Fall Recruiting

Be careful about what you place in the trash. Law firms have paper shredders for a reason; use them. Consider this your practice pointer for the day. Earlier this month, an ATL reader sent us a collection of documents relating to Sullivan & Cromwell's on-campus interviewing program. So, what was in these documents? The contents will be of interest to partners and associates at other firms, as well as law students going through the OCI process right now....

At law schools and law firms around the country, on-campus interviewing and callback interviews are in full swing. We've been covering the fall (or summer?) recruiting process quite closely, offering you a mix of interview advice, humorous anecdotes, and soul-crushing reality checks. Now it's your turn to talk back to us....

I've been working in small law firms my whole career — nearly 17 years. I'd like to tell you that I chose this path for carefully considered and noble reasons, but I can't. In truth, I ended up on the small-firm path for one simple reason: A blonde. Let me explain. Now it's not what you think. I didn't turn my back on a BigLaw career to pursue a flaxen-haired beauty. That would almost be romantic, and this is a serious law blog. Ish. No, the story is a bit more prosaic.

When you read the accounts of recruiters at these firms, you get a sense of why they might choose these metrics. They have multiple stacks of resumes. They meet hundreds of applicants at career fairs. Rather than scrutinizing anyone’s resume it’s easier just to limit the pool to the top three or four universities. Do […]

Back in February of this year, the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) announced a minor change to its recruiting guidelines. I was underwhelmed. New associates are graduating law school in a terrible job market, firms are sick of being forced to hire people two years before they know their staffing needs, and NALP is […]

Greetings, loved ones. Hello there, California girls (and boys). We hope that you’re doing well. Gay marriage might be on hold for now, but there are other unions to celebrate on the West Coast. Like unions between law firms and job-seeking law students. As we’ve discussed in these pages before, on-campus interviewing at law schools […]

While there are students enjoying the good life as summer associates, many rising 3Ls are staring into the abyss of entering 3L recruiting without a post-graduate job lined up. At the University of Michigan Law School, the office of career services is preparing students for just how abysmal the abyss is going to be: As […]