on time if you’re not told otherwise (until Dec. 14, that is).
If you are starting in January and haven’t heard anything from your firm, it’s time to give them a call – ask for a letter of employment for your move, ask about practice groups, anything. With about 4 weeks to go before you are supposed to start, it’s not unreasonable to try to force some information out of them at this point.
I was disappointed/nervous about my future when the firm I accepted an offer with told me in May 2009 that I would be deferred to January 2011 and paid a stipend. My start date is still more than a year away!
Now that I see what is happening to many associates headed to firms who only deferred to January 2010, I am starting to think I was really lucky. At least I was able to make plans to do something cool for the year and a half rather then sitting around waiting.
ok you fuckers who say that people are not “entitled” to a job, and that NP has a “right” to deffer them: way to completely miss the point.
There are 2 possibilities here:
One: the partners at NP are complete dumbasses who can’t manage their own law firm from a hole in the ground. Anyone who doesn’t know their own hiring needs less than a month in advance shouldn’t be handling major cases.
Two: the partners knew about this all along, and had made the decision a few months ago, but only now got around to telling the re-deferred associates. This is of course their “right” but makes them look like completely heartless dicks.
Plz pick one, and stfu
Dear Youth of the Law,
BigLaw no longer wants you. Clients suddenly decided they did not want to pay to train you. BigLaw is over you. BigLaw is shifting to a new system where they either do not really hire many of you or they pay you pennies on the dollar. To make up for not hiring many of you, they will hire more experienced attorneys from somewhere else. This transition is going to be painful for you.
Very truly yours,
Friend
Nixon Poobody
Someday some of these associates will be partners themselves, and then they too will get to treat their juniors like human excrement, and the circle of life will be complete.
Dear Youth of the Law,
BigLaw no longer wants you. Clients suddenly decided they did not want to pay to train you. BigLaw is over you. BigLaw is shifting to a new system where they either do not really hire many of you or they pay you pennies on the dollar. To make up for not hiring many of you, they will hire more experienced attorneys from somewhere else. This transition is going to be painful for you.
Very truly yours,
Friend
I can’t believe they didn’t give them AT LEAST 30 days notice. That’s just rude.
These two firms (Winston & Seyfarth) have always flirted with the possibility but it looks like the economic environment may force this to be a reality. I suppose you can see how the litigation practice of one would compliment the cross-border corporate practice of the other.
38–Thanks for asking.
Nixon Peabody is based in Rochester, NY. There are many cities that are nicknamed “Mistake on a Lake.” Detroit, Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, and Rochester. Among those cities, Rochester is the most TTT. Compounding its TTT status is NP’s retention of offices in Manchester, NH and Jericho, NY. No incoming NP associate can rely on Restatement 90 because ANY expectations here are completely unwarranted and unreasonable. You are going to a firm that shares a home base with Genessee Cream Ale. You might as well fit yourself for leisure suits right now, even if you are deferred.
In addition, incoming associates share some of the responsibility here for the pre-Christmas surprise. They should be keeping in touch with the hiring partner, or the head of the practice group. They should know the situation, without waiting for the firm to initiate contact.
The ship be sinking…
49 — second that! In the Philadelphia market, Reed Smith and Pepper Hamilton make that list.
Elie — You’re an idiot.
The correct analogy is not that you’ve bought dogfood for your dog already.
The correct analogy is that you have dogfood coming in january, but you don’t know how much. You now have to decide how many dogs to adopt so the food doesn’t go to waste. Guess too high, and they’ll starve to death.
Better to leave them in the pound where you don’t have to see their whining pathetic faces than to bring them in only to kick them out a short time later.
PLEASE STOP WHINING ABOUT YOUR DEFERRED START DATE.
What you don’t seem to realize is that firms screwed everyone from 4th years on down! Whether you were a fourth year billing 2400 hours a year to a first year that had been at the firm for four months, these firms screwed everyone!!!
Should a fourth year be laid off to make room for incoming associates? No. But does that entitle the firm to screw over the incoming associates, either? No. The firms are doing whatever they think they can to maintain their reputation while cutting costs as much as possible. They are not good people. They are not your friends (regardless of whatever they said about firm culture during the summer).
Hope that you can start your job soon. Hope that the older associates they screwed can find work. REMEMBER HOW THEY SCREWED YOU FROM THIS POINT FORWARD AND DON’T TREAT OTHER PEOPLE THIS WAY IF YOU ARE EVER IN THE POSITION TO MAKE SUCH DECISIONS!
61: How can you mock NP for retaining offices in Manchester, NH — they’re in the ONLY SKYSCRAPER IN TOWN OMFG!!!!!!11111
Kidding. They are clearly TTT for being in this city.
Has anyone heard anything about/from Stroock??????
49 -
It’s funny that two of your firms on that list are considering merging . . . with each other!
I don’t know which analogy is more apt:
“It’s like two dirty homeless people having sex under an overpass.”
or,
“It’s like the captain of the Titanic and the captain of the Hindenburg just signed on to co-pilot the new space shuttle.”
Has anyone heard anything about/from Stroock??????????????
Has anyone heard anything about/from Stroock??????????????
54,
None of that DRIVEL you wrote negates the RIGHT of the law firm to defer those self-ENTITLED WHINERS.
NP deferreds have a right to be pissed. NP management does have its head up its ass.
But “despicable”? “Despicable” is when a health insurance company weasels on paying your cancer treatment bills by discovering a supposedly material omission from your medical history 23 years ago when you applied.
There are huge numbers of people in this economy who have had their expectations rudely changed. The NP deferreds at least have their health insurance (I presume). Do we really think we are, or should be, immune to vast changes in the economy just because we spent an additional 3 (or 7) years in school?
Shit not only happens, it happens a lot, and will continue to happen even more. Don’t assume anything, and construct as many fallback positions as you possibly can.
It’s not just lawyers. The radiologists are, or should be, crapping their pants at the thought that their work could just as easily be performed, for a fraction the cost, in India. Very much lower to mid level accounting work could immediately be offshored.
The steelworkers, and the autoworkers, had legitimate expectations, too, and look what’s happened to them.
This is a scary world, and it’s getting scarier.
71: It appears that your caps lock key sticks intermittently. You should look into that.
A lot of this stuffwill hit the ceiling in January and February 2010, when firms need to take out big loans to pay off partners and expenses. Then these firms collect back these loan costs throughout the year with billing. So, January and February are really the months when banks will look closely at these firms. It’s going to be a total mess.
19/47 – You’re a moron, but I assume you’re intentionally antagonizing folks here. Just for the sake of it, what do you recommend the deferred associates do? Sit around at home and wait for a “See you in the office Monday!” call? You say they shouldn’t have been able to rely on starting on time, but given the relocating involves a certain amount of advance notice, and NP reasonably knows that, there isn’t much the deferred folks could do.
to NP re-deferred ou there… did the firm contact u about re location or practice group prior to Dec. 14?
Best of luck to all of those who have been re-deferred. Hopefully this turns out to be a blessing in disguise.
Still no word from Paul Hastings.
Should associates who haven’t heard from their firms yes commence pulling hair out?
Paul Hastings is redeferring its incoming associates. Permanently.
55,
Spare me the “training associates” bullshit. We are profit centers. Full stop. People need basic research done. First year associates do basic research very well. If you didn’t know what the hell you were doing your first year out of law school, and didn’t net the partners a profit, realize that you are the exception, not the rule.
-Mid-level sick of all the first-year bashing
48/80/82…will PHJW defer everyone again, or will they pull an NP and just redefer some people? Or did the credit line situation thing mean that the entire ship is going down?
Can I suggest to y’all that it might be time to start looking for work, instead of waiting for work to find you? Sallie Mae does not accept IOUs.
FIVE FIGURE SECURE
The only people that believe what NP (and others) did (and will likely do in the coming weeks) is OK, and who whine about incoming associates being upset, are the following:
-3Ls without jobs lined up
-2Ls without jobs lined up for the summer
-Fired associates
-Current associates that have no work to bill
Any rational human being realizes that this is utter nonsense. Any rational human being would look for a place to live at least a month before they are scheduled to begin work. If you think otherwise, you are either jealous or afraid the incoming associates will supplant you. This is a horrid thing to do.
To the whiners: what do you expect the incoming associates to do? What if someone is going to NP NY from California? Should she drive out the night before? Ridiculous.
Didn’t PH send out holiday cards, or invites to something? Doesn’t that mean we are starting?
CHECK YOU MONOGRAMMED PH WIRE COAT HANGERS
49, also add Troutman Sanders to your list.
Dissolution Watch Updated List
1) Nixon Peabody
2) Winston Strawn
3) Arent Fox
4) McDermott, Will & Emery
5) Seyfarth Shaw
6) Alston Bird
7) Reed Smith
8) Pepper Hamilton
9) Troutman Sanders
Understanding that these firms ALL have an increased likelihood of dissolving, would someone care to rank these firms from most likely to least likely to dissolve?
-49
Winner winner Mystal always eats chicken for dinner!
If PHJW isn’t on 91’s list, then it’s safe to say that the deferred associates will be starting in January.
Reliance damages. This is absurd — you’re not entitled to a job, but you ought to be entitled to depend on a firm when it tells you to show up on a given date.
Also, re the early comments: it’s grammatically correct to use “that” when referring to a person, even if it’s a bit dehumanizing. It’s like referring to a human as an animal or using “it” for a person — not technically incorrect, just weird.
93 – if some random says it on ATL, it MUST be true!
add darby & darby to the merger/dissolution list
91 – how could you forget the incomparable fish & richardson?
pepper hamilton associate here….young associates are scrambling…everyone is cordial in public, but behind the scenes associates are jostling for what little work there is….there is no team spirit here, every man for himself…the management believes that pepper has gotten in over its head, trying to become a peer to firms like morgan, now there are simply too many associates and not enough work….a bad situation all around…the firm has too much pride, so no public layoffs, yet, even though it would actually help the firm out…this is the word from the hallways
The Paul Hastings trolls will stop hijacking every post even remotely dedicated to layoffs or re-deferrments once they hear they’ve been deferred indefinitely.
http://www.paulhastings.com/HolidayMessage/
Would a firm that was planning mass deferrals/layoffs really take the time to send out such a thoughtful holiday e-card to its incoming class?
PH: A firm with heart.
I’m wondering about Stroock too. They dumped many of the incoming associates months ago and made it sound like people who selected a January start date had little chance of ever starting.
Wire coat hangers only hurt a little at first, and then it goes away.
PH Managing Partner
91, add 你妈和你爸 to your list. They plan to dissolve too.
Everybody’s a winner at NP!
99, you missed the point of Paul Hastings’ holiday message. They were thanking their clients and friends. Note how “they” did not include “you”—and as a “deferred associate”, you were not included in the list of those for whom “they” were grateful.
Thus, under any normal rules of holiday message analysis, all deferred associates are now merely “friends” of the firm.
CHECK YOU RESUMES
Wasn’t Nixon one of the first firms if not the first firm to defer back in Feb 2009? And now they are last the re-defer? They seriously need to get more organized.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SeL6i3sHM0
I’ll add Darby & Darby – it’s justified here:
http://abovethelaw.com/2009/10/joe_robinson_leaves_darby_for_mcdermott.php
However, Fish and Richardson’s IP Lit department is still going strong. If anything, they’ll divest practice groups that are not profitable.
-49
106,
Sarcasm.
100
106 FTW…except he or she should have cited the proper post (100 dealt with the holiday message).
PHJW INSECURE
Dissolution Watch Updated List
1) Nixon Peabody
2) Winston Strawn
3) Arent Fox
4) McDermott, Will & Emery
5) Seyfarth Shaw
6) Alston Bird
7) Reed Smith
8) Pepper Hamilton
9) Troutman Sanders
10) Darby & Darby
These associates go to ‘11.
107,
106 was merely building upon your sarcasm by adding a similarly cynical point of view.
It’s not your fault, 106 knows how frustrated you are.
If Paul Hastings had a theme song, I wonder what it would sound like, or what the lyrics would be…regardless, it would be better than that ridiculous NP song (108).
I say this as a re-deferred incoming associate at NP to those of you saying that we should have anticipated this situation and planned accordingly or that we are not “entitled” to anything: stfu.
We may not be “entitled” in the sense that they OWE us a job simply because of who we are, but the fact of the matter is that we were offered a job, and we did in fact sign a letter accepting that offer. Further, some of us turned down offers of alternative legal employment based on the offer we received from NP and the things the firm told us about salaries, start dates, etc. When we were deferred originally, that was one thing: we got advance notice, they paid us a deferral stipend, and we were able to make alternative arrangements to deal with it. But to suddenly call us on Dec. 14 and tell 2/3 of us that we will not in fact be starting in January and that our re-deferral is indefinite but “hopefully” in the early months of 2010 is just asinine. You may think we’re all somehow silver spoon-fed kids with no appreciation for the realities of life, but you know nothing about us individually.
To compound the ridiculousness of the whole thing, it isn’t like most of us didn’t try to wrench some information from the firm in advance of Dec. 14. Many of us repeatedly contacted the firm from Sept.-Dec. trying to re-confirm our start in January and to get additional information. Our efforts were stymied at every step. We were told many things: (1) yes, we anticipate that you will start in January as planned; (2) yes, we have received your practice area preferences and we think we can accommodate them; (3) yes, you should hear more definitive word in November (guess what?! It never came…); (4) I’ll have to get back to you on that question (they never did); and (5) yes, you will hear something more the second week of December (we didn’t).
So, what would you have recommended we do? Find alternative law firm positions? Where? Because if you know someone who is hiring recent grads, I’m sure a lot of people would like to know.
I say all this not to whine about my personal situation. I have a job that pays the bills fine, and this certainly isn’t a make or break it moment for me. However, there are others that are probably in worse situations, and more importantly, the firm should be held accountable for its actions. So, don’t attempt to minimize the actions that were taken by the firm by scapegoating the victims.
The dreaded phone calls are coming for you deferreds at PHJW…Management has enough of a heart not to do it to you during Christmas week.
What’s with the NH hate, 61 and 66? It has the 7th highest median income in the country, a pretty good showing considering the northern half of the state pretty much all lives on the poverty line. It’s a better showing than CA or NY.
- Citizen of MA
P.S. Manchester is the only city in northern New England with more than 100,000 residents.
Gee, Elizabeth Wurtzel, I wonder why Yale Law grads wouldn’t want to take firms up on their generous offer to be deferred.
Never send to know, soon-to-be redeferred PHJW associates, for whom the bell tolls…
it tolls for thee.
#91–Arent Fox tops my list. If you don’t believe me, ask their DC landlord.
112, and a schtick is born.
This is so so wrong. What were these partners thinking? Can someone from NP comment? How slow are the current associates?
This is so so wrong. What were these partners thinking? Can someone from NP comment? How slow are the current associates?
49 — Add Latham & Watkins to the dissoultion list
I too heard that ██████████████ is going to dissolve. An truth to this, ██████████████
associates?
116,
Stop WHINING. You make me sick. Do you know what the a member of the Greatest Generation would have done in your place? They would have freed Europe from tyranny, dropped an atomic bomb on Japan, and created the greatest expansion of wealth in the history of the world.
You experience a little setback and you sit on an internet forum to bitch about how you’ve been treated so badly.
This is when you really want to know your estoppel law.
Ha!…my best laugh so far today….
Ha!…my best laugh so far today….
Elie refers to his stomach as his “dog”?
125 -
Latham is not being added to my list. Their chances of dissolution are minimal compared to the above firms.
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings ██████████████!!!
All-
Please stop feigning interest with respect to incoming first year associates. You know you don’t care one bit.
Best Regards
What about Edwards Angell? Folk on this blog have been bitching about its supposed dissolution for years.
WHY is MWE on the list? They are truly despicable, but no one in the know can seriously question their ability to run a firm and make oodles of money. Money will keep those miserable excuses for human beings happy. Why would the firm dissolve? If you actually know something (and it’s not just wishful thinking!) tell us!
Add Proskauer to the list of potential dissolution 2011
137,
Don’t be so paranoid. He doesn’t actually know anything, it’s a stupid schtick.
And MWE is on the list because they redeferred their incoming first years, and very late in the game. Regardless of their financial situation that was kind of a dick move, and doesn’t speak well of their management that it took so long to make the decision.
Has anybody else noticed that ██████, and █████████, and sometimes ██████████████ are never or very rarely ████ for their ██████████, their ███████, or ██████████████?
137 – MWE is on there because they pulled a dick move. Either they’re in financial trouble or they’re horrible human beings. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say they’re merely in financial trouble.
And there is quite a bit of truth to this shtick, 139.
That’s pretty low mister. If I had a rubber hose, I would…..
To All:
Upon reading this story, all I could do is shake my head in disgust. Happy Holidays, indeed! Here’s a quick question- Is this even legal? I mean, the would-be junior associates signed commitments to this firm and they were screwed in the worse possible way. Is it possible to break the contract and look for work elsewhere? Then again, who would do such a thing in this type of economy? How about some advice from some of the ‘Legal Eagles’ out there.
-curious Engineer
Please add Harvard to that list.
Has anyone called their firm and gotten some info?
141,
No it’s an arbitrary schtick. I don’t know why you include firms that redefer (besides being dicks) but omit firms like DLA that actually cut salaries, which saves them a LOT more money than any kind of redeferment.
You also seem to add firms almost arbitrarily for no real reason (like a partner leaving Darby two months ago? Partners leave firms, even boutiques, all the time).
145 – classy firms have sent out letters confirming our start date in january. i am not worried at all about starting, but i sincerely feel horrible for those who were completely fucked by NP today.
CLIENTS BE WARNED: NP HAS DEMONSTRATED THAT THEY HAVE ZERO MANAGEMENT SKILLS. WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT THEIR ABILITY TO MANAGE YOUR COMPLEX FILES?
That is a good question number 143. I think restatement 90 might have something to say about that . . .
“Because if you know someone who is hiring recent grads, I’m sure a lot of people would like to know. ”
Listen assholes! There is no US News and World Report to tell you where to go for jobs. There is no OCI or any that bullshit that is going to find you employment. What you have to do is start sending out letters, make phone calls. Get ready to get turned down – A LOT. Is sending out 50 resumes going to do it? Maybe, maybe not. Might take 100, might take more. You will probably have to deal with making less than half the salary you expected – too fucking bad. You might actually have to do legitimate legal work, ie not doc review or hours upon hours of Westlaw research. Lawyers you think are dumber than you will kick your ass and make you look stupid in front of a judge as you struggle to find your bearings. Deal with it.
I hated all you people when I went to a T14 law school and continue to this day. Whiny fucking losers.
Pillsbury is on life-support.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S2f76Kjx0c
149 clearly does not work for paul hastings, which would never put anyone in the position of having to send out that many resumes.
149 and anyone else saying these people should’ve been sending out resumes b/w September and now are absolute morons and hopefully not lawyers or in law school.
That’s one way to make sure you don’t have a job in January.
I’m a partner in a West Coast firm, so although NP has an office in my town and I know some partners there, this isn’t something that affects me. But, I’ve been in and out of management at various levels for years. Rule 1 is lawyers are s*&^%# managers. Rule 2 is there are no exceptions, just good PR people to make them look like exceptions.
Waiting until 12/14 to defer 2/3 of your first year class again either means you can’t project your workflow needs worth beans, in which case all the deferred should go out and get real jobs, even if they involve car crashes, or Management is too coward to face the reality that they have a level of lawyers that doesn’t match the work they have. Either way, shame on you.
I’d be interested to know, however, whether the re-deferrals are heavily distributed by practice group preference – i.e. did they defer those who want to be litigators, or just the transactional ones?
149,
You are a moron. There are no legal jobs for entry-level attorneys! What do you not get about that? Sending out hundreds of resumes and calling hundreds of people is not going to get you a paying job unless if there is no job available.
“I say all this not to whine about my personal situation. I have a job that pays the bills fine, and this certainly isn’t a make or break it moment for me.”
================
How do you have two jobs?
155 – How do you know if you haven’t done it? How many solo/small law firms have you inquired at? Have you looked a paralegal positions (gasp! “But I went to XYZ school, and was in the top ten percent of my class! I simply can’t even think about taking such work!”) ? There are jobs out there that would pay more than $0 per month if you looked for them.
Remember, pride comes before a fall.
Dear Gen Y,
Welcome to the Jungle.
Love,
Gen X
Dear Gen Y,
Welcome to the Jungle.
Love,
Gen X
Dear Gen X,
You had your chance at biglaw. Now kindly leave to make room for new blood. We can learn to do whatever it is you do in a few weeks, all for less pay.
Hope you saved up some cash,
Gen Y
Gen Y < Gen X < Baby Boomers < Greatest Generation.
That is all.
157,
Please don’t pretend to know what I have or have not done to look for a job in the legal field. I have done both of the things you have suggested. Do you realize that there are many places that will not hire JDs to do paralegal work? Or that many solo practitioners/small firms will not pay to help show a person without experience the ropes?
The issue isn’t pride. There just aren’t enough jobs in the legal field for the amount of people who want jobs.The market is brutal.
157 -
It’s one thing to tell people recently laid off or just now RE-deferred to start looking for any kind of employment.
It’s quite another to tell people who were deferred in March and promised January start dates that they should’ve been mass mailing resumes all along.
Openly looking for a new job while cashing deferral checks is the one sure way to not have a biglaw job in January.
What NP did today is unforgivable. It’s not about feeling entitled to a job. Nobody is suggesting that recent law graduates are entitled to anything. But NP made these people offers–they shook their hands, looked them in the eye, and offered them full time jobs upon graduation. Notwithstanding this, these people are still not entitled to a job given the at-will employment nature of this job.
However, why did NP wait this long to tell these poor souls they had no jobs? What changed since October or November? This is beyond bad management–it’s straight up incompetence.
On another note, if anyone is stuck with a lease they can no longer afford, email me at deferredforlife@gmail.com. I still have not signed anything and would be willing to take over your lease if need be. I’m being dead serious.
Question with respect to late re-deferrrals: When does an attorney breach the duty of honesty under the RPC by failing to disclose known material facts?
If the firm knew months ago that it did not have work for these people (and I’m not saying that’s the case, I don’t know the facts here – this is a hypothetical), and nonetheless led them on and had them move, not look for other things to do, etc., have they breached their obligations under the RPC?
Don’t ask for a stipend, ask for the hiring partner’s law license for lying to you and being unethical.
162 – The market is brutal, but you can’t win if you don’t compete. “Many” is not the same as “all”. Like I said, be prepared to get turned down A LOT. Persistence pays.
163 – I can see your point, and didn’t mean to suggest that JDs should have been looking for jobs the second they got deferred if that’s how my comments were understood. That said, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time. Certainly making some soft inquiries with attorney relatives, lawyers not connected to your firm etc. might have been a good idea. I realize hindsight is 20/20, and I’m not dinging anyone for having counted on this job, especially since it looks like NP even made assurances on there start date.
But if the attitude going forward from here is that there are no jobs and that its impossible to find work because its not Biglaw work, or it only pays 40-50,000 (better put that pool table for sale on craigslist!), then that is the pride which comes before a fall.
Persistance doesn’t pay student loans. Cash does. If you are looking to get cash out of the legal field and you have no experience then good luck. You’ll be better off working at McDonalds.
167 — I agree. Your comments did come off very differently in your earlier posts, but the way you express it here, I agree. But many, many, many of us did just what you are suggesting we should have done. A large part of the problem is that by the time the writing was on the wall, what little there was of recruiting season had passed (and no, I do not mean OCI recruiting) and there seem to be even fewer jobs now than there were over the summer.
I had an opportunity to get another job back in July, had I wanted it — the “soft inquiries” (and some actual resume mailings) netted me an interview, but in July, I was not ready to pull the plug on the potential biglaw job. Of course, my start date has since been confirmed, employment paperwork sent in, and firm computer picked out… so I am not regretting my choice. But I can see, easily, how it could have worked out differently, and how by the time an incoming realized the need to look elsewhere, there was very little “elsewhere” to look. That’s really why firms should have had the decency to pull the plug months ago.
Well said, 169. I took a very similar approach to you and am also relieved that my firm didn’t pull the plug.
As negative as I have been throughout this deferral madness, I never could have predicted the classlessness that took place today at NP.
I’m still scheduled to start in Jan at my firm.
Still secretly praying for my indefinite deferral so I can do the DA’s office and run for political office.
Scarier but more of a rush than doc review for 10 hours a day
Wow. Dozens of firms deferred their classes until late 2010 or 2011, but they had the decency to do it months ago. Nixon has no class.
Elie, did you attempt to get a rationale from the firm as to why it took them so long to make this decision?
I understand that some people still haven’t been told whether they are part of the NP re-deferred group. Does anyone know why NP has been slow to tell some of their deferred associates?
All of the people blaming the (formerly) incoming Nixon associates for counting on the firm’s repeated assurances of employment : you are dick-smacks of the worst type. There are plenty of other firms that have scheduled people to start in January and will not screw them hardcore like this. Waiting until most associates have reasonably rearranged their lives and likely already obligated themselves to thousands of dollars monthly in rent is inappropriate in any economy. What, you thought things would really pick up after the beginning of November?
Nixon = toolshed.
My heart goes out to all of you, this sucks.
any comments from current associates? inside information is appreciated. is work THAT slow? were these re-deferalls across all offices, by practice group, by perceived quality of associate?
thank you in advance
Is Feyd-Rautha behind this? I would wager so.
Bullshit 117, you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
This is by far the shittest thing I have heard in a long time. I think the firm should be called, Scruge Nixon Pompous Peabody. This doesn’t suprise me. I am a former associate of this firm. They Partners at this firm (not all but a lot) were selfish and self centered and do a great job at spinning it like they are a real best place to work for when it is the total opposite. Corner Partners harass female paralegals and get away with it. They continue to bury this kind of behavior because of money. They are greedy beyond. This firm is a total joke. If you want to fill like you are in a prison or slave camp sign up to work for them, if they will hire you and really honor your engagement letter. They have no diversity to speak of and they treat women with the greatest respect until they are pregnant. This is one of the worst places to work and is full of bs to the point that the buildings ooze.
This is by far the shittest thing I have heard in a long time. I think the firm should be called, Scruge Nixon Pompous Peabody. This doesn’t suprise me. I am a former associate of this firm. They Partners at this firm (not all but a lot) were selfish and self centered and do a great job at spinning it like they are a real best place to work for when it is the total opposite. Corner Partners harass female paralegals and get away with it. They continue to bury this kind of behavior because of money. They are greedy beyond. This firm is a total joke. If you want to fill like you are in a prison or slave camp sign up to work for them, if they will hire you and really honor your engagement letter. They have no diversity to speak of and they treat women with the greatest respect until they are pregnant. This is one of the worst places to work and is full of bs to the point that the buildings ooze.
This is by far the shittest thing I have heard in a long time. I think the firm should be called, Scruge Nixon Pompous Peabody. This doesn’t suprise me. I am a former associate of this firm. They Partners at this firm (not all but a lot) were selfish and self centered and do a great job at spinning it like they are a real best place to work for when it is the total opposite. Corner Partners harass female paralegals and get away with it. They continue to bury this kind of behavior because of money. They are greedy beyond. This firm is a total joke. If you want to fill like you are in a prison or slave camp sign up to work for them, if they will hire you and really honor your engagement letter. They have no diversity to speak of and they treat women with the greatest respect until they are pregnant. This is one of the worst places to work and is full of bs to the point that the buildings ooze.
I am sure the firm loves that 180 comments have been made about them. How you are going to handle this negative PR NP? Just like you did with the Everyone’s a Winner song? Maybe the guy you fired could come back and speak on behalf of the firm? Not!
The Winners are clearly freaking b/c they know they aren’t going to get bonuses this year, just like they didn’t get them last year. I bet the firm is going under. Thank God I left that shit hole of a firm. All staff salaries were frozen and everyone is panicing. If you haven’t seen this You Tube you should take a moment to look at it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SeL6i3sHM0
This is completely low-class, every OCI at NP should begin with, when will I be fired?
Wow, comments from Nixon peabody employees?
NALP says NP was supposed to bring in 42 new associates, is this right?
Sounds about right.
157, lions migrating and the season of Autumn have nothing to do with it.
All you asshole PHJW trashers out there. We got confirmed, so all your bullsh*t comments did not come to pass. You are all sick.