Job Searches, NALP, National Association for Law Placement (NALP), Summer Associates

Summer Offer Rates: Vault Top 25 Are Hot

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On Friday, we told you that NALP released its updated forms on firm offer rates. There is a wealth of information in the NALP data, and an Above the Law reader teased out the summer offer rate information:

I’m sure you’ve noticed, some firms only give NALP multi-office reports, some give multi-office reports in conjunction with their regular single-office reports, and others don’t use it at all, in addition to the domestic/international differences on some firms… Which is all to say that I might have inadvertently double-counted interns and offers at some firms without knowing about it, and the data may not always be parallel between different firms. However, the information from each firm is at least real and, I hope, comprehensive.

The reader compiled offer rate information for the top 50 firms according to Vault. You can really see an offer rate drop off in the bottom half of the Vault 50…

The Vault top 25 had a pretty good summer:

Outside the top 25, things got a little bit dicey:

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So, to put that all in perspective:

Of course, Above the Law readers are not simply obsessed with the V50. Check out these numbers from readers in the South:

It must not have been too hot a summer in the deep south…..

Butler Snow (MS) – 3/12
Butler Snow (TN) – 0/1
Phelps Dunbar (MS) – 0/5
Phelps Dunbar (LA) – 5/21
Burr Furman (AL, MS, TN, FL) – 8/13
Bass Berry (TN) – 11/18
Miller Martin (TN) – 3/10
Jones Walker (LA) – 8/23
McGlinchey Stafford (LA) – 2/16
Liskow & Lewis (LA) – 5/10
Baker Donelson (TN, LA, MS, GA) – 22/52

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It’s great to have all of these summer statistics. But you know the thing about stats: sometimes they can be lying m*****f******s. It’s not just the issues that our readers have already pointed out. Other commenters noted that some firms double count offers to associates who split summers between two different offices.

But most importantly, these (generally) strong offer numbers do not represent a return to normalcy. Did you notice how small some of these summer classes were? DLA Piper, for instance, one of the largest law firms in the world, only brought in 65 summer associates across all of their offices.

Reducing the size of the summer class allowed firms to make strong offer rates, but post-graduate jobs were still hard to come by for the class of 2010.

So … any word on when any of these offerees can actually start?

Earlier: Updated NALP Forms: What Were the Real Offer Rates?

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