Offers

Summer Associate Offer Rates (2012): Not Every Biglaw Firm Handed Out Offers Like Candy!

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I got an offer!

The summer of 2012 brought a great deal of worry for Biglaw’s summer associates. Would they receive offers of permanent employment after all of their hard work? (And by “hard work,” we of course mean completing work assignments amid multiple forays into the world of being wined and dined.) In fact, this year’s summers were so anxious about whether they’d get an offer that their average “worry level” was higher than it had been since the height of the recession.

But as it turns out, all of their worry was for naught, because nearly all firms indiscriminately doled out offers like they were going out of style. According to the American Lawyer’s Summer Hiring Survey, responding firms hired 15.5 percent more summer associates this year than they did in 2011. That said, while things seem to be looking up, that doesn’t mean that all firms handed out offers like candy.

When we last spoke about summer associate offer rates, we wanted to know which firms had low offer rates. Now, thanks to Am Law, we’ve got some dirt for you. Which firms fell below the 100 percent mark?

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The Best Way to Brag About an Offer Is Under the Guise of Charity

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With offer season well under way, some law students may be wondering how to tell the world that they’ve landed summer associate jobs without sounding like complete braggarts. These law students must have read a Miss Manners book or two, because thinking about the feelings of others is the polite thing to do.

Other law students just don’t care about trampling on the self-esteem of classmates. “Sorry about your tiny pink feelings, but I got an offer.” That was way harsh, Tai.

There is just one more category of law student: the law student who feels only slightly guilty bragging about a job offer, so he thinks up a creative way to broach the subject with peers. And one law student at a leading law school has got this method of breaking the news about offers on lock….

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Quote of the Day: For The Times They Are A-Changin’

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Stephen Venuto

People came in wanting to work, which is a shift. Students’ primary goal three or four years ago was to ensure they had a terrific social experience. They short-changed themselves a little.

– Stephen Venuto, head of on-campus recruiting for Biglaw firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, commenting on the new environment of summer associate programs during the legal recession.

This year, Orrick made offers of full-time employment to 47 of 52 summer associates. The firm’s 90 percent offer rate was at the lower end of the spectrum of the 17 national firms surveyed by Am Law.

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Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Schiff Hardin (Plus offer rate news.)

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In case you haven’t noticed, things have been quiet on the law firm front. And that shouldn’t come as a surprise: it’s August.

Summer associate programs are largely over (although we still want to hear about fun events and offer rates). Many associates and partners are taking vacation (especially if they have children they want to spend time with before school starts again).

On the litigation side, courts are slow because many judges are away. On the corporate side, some deals have been put on hold due to the gyrating stock market and economic uncertainty. We seem to be turning into Europe, where a good chunk of the population takes vacation for a good chunk of August.

But we still have pockets of law firm news to report, here and there. Today’s dispatch comes from Schiff Hardin, which earlier this month announced an associate pay raise….

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Career Center: An Offer Is Just the Beginning

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In this week’s Career Center Summer Associate Tips Series, Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner, discusses the importance of evaluating your summer associate offer.

Succeeding in a summer program means more than receiving an offer of employment. While receiving an offer is probably the most important objective of a summer program, you have many more responsibilities. First, you must understand the fit between you and the firm, you and a practice area, you and the city, and you and the profession. That you are able to receive an offer of employment does not validate the wisdom of your choice.

Too often the summer zips by in a fog of assignments, reviews, baseball games, dinners at partners’ homes, and cocktail parties. You are making a very important decision. The law firm is not your fiduciary, and your parents cannot make this choice for you. There is no automatic next or right step. Only you can decide about fit, temperament, tempo, and style of practice.

Will your first career choice be the right one?

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Career Center Tip of the Day: Evaluating the Counteroffer — Should You Stay or Should You Go? (Part 5)

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In the first four parts of our Career Center “Tip of the Day” series, focused on how to evaluate a counteroffer, we covered the importance of re-evaluating your current employment situation, assessing what the new firm is offering, analyzing the counteroffer of your current firm, and considering the ramifications (both tangible and intangible) of accepting the counteroffer and reneging on the new firm. Our final tip focuses on recognizing buyer’s remorse for what it actually is: fear of the unknown.

On to tip #5….

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Career Center Tip of the Day: Evaluating the Counteroffer — Should You Stay or Should You Go? (Part 4)

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In the first, second and third parts of our Career Center “Tip of the Day” series, focused on how to evaluate a counteroffer, we covered the importance of re-evaluating your current employment situation, assessing what the new firm is offering, and analyzing the counteroffer of your current firm. It is now time for you to consider the ramifications, both tangible and intangible, of accepting the counteroffer and reneging on the new firm.

On to tip #4….

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Career Center Tip of the Day: Evaluating the Counteroffer — Should You Stay or Should You Go? (Part 3)

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In the first and second parts of our Career Center “Tip of the Day” series, focused on how to evaluate a counteroffer, we covered the importance of re-evaluating your current employment situation and assessing what the new firm is offering you, to determine whether it addresses the issues/shortfalls of your current firm. Today we’ll discuss how to carefully analyze your firm’s counteroffer to see if it is really better than the new offer.

More on tip #3…

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Career Center Tip of the Day: Evaluating the Counteroffer — Should You Stay or Should You Go? (Part 2)

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In the first part of our Career Center “Tip of the Day” series, focused on how to evaluate a counteroffer, we covered the importance of re-evaluating your current employment situation to remind yourself of the reasons why you began your job search in the first place. Today we’ll discuss how to assess what the new firm is offering you, and how to determine whether it addresses the issues with or shortcomings of your current firm.

More on tip #2….

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Career Center Tip of the Day: Evaluating the Counteroffer — Should You Stay or Should You Go? (Part 1)

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The current installment of the Career Center “Tip of the Day” series focuses on helping associates evaluate the counteroffer. Since most law firms have trimmed the “fat” and reduced the number of attorneys on their payrolls, associates have been working harder and billing record hours. It is not surprising that many associates will be searching for jobs at new firms — and some will be fortunate enough to secure new positions. For the first time since the recession began, firms may actually be disappointed when one of their associates gets hired at another law firm, and are more likely to present these associates with tempting counteroffers.

We all know the studies and employment reports: it costs a firm more to hire new employees than to retain current employees. This fact is especially true for firms operating with fewer associates and an increased amount of work projected in 2011. It is important to be prepared and know how to react when presented with a counteroffer.

These tips will assist you in case you are ever put in the unenviable (or maybe enviable?) position of dealing with a counteroffer from your current firm. Now, on to the first tip….

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