Summer Associate Offer Rates (2012): A Round-Up

Which firms are making job offers to 100 percent of their summer associates? A whole lot of them....

Truth be told, I’m not a fan of law firms giving offers to 100 percent of their summer associates. Whatever happened to selectivity? Given how perfunctory the hiring process is, there has to be at least one mistake in any summer class of decent size, right?

A commenter on our last post about offer rates put it well: “[A] 100% offer rate is not always a good thing. If we don’t want to work with the little weirdo who managed to slip through by pretending he was normal in 20-minute increments in callbacks, there’s a good chance the other SAs don’t either. Firms shouldn’t be so captured by the desire to have 100% offer rates that they give offers to people with serious social issues or work product problems, particularly in small offices where their general offensiveness will really have an opportunity to shine.”

Another reason I don’t like 100 percent offer rates is that I enjoy hearing funny stories of summer associate misbehavior, which often culminate in a no offer or a cold offer. You can share such stories with us by email or by text message (646-820-8477; texts only, not a voice line).

Alas, Biglaw firms are not obliging me. Let’s find out which firms are indiscriminately doling out offers to their summers….

Here are the firms, with office locations indicated parenthetically if known, that have 100 percent offer rates for this year’s class of summer associates (please email us if you see any errors):

  • Alston & Bird (New York)
  • Gibson Dunn & Crutcher (D.C.)
  • Hogan Lovells (New York)
  • Kasowitz Benson
  • Kramer Levin (New York)
  • Latham & Watkins (Houston, Los Angeles)
  • Mayer Brown (New York)
  • Milbank Tweed (New York)
  • Quinn Emanuel (Los Angeles and San Francisco, “helicopter evacuees and all”)
  • Schulte Roth & Zabel
  • Weil Gotshal & Manges (New York)
  • Willkie Farr & Gallagher (New York)

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If you have corrections to this list — i.e., a firm or office listed above that does NOT belong on the 100 percent list — please email us at tips@abovethelaw.com, subject line “Summer Associate Offer Rate Correction,” or text us at 646-820-TIPS (646-820-8477; texts only, not a voice line).

If you have additions to this list, please note them in the comments to this post. At this point in time, we are not terribly interested in hearing about still more firms with 100 percent offer rates. It’s more newsworthy if a firm does NOT have a 100 percent offer rate than if it does.

So, with that in mind, we’d like to hear about firms that are NOT issuing offers to all their summer associates. If you know of a firm or an office with an unusually low offer rate — which we will arbitrarily define here as something under 66 percent, or two-thirds — please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Offer Rate”). We will then investigate and perhaps write a story. Thanks.

P.S. We’re about to close the nominations for our summer associate event contest. If you have an event you’d like to nominate, please email us or text us as soon as possible.

Earlier: What Was The Best Biglaw Summer Associate Event Of 2012?
Summer Associate Offer Rates (2012): Open Thread
Summer Associate Offer Rates (2011): Open Thread
Summer Associate Offer Rates: An Update
Summer Associate Offer Rates: Another Update

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