Correction: Culture Gap Between Deferred and Public Interest Attorneys Not as Wide as We Were Led to Believe

A week and a half ago we ran a story about the culture gap between deferred associates working in public interest jobs and their full-time public interest colleagues. The news came from the City Bar of New York, which did a study of the satisfaction levels of deferred associates.
But it turns out the City Bar misread its own study. Deferred associates weren’t displeased with their public interest colleagues. Instead, they actually got along pretty well. Here’s a statement from the City Bar on what led to the error:

We have learned of an error, for which we apologize, in the interpretation of one aspect of the online survey data in the our report on the Deferred Associate Law Extern Support Project. We had reported that the deferred externs reported a lower satisfaction rating with regard to colleagues and integration into the workplace than was the case; in fact, the externs reported a high degree of satisfaction in their interactions with colleagues. Thus, the externs expressed an even more positive response to the program than was originally presented in our report. We have revised the report accordingly.

The City Bar survey asked associates to rate their colleagues on a scale of one to four. A rating of one was the highest rating, but when they interpreted the numbers, the people who made the report interpreted one as the lowest rating.
Hey, NASA lost a billion-dollar spacecraft because somebody didn’t convert numbers into the metric system. This kind of thing happens.
For clarity’s sake, we asked for the raw data….


Here were the actual ratings deferred associates gave their colleagues (click to enlarge):

But how did the other half live? The City Bar asked deferred associates how they liked their colleagues. Did public interest workers enjoy their time with deferred associates? If you worked with any of them, take our poll below.

Earlier: Deferred Associates and Public Interest Work: A Difficult Integration

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