This email messages from a reader is representative of many we’ve received, as well as many comments on recent posts:

As a Biglaw summer associate waiting to hear about my future, I’d really like the site to focus on and publicize firms that give offers to all or most of their summer classes. [Last week’s] story entitled “Summer Offer Rate Open Thread” generated tons of discussion at my firm from associates and summers.

I know it will likely not control any hiring partner’s decisions, but you realize your site generates buzz and has some say in how students/other associates view firms. If you continue to publish summer offer rate stories, both good and bad, the site may be able to contribute to a higher summer offer percentage. Good job otherwise, I’ll keep reading.

You want to talk about summer associate offer rates? Fine, let’s talk about summer associate offer rates. Here’s the eagerly awaited follow-up to our earlier post on the subject. Have at it, in the comments.

We’ll kick off the discussion with some positive news. Negative news, at least under one of our bylines, will come later. Before we report out negative news, we need to talk to the firms in question first — you know, due process, journalism ethics, etc. That reporting will take time. We’re a small operation, and we’re short staffed this week, with Elie out on vacation. (If YOU want to share negative news on offer rates, of course, feel free to post in the comments.)

But who wants to hear negative news anyway? Get your fix of happily high offer rates, after the jump.

Last week, Fish & Richardson laid off 120 people. It was the second round of layoffs from the firm this year.

But that wasn’t the end of Fish’s cost cutting measures. Yesterday, the firm effectively “cold offered” one-third of its incoming first year associate class. Another third of the class will start on time, and the rest have been deferred until October 2010. Above the Law has obtained this statement from the firm:

While approximately one-third of our 2009 associate class will start on time, we are deferring the majority of the class to October 2010. About half of those deferred will receive a stipend of $5,000 per month for twelve months, along with reimbursement for health insurance. We have informed the other half of those deferred that, given current economic conditions, it is unlikely that we will have a position for them next fall, and we have advised them to seek other opportunities. That group will receive a stipend of $5,000 per month for six months, along with reimbursement for health insurance, and we will revisit their situations in mid-2010.

Isn’t it a bit late for firms to cold offer incoming associates? It’s almost June, yet a third of the first year class just found out that there were essentially out of a job.

Tipsters weigh in, and an update on how the decision was made, after the jump.

In late October, we received this question from a federal clerk:

To date, I’ve seen at least six posts in a series ATL has been doing about firms rescinding unaccepted summer associate offers to 2L’s due to oversubscription of the summer class. I would be interested to know whether firms are actually, or at least contemplating, rescinding unaccepted offers for full-time associate positions that were being held open for former summer associates that are doing judicial clerkships this year?

I have an offer from a biglaw firm and was assured (albeit almost one year ago) that my offer would be held open until I had completed my clerkship and could formally accept. Needless to say, I am getting more than a bit nervous about whether my job will still be waiting for me come September ‘09.

At the time, we told the questioner that we hadn’t heard anything like that from any major law firm during this recruiting cycle. Nobody’s going to rescind offers to clerks!

We thought.

We hoped.

Yesterday, we had a couple of interesting conversations with folks over at Wiley Rein. We now believe that the chair of Wiley Rein’s recruiting committee placed a number of phone calls over the weekend to current judicial clerks. The recruiting coordinator was careful to say that Wiley was not “rescinding” offers, but that the clerks should seriously consider looking at other options for full-time employment when their clerkships are up.

More details after the jump.

We’ve reported that firms with “oversubscribed” summer classes are calling up 2Ls and encouraging them to not accept their 2009 summer associate offers. Unlike Akin Gump’s move, the tactic is a clever dodge around the NALP guidelines. As we understand it, firms are not committing these “cold offers” to email, instead using the telephone and avoiding a paper trail.

Career services departments are trying to cope with this new law firm tactic. Some Michigan students received this email from their career services dean:

Hi. It is my understanding that you have an offer from White and Case in New York. After talking to contacts in the New York legal market, it appears that White and Case may have over-hired for next summer and has a particularly large class. Therefore, it may be in your best interest to take another offer if you have one.

According to the WSJ Law Blog, White & Case claims ignorance over why Michigan would send out this email:

A spokesman for White & Case told the Law Blog: “We don’t know, honestly, why a law school career services office would send out these letters. No on has talked to us about the situation, and we’ve certainly not encouraged anyone to send out letters to students.”

Notice how White & Case did not say “we intend to honor every summer associate offer we’ve made.”

We have been consistently encouraging 2Ls to accept their offers sooner rather than later. Many career services departments have echoed that advice. White & Case joins Proskauer as one of the firm that has been “outed” as telling people that they should look elsewhere for offers, but we suspect that many firms are doing this.

After the jump, speculation about other firms.

August marks the end of extravagant lunches and open bars, and the return to the starving-student lifestyle for this year’s batch of summer associates. This time of year also presents summers with a big, anxiety-inducing question:

Am I getting The Offer — i.e., an offer to return to The Firm on a more permanent / full-time basis, after graduation?

Some summers find out about their future employment prospects while still at their law firms. This might happen during an exit interview, or it might happen in more public fashion:

The DC office of Latham & Watkins just called all summer associates into a conference room and announced that they were extending offers to 100% of the DC summer associate class.

We haven’t confirmed this with the firm, but if true — congratulations, Lathamites of Washington!

(We also hear, through the grapevine, that Shearman & Sterling gave offers to all 135 of its SAs. If you know of other 100-percent-offer shops, feel free to note them in the comments. Please note, however, that what appears in the comments is unverified. So caveat lector.)

Update: Shearman gave offers to 139 out of 140 summers who were considered for offers. See here.

Other summer associates don’t learn their fates until after the end of their programs. Word might come a week or two after the program ends — or even later. Our estimable (but outgoing) editor-in-chief recalls that Wachtell Lipton didn’t notify its summer class about offers until September. (That was several years ago; WLRK’s current practice may differ.)

Read more about cold offers — including a more detailed explanation of what exactly is a cold offer, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the institution — after the jump.