With all the attention focused on the 2009 summer class, and current associates getting laid-off, and full service law firms dissolving, we've kind of lost sight of the 2008 summer class. Many of them have still not made a decision about their future employment.

We've received reports from multiple tipsters that say Locke Lord's Houston office made offers to less than 50% of their summer class:

I thought you should know that [Redacted] Locke Lorde in Houston, TX only extended offers to 14/30 of their 2L summer associates - including no-offers to some who had spent their 1L summer with them.

As we understand it, 27 of those summers were 2Ls.

Apparently the relationship between Locke Lord and their 2008 summers was one of mutual unhappiness. We've been told that of the 14 offers, only four have been accepted at this point.

You'd expect a little better than 4 out of 14 in this market.

A "profile" of one of the summers that did receive an offer after the jump.

Full disclosure: we do not know exactly what is going on over at Foley & Lardner. But we are hearing a lot of chatter.

By way of a quick summary: we posted information that Foley offered only 43% of their summers out the Chicago office. Then Foley issued a firm wide email saying that they offered 81% of their Chicago summers (we posted that too). Meanwhile, the firm has rebuffed multiple attempts to verify any of this information directly. For more details read here and here.

After we updated Foley's hiring numbers and posted Foley's CEO Ralf Boer's statements, our tipsters wagged their fingers and said "oh no he didn't." This email is indicative of many comments we received:

Just FYI--Ralf Boer's email is a load of crap.

Hmmm ...

Many believe that Foley did in fact tell summers that they would not be receiving an offer, but then reversed course early this week, after our initial post on Foley's no offers went up. The thought from these tipsters is that the public backlash was so bad that Foley had to rethink their hiring decisions. Initially we found it hard to believe that a firm would have the gall to no offer somebody, only to call them up weeks later with an offer. But the tips kept rolling in.

We are happy (rolling around like a pig in sweet, sweet slop, happy) to think that ATL had some small role to play in securing additional summer associate jobs in this economy. But there are two sides to every story. Some tipsters think that Foley's delay in completing the offer process is par for the course:

I just want to say that I know first hand that .. many people had not yet heard either way about offers. That is for both 1Ls and 2Ls. ... I think you should update your main posting for the sake of all the comments calling b.s. on Ralf Boer's statement that they only just finished making all the decisions. ... I know for a fact first-hand that several people had yet to hear as of yesterday and even today. On an historical note, right about now is exactly how long it took Foley to get back to many folks last year.

So did Foley ding people and then change their mind, or did they just take a long time to finish their hiring process? More tipsters weigh in after the jump.

We received a lot of reports about Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge in Boston. Most of them contained a surprising tidbit:

We were all told that we did really well and that "but for the economy," we all would have received offers. When the no-offer phone calls came, we were told we had great reviews but that EAPD just couldn't take us all on.

That sounds suspiciously honest. Everybody did fine and we'd like to hire all of you, but "hey kid, in case you haven't noticed, the economy reeks like an upside-down port-o-potty -- so what can we do?"

The "it's not you, it's me" line doesn't even work in the movies, but in this case it seems strangely appropriate.

The EAPD no offer numbers, plus the firm's official statement, after the jump.

Our continuing coverage of no offers suggests that a 90% offer rate is actually outstanding. Today we have news from two more firms that fell short of 90% but still made offers to the majority of their 2008 summer associates.

Our tipsters were right on the money with the information that Blank Rome no offered 4 summer associates out of a class size in the mid-20s. According to Blank Rome spokesperson Topper Ray:

Our 2008 summer associate class was comprised of 28 summer associates -24 2L's and 4 1L's. 20 out of 24 2L's received offers.

Ray also confirmed that the 4 1Ls received invitations to summer with the firm next year.

In this market an 83% offer rate isn't terrible, even though Blank Rome was able to extend offers to all of their 2007 summer associates.

The news was a little worse at another Philadelphia powerhouse, Pepper Hamilton. According to Pepper Hamilton spokesperson Polly Coxe:

In 2008, Pepper Hamilton extended offers to 20 of 27 summer associates in Philadelphia (two students withdrew from consideration before we made offer decisions). Firm-wide, we made offers to 30 of 38 summer associates. This is approximately the same number of offers we extended the past two years.

More from the streets of Philadelphia after the jump.

Last week, we reported that Foley & Lardner no offered 43% of their 2008 summer class from their Chicago office.

The firm has still not contacted us directly, but multiple tipsters passed along a clarification email sent to all Foley associates late last night.

Straight from the horse's mouth (CEO Ralf Boer):

Many of you may have heard about blog comments critical of Foley's hiring decisions from this year's summer program which just concluded. Some of those comments indicate that we have extended offers to fewer than 50% of this summer's 2L participants. The purpose of this e-mail is to set the record straight so that all of you have the facts, rather than the rumors which started as we made our first offers and before we completed our offer process.We literally have only completed our offer process at the office level today, and additional offers may yet be made.

As we pointed out in our initial story, some tipsters mentioned that Foley could still have been reviewing summer candidates as of last week. We couldn't confirm those reports with the firm, but they appear to have been correct.

So what are the final numbers shaping up like?

If we look at the number of offers made to date, the offer percentage is 84% (89 offers to the 106 2Ls in the summer program). That number may go up as we complete our offer process. Thus, the percentages reported in the blogs were calculated as we were in the middle of our offer process and, accordingly, were inaccurate. Some of the blog reports related to our Chicago offer rate. We have, in fact, to date made 17 offers to a 2L class of 21, for an offer rate of 81% in Chicago, not the 50% reported on the blogs. Again, that percentage may also go up.

84% overall, 81% out of Chicago. That is a bit lower than the 90% many firms are reporting, but far better than the bloodbath it looked like last week.

More on Foley after the jump.

Earlier today we reported that Squire, Sanders & Dempsey extended offers to 76% of their summer class, but that an untold number of those summers received staff attorney offers.

Well, after an initial "no comment" on the staff attorney question, Squire Sanders decided to clarify their statement:

The firm made one staff attorney offer. The offer was extended to accommodate a law student's interest in a practice area that was only hiring staff attorneys for 2009. We did not include the staff attorney offer when we reported to you that 76% of the summer associates received associate offers. We intend to report associate offer numbers to NALP excluding the staff attorney offer as well.

There you go. At least the 24% of the class that was no-offered do not have to feel as bad about themselves as some commenters suggested.

I guess I can stop screaming at NALP about the purity of their report.

Earlier: Nationwide No Offer Watch: Squire Sanders

The no-offer reports keep rolling in from our readers, but one tip about Squire, Sanders & Dempsey stopped us in our tracks:

[A summer associate] at Squire Sanders got offered a staff attorney position. Apparently one-third of the class got real offers, some got staff attorney offers, and the rest?

Staff attorney -- i.e., a job with a significantly lower salary than an associate position, featuring endless document review and discovery work, and without any prospect of promotion to partnership. Is that a cold offer, or a coldcock?

Or is it "creative accounting" for purposes of reporting to NALP, which collects and publishes data about summer associate programs? Presumably Squire Sanders will count the staff attorney "offers" in the number of full-time employment offers made to summer associates that it reports to NALP. But bringing the summers on as staff attorneys rather than associates will save the firm a lot of money. This is one of the most creative ways of dealing with the downturn that we've come across.

Squire Sanders spokesperson Drez Jennings provided us with a prompt and direct response:

[W]e made offers to 76 percent of the summers, and no offers to 24 percent.

Ouch. No-offering a quarter of your class is already pretty harsh.

Jennings declined to comment on the staff attorney question (even though it was explicitly presented), leaving ATL readers to speculate on how many, if any, of Squire Sanders summer offers were for staff attorney positions.

More on Squire Sanders and staff attorneys, after the jump.

Foley & Lardner. You've heard the rumors. We've heard the rumors. Foley & Lardner have heard the rumors and chosen not to respond. But the smoke screen cannot obscure the summer structure fire.

Multiple tipsters coalesced around these numbers: 9 of 21 Foley Chicago summers received offers. But six of those offers went to IP attorneys, leaving non-IP summers with a stunning 3 of 15 success rate.

I'm no mathlete, but that doesn't look like the 90% offer rate like we've been hearing from other firms.

And as we've seen with other firms, going to a top school was no summer offer safety net. Again, thus far the firm isn't talking so we can't know for sure, but it appears that HYS summers went 0 for 4 at Foley Chicago.

Read what people are saying below the fold.

While we continue to pester firms about no offer information, it appears that one firm dipped significantly below the 90% threshold for summer associate offers, at least in the New York office.

Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney is another firm that has reported an oversubscribed summer associate class. That said, Buchanan Ingersoll spokesperson Lori Lecker reports that the summers were at least busy:

[W]e had more than enough work to keep all of our summer associates busy throughout the course of the program, and we received positive feedback from the class on the quality of work. We generated over 300 projects for our summers to work on this year.

Most firms don't bother to tout how much work their summer class had, but Buchanan is fighting specific reports that attorneys are struggling to make their billables firmwide. Just two weeks ago it was reported that barely a quarter of the firms 500 lawyers were on target, and that average associate hours had fallen below 1,650.

So the summers had work, but did they get jobs? More on that after the jump.

We continue our series on no offers with new information from DLA and Bryan Cave.

First the good news. The reports on DLA Piper no offers seem to be exaggerated. We had heard that as many as 1/3rd of the of the DLA summer calls had been no offered. But DLA spokesperson Jason Costa assures us that the final number of offers will be "significantly above" 2/3rds of the class.

Costa reports that DLA's summer associate review is still ongoing. Therefore there are DLA summers who will receive offers from the firm, but have not yet been contacted.

But we're not living in the 90s and a 100% offer rate is probably a little too much to hope for. Costa emphasized that an "overwhelming majority" of summers will receive offers.

Costa also said that he was not aware of any summers that had been "wait-listed," or received offers yet told to continue looking for other employment.

The people at Bryan Cave also emphasized the strength of their summer class, while admitting that not every summer associate would be receiving an offer.

After the jump, firms try to locate the magic number.

The tips keep rolling in about firms no offering summer associates. Today's confirmed casualty report comes from Stroock & Stroock & Lavan.

Unlike Wiley Rein, Winston & Strawn, and other reports we've heard that suggest firms are coalescing around a 90% offer rate, Stroock made offers to only 80% of their '08 summer class.

Stroock did not directly confirm this number, but they did not deny it either.

Instead, Stroock communications director Jim Ponichtera focused on a different percentage:

In 2007, Stroock made a strategic decision to increase the size of its incoming class. Our summer classes were typically in the 28-30 range, and in 2008 we had 54 summer associates. Part of this was due to our decision to increase the class size, and part of this was due to an unexpectedly high acceptance rate of offers to join our summer program.

At the end of the summer, we extended a record number of entry-level offers - over 50% more than in 2007, which is consistent with our current business plan.

You hear that? 50% more offers.

More on the 20% who didn't make the cut after the jump,

As we mentioned earlier today, we're doing a series of posts on law firms no-offering their summer associates. Recently we heard this, from an operative in a law school career services office:

The first blow of what we expect to be a horrible recruiting season has landed. Winston & Strawn in Chicago was "oversubscribed" and is handing out no-offers and soft offers.

We contacted the firm for comment. From spokesperson Darryl Van Duch:

I am responding on behalf of firm management regarding your inquiry about Winston's summer class. In your email you stated that Winston & Strawn in Chicago is oversubscribed, and is handing out no-offers and cold offers.

It is the firm's policy to not comment on individual personnel issues or hiring issues. However, we felt in this situation it was appropriate to address your statements. As to the issue of cold offers, we have not made and will not make so-called 'cold' offers. Additionally, the overall percentage rate of offers we made to summer associates in the firm this year was in the 90s, consistent with prior years.

What we've been hearing is roughly consistent with Van Duch's statement. Tipsters tell us that the firm's Chicago office no-offered 7 out of 67 summer associates, meaning that 90 percent of summers did receive offers.

Now, 90 percent seems plenty high. But it's certainly lower than the 95 to 100 percent offer rates that were par for the Biglaw course during recent boom times. According to the NALP directory, the Chicago office of Winston had an offer rate of 100 percent in 2007, with 37 out of 37 summers getting offers.

More ruminations on offer rates, after the jump.

Thanks for all of the tips in response to our Friday post on no-offers. We are investigating various leads and will bring you a series of posts based on what we learn.

We'll start with Wiley Rein. The firm's 2008 summer class was oversubscribed, but only four summer associates paid the price. We'd been hearing reports that Wiley gave offers to 34 out of 38 SAs, and the firm has now confirmed the news.

Kay Nash, director of professional development and attorney recruiting at Wiley, said over email:

As is always the case here, everyone who deserved an offer received one, despite our higher numbers this summer. We are confident that we can comfortably accommodate the excellent students to whom we extended offers. We always aim for approximately 25 new associates, but gave a significantly higher number of offers reflecting the strength of our summer class.

A few tipsters pointed out that Wiley's class may have been oversubscribed due to the huge fees the firm earned as part of the 2006 Blackberry litigation. The settlement pushed Wiley's profits per partner all the way to number one for 2006.

Thirty-four offers out of an expected 25 slots suggests that Wiley is doing the best they can. But that probably does not mean a lot to the four fallen. We pour out our 40 to the undeserving four.

Earlier: Fall Recruiting Open Thread: No Offer, No Cry

This has probably already been done at some law school parody show or "law revue." If so, feel free to point that out, in the comments.

But if not -- of even if it has, but someone wants to revisit it, in light of the current (dismal) state of the legal job market -- here are suggested lyrics for No Offer, No Cry (to the tune of Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry):

No offer, no cry
No offer, no cry

Said - said - said: I remember when we used to sit
In the career services office in law school,
Observing the Biglaw hypocrites
As they would mingle with the good people we meet.

Classmates we have, oh, classmates we've lost
Along the way.
In 3L interviewing, you can't forget your past;
So dry your tears, I say.

Earlier this month, we raised the subject of cold offers. Now it's time to talk about a topic we raised last year, but have not yet raised this year: the cold offer's crueler cousin, the NO OFFER.

We hear that no-offering is on the rise -- which is not surprising, given the tanking economy and Biglaw layoffs. Which law firms are doling out no-offers to their summer associates this year? Feel free to discuss, in the comments.

As always, caveat lector. Information in the comments has not been verified, and we make no representations or warranties as to its accuracy. Read at your own risk.

If you'd like to send us a tip that you are capable of vouching for -- e.g., you were a summer at the firm in question -- please email us (subject line: "No Offer - [Firm Name]"). For tips submitted via email, we will try to verify them if we can, and possibly revert to you with a list of no-offer factories (to use last year's coinage). Thanks.

Earlier: Fall Recruiting Open Thread: Cold Offers
Fall Recruiting Open Thread: No-Offer Factories