Biglaw

Biglaw Offering 'Hot Fudge Sundae Bars' And 'Gift Cards' To Laterals

Warm and fuzzy recruiting...

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Brownie Sundae“Ice cream socials. Gift cards. Plenty of thank-you’s. BigLaw may not be known for being sweet and cuddly, but more firms are warming up to make new associate hires feel the love and hopefully stick around awhile before looking for a new home….”

Oh stop it. This level of saccharine hasn’t made you wretch yet?

That’s from a recent Law360 piece on covering the National Association of Legal Search Consultants symposium on Friday. Apparently the hot new trend in lateral recruiting is to pull out all the fuzzies and offer perks like “a work-hours ‘hot fudge sundae bar'” to make laterals feel at home.

It’s not that Biglaw couldn’t stand to be more welcoming. Embracing a cold, isolating existence of 18-hour days punctuated only by getting screamed at by fragile egos isn’t a matter of “toughness,” it’s just stupid. But the problem with blowing pixie dust at recruits is that all the forced happiness actually makes it harder to find a place where anyone would want to work. Why can’t Biglaw find the happy medium? As the old joke goes:

Upon arriving at the Pearly Gates, St. Peter told a recently deceased young man that he had a choice in his eternal resting place. After walking around heaven for a few hours to see a bunch of old people play Scrabble on clouds, he went to hell. Hell was bright and sunny, complete with parties, swimming, non-stop refreshments.

“Have you made your choice?” asked St. Peter.

“Yes, I’m going to go with hell,” the man replied.

With a puff of smoke, the man plopped into a horrific pit of lava, surrounded by grotesque demons poking him constantly with pitchforks. He finally managed to catch the attention of Satan himself.

“What happened? I toured this place and it was amazing.”

“Oh,” replied Satan, “you must have seen our summer associate program.”

Unlike the dolt in the joke, most everyone is clued in enough to know the summer program isn’t representative of Biglaw life. But why do so many firms embrace the artificial binary between the effusive summer associate love-in and the harsh reality of Biglaw? Paradise or hell. There’s a way to just be generally decent all the time, and some Biglaw firms — or at least some practice areas with them — have worked this out. The problem with the wild mood swings in Biglaw is it makes finding that solid, long-term niche all the harder.

And now it looks like firms are bringing the summer associate model of half-assed over-enthusiasm to the lateral field. Look, if firms are going to keep it up and really maintain enhanced levels of attorney contact and work-sponsored social opportunities — complete with hot fudge or otherwise — then that’s a positive step in terms of integrating new hires and building a welcoming culture for the long term. It’s more hokey than I’d like, but any sustained effort would be appreciated. Even hokey ploys can get some people to come out of their shells and improve the overall work culture.

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But if this is just “Summer Program: Extreme Lateral Edition,” a barrage of good will to be abruptly ditched after six months or so, then it’s just another manic mood swing for Biglaw and ultimately makes laterals feel even more out-of-place and confused when they have to wait a year to really understand what the work culture is really like.

BigLaw Frees Its Inner Oprah For Warm Embrace of Laterals [Law360]

Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

Photo via Getty Images

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