Deferred Associates

Which firm will be the next to announce a deferral of its incoming first-years?

Biglaw firms aren't playing 'follow the leader' when it comes to associate deferrals... yet.

Will other Biglaw firms decide to do the same thing with their incoming associates to save money?

Will this become a trend among Biglaw firms?

'When you go to law school, nobody f**ks with you.'

Are start dates for first-year associates at major law firms back to normal, i.e., where they were before the Great Recession? And what about the class sizes for entering associates?

What should law students who were scheduled to be working at Dewey & LeBoeuf do now?

Which rival Biglaw firm might be a Dewey suitor? Who's the latest partner to leave Dewey? And what about summer associates and incoming associates?

What is Dewey going to do with incoming associates from the class of 2012? And will it hold on to its foreign offices?

With apologies to Langston Hughes, we have to ask: What happens to an associate deferred? Does he dry up, like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore — and then run? Run, run — away from Biglaw. That seems to be what at least some deferred associates are doing, as reported last […]

A little over a year ago, law firms came up with a unique plan to deal with the problem of too many associates and not enough work to go around: the deferral. It did not apply just to incoming associates; it was also offered up to those already at the firm who were open to […]

Shearman & Sterling is setting off some fireworks at the start of this Fourth of July weekend. It sent out a memo this morning to its deferred associates from 2009. (Remember them? They got $65,000 last year if they volunteered to go away until September 2010.) The deferred associates expected a letter two months ago […]

Last Friday, we named Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Ama Dwimoh our Lawyer of the Day. As a prosecutor, Dwimoh goes after child abusers. And yet, according to the New York Daily News — irony alert! — she herself abuses the kiddies, i.e., legal interns in her office. One reader with firsthand knowledge protested this portrayal […]

Deferred associates spending a year in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office claim that Brooklyn ADA Ama Dwimoh is an abusive boss. At first blush, one assumes that kids who have been coddled at the best schools and top firms simply weren’t prepared for the rough and tumble world of actual lawyering. But the Brooklyn D.A., […]

Do you remember the scene in the Amityville Horror House movie where the toilet says to the family, “Get out”? That seems to be what firms are telling incoming associates when they defer first-years until 2012. Today, we’ve got another firm that has decided to put some of its incoming associates on the long march […]

If your firm offered you a “voluntary” deferral option last year, they sure made a lot of promises. Chiefest among them was the understanding that the people who left voluntarily for a year would be able to come back to the firm and resume their Biglaw careers after the deferral. Well, that bond is about […]

We’ve received tips, texts, and phone calls about Blank Rome. As spring hurtles towards summer, the firm is letting incoming associates know that they won’t be starting any time soon. A tipster reports the firm is “rescinding” offers, but that’s not technically correct: I just heard from a friend that Blank Rome has rescinded offers […]

Day 2 of the 2010 NALP Annual Education Conference had a remarkably different feel from day 1. Apparently, it took everybody a day to realize that they were in Puerto freaking Rico. After really sticking to business casual on the first day, day 2 saw the introduction of something I’d call “business beachware.” Men were […]