Deferral Stipend, Job Searches, Start Dates

Deferred Associates and Public Interest Work: A Difficult Integration

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The spate of associate deferrals that rippled throughout Biglaw last year was truly unique. There was no historical template for what would happen when firms decided to essentially skip a recruiting class by sending their would-be first years out on paid vacations to public interest organizations.
The experiment — which for a lot of associates and firms is still ongoing — has already taught us a few things. Deferring associates clogs up the recruiting pipeline. Deferring associates is more expensive than making smart hiring decisions. New recruits, shocking as it may be to some, would rather start work than be given money take a vacation.
But there are other questions that still need to be answered. We don’t know if deferred associates taking public interest work have gained any useful experience. We obviously don’t know if all of these deferred associates will actually be able to start when their year is up.
And we don’t know if having a one-year, paid mercenary force of deferred recent law grads is a good thing for public interest organizations.
The ABA Journal and the New York Law Journal report on some stats today that start to answer some of these questions. The statistics point to a significant culture gap between deferred associates and public interest attorneys.


The New York City Bar polled deferred associates. The top line results show, well, sadness from the deferred associates. The New York Law Journal reports:

Nearly three-quarters of deferred associates in New York who placed with public interest groups developed a stronger interest in pro bono work because of the experience, according to a report released last week by the New York City Bar.
But the bar group also found that while the deferred attorneys were generally satisfied with the training they received, they expressed a low satisfaction level with their integration into public interest groups, and a frustration with the lack of communication from their law firms about their start dates.

The New York City Bar report puts the culture gap this way:

Issues of workplace culture gaps between the employees of the public interest placements and the incoming deferred associates were identified at the April 2009 City Bar Roundtable as a possible issue. The lower satisfaction rating with “colleagues” identified in the online survey may be reflective of this. A lower satisfaction rating with “integration within the office” may also reflect the culture gap between those law graduates who pursue careers at large law firms in contrast to the smaller group working in public interest employment. The fact that the “legal work” satisfaction rating was slightly lower than the “clients” satisfaction rating may reflect a slow start or disinterest in the work that was not in an area of law in which the deferred associate thought he or she would be practicing upon graduation.

We saw this coming. Back in April, Kash reported on a deferred associate job fair. At the time, some of the attendees had this to say about getting deferred from their Biglaw job:

“It sucks,” said one 3L from a New York law school contemplating deferral at a V20 firm (shockingly, none of the students or lawyers with whom we spoke wanted to be outed on ATL). “I’m pretty comfortable that I’ll have a job in 2011, but I’m not sure.”
Said another 3L from a New Jersey law school: “It sucks. I found out about the deferral on ATL the day before hearing from my firm. Class work has fallen to the wayside as I scramble to apply to jobs… I didn’t go to law school and incur $100k worth of debt because I wanted to take time off and write a novel.”

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It’s not all doom and gloom. Most deferred associates reported to the New York City Bar that they received good training at public interest organizations. The ABA Journal reports:

On the positive side, 92 percent of the deferred associates responding to the poll said they would recommend their placement to a future deferred associate. Eighty-nine percent thought the skills they had acquired would help in their future career, and 73 percent said the placement had increased their interest in pro bono.

Of course, deferred associates aren’t really in the best position to know if the skills they’ve learned translate into Biglaw practice at all. We’ll have to wait till these people start showing up at their firms to see if Biglaw partners find them more useful than other new associates straight out of law school.
And we don’t know about the view from the people who had to work with deferred associates. Obviously, cash-strapped public interest organizations found ways to use the extra man-hours. But did they enjoy working with slightly depressed first years who didn’t want to be there and were waiting for their first opportunity to get out and “start” their career? I can’t imagine public interest lifers had an easy time dealing with deferred associates who felt forced into a public interest furlough.
Deferring associates is an experiment. It’s a work in progress. And we’ll need to do more statistics and studies before we truly know if this experiment worked.
Deferred Associates Evaluate Their Experience in Public Interest Jobs [New York Law Journal]
Poll Suggests Culture Gap Between Deferred Associates, Public Interest Lawyers [ABA Journal]
CITY BAR JUSTICE CENTER REPORT ON THE DEFERRED ASSOCIATE LAW EXTERN SUPPORT PROJECT [New York City Bar]
Earlier: Dreams of Biglaw Deferred (Or, The Scene at New Jersey’s First Deferred Associates Public Interest Job Fair)

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