The return of summer associate days of yore?
* Obama has officially nominated William Baer, an Arnold & Porter partner, to run the DOJ’s antitrust division. Get ready for an election year confirmation showdown between the parties. [New York Times]
* Newt Gingrich has dropped out of the Virginia ballot lawsuit that was originally filed by Rick Perry. What does this mean for his campaign? Is he giving up his plans for the presidency, too? [Washington Post]
* Here’s a great refresher on all things Prop 8 in anticipation of today’s ruling from the Ninth Circuit. This is happening on West Coast time, so check back for our coverage this afternoon. [Poliglot / Metro Weekly]
* Summer associate hiring might be back in business thanks to pickups in litigation and transactional work, but don’t go out and start licking those Biglaw popsicles just yet. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* Sorry, bridge and tunnel people, but it looks like you’re going to have to keep paying increased prices at the tolls. AAA of New York and North Jersey lost a bid to block collection of the fee hikes. [Bloomberg]
* Anna Nicole Smith is no longer with us, but her memory will forever live on in ABA Resolution 10B. Gold diggers across the nation can now rely on the power of federal magistrate judges. [ABA Journal]
Hands off the dancers, sir.
Our latest Biglaw blind item concerns the sighting of a partner at a strip club.
Right now you’re probably thinking: yawn. A law firm partner at a strip club? As they say, it happens every day (or night — and often gets billed to “business development”).
But there are a few more details that make this item noteworthy….
Continue reading “Biglaw Blind Item: A Partner Walks Into a Strip Club….”
Yesterday we brought you the story of a 2L at Cardozo Law School who has taken out Google ads promoting himself, in an attempt to find a summer associate job. Here’s what his ad looks like (as displayed to an Above the Law reader who alerted us to his campaign):
We reached out to Eric Einisman to ask him: What was he thinking?
Continue reading “An Interview With the 2L Who’s Advertising Himself on Google”
A reader alerted us to the following Google ad, which showed up in a Gmail sidebar next to a law-related email chain:
Whoa! Is this for real? Is a second-year student at Cardozo Law School actually advertising himself via text ads on Google, promoting himself as “[a] great choice for Summer Associate”?
Are Cardozo law students truly this desperate? Is this why the career services dean quit to teach yoga? Should Cardozo focus less on teaching students how to walk and more on teaching them how to conduct job searches?
Or is this too harsh an assessment? Let’s learn more about the 2L behind this unusual ad.
Continue reading “One 2L’s Innovative Approach to Job Hunting”
Being a summer associate isn't a day at the beach, but it's still pretty awesome.
A summer associate program at a top law firm is like sex or pizza: even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.
That seems to be the conclusion of the American Lawyer’s 2011 summer associate survey. Am Law polled 3,656 students at 138 law firms about their summer experiences and used the results to rank 108 summer programs. The lowest-ranked program — that of Chadbourne & Parke, in case you’re wondering — still emerged with a healthy overall satisfaction score of 4.142 (on a 5.0 scale).
If you’re a law student trying to figure out where to spend your summer, you’re probably asking: Which law firms came out with the highest scores?
Continue reading “Very Happy Campers: The Top 10 Summer Associate Programs”
Last week, we told you the story about a University of Chicago Law School student who received an offer and found a charitable way of bragging about it to his friends.
I should have known that we’d end up doing a series of posts about this. “Bragging” about getting an offer is something that everybody does in their own way, and something that rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
And so our next installment of law student puffery involves photos, which is always fun. But in truth we can’t be totally sure if this guy is bragging about getting an offer.
Given the firm the kid is bragging about, he might just be happy to be there…
Continue reading “Best Way To Brag About An Offer: Now With Pictures”
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….
Continue reading “The Best Way to Brag About an Offer Is Under the Guise of Charity”
Now that Labor Day is behind us, fall is fast approaching. You can tell by the chill in the evening air.
Or is that just the cold offers we’re feeling? Last month, we asked you for stories about firms giving out cold offers to summer associates. As we explained, a “cold offer” or “fake offer” is, in the words of NALP, an employment offer made “with the understanding that the offer will not be accepted.”
This “offer,” made with a wink and a nudge, allows the employing law firm to report (and boast about) a 100 percent offer rate, when in reality it isn’t welcoming back 100 percent of its summer associates. It also has an advantage for the recipient: when she goes through 3L recruiting, she can truthfully say, “Yes, I received an offer from the firm where I summered.”
We recently heard a story about a pretty cold offer (not from summer 2011, but from not too long ago summer 2010). This summer associate, who wasn’t the most popular person in her class, received a full-time employment offer “contingent upon obtaining a federal clerkship.” Given how hard it is to land a federal judicial clerkship, that’s a pretty cold offer — especially considering that the student in question, now graduated, didn’t go to a law school known for cranking out lots of clerks.
But wait, it gets better….
Continue reading “Biglaw Blind Item: An Ice-Cold Offer”
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.
With OCI coming to an end at most law schools, now is the time to sit back and assess the interview process. While you may be tempted to tune out until you receive an offer (or rejection), don’t.
In addition to reviewing your performance in the interview, you should critique the performance of the law firm.
Furthermore, be sure to consider the following tips from Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball before you accept an offer….
Continue reading “Career Center: Assessing the OCI Interview Process”
There are no magic questions to take through the interview process. There are only areas to be examined. Life is one long extemporaneous speech. It is not canned dialogue. The student who prepares and understands the areas that are significant to her decision will know where to focus her questions.
Some questions should be directed at associates, while others should be directed to partners. Students sometimes forget that they can actually learn something more about the firm by asking questions. Yes, the questions you ask will be assessed by the interviewer; but please don’t ask certain questions for the sake of asking questions.
This helpful information is provided by Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball. What follows is an outline of areas you may want to consider, but remember who your audience is….
Continue reading “Career Center: To Be, or Not To Be (An Associate) – Interview Questions You Should Ask”
As part of your interview preparation, you should familiarize yourself with the kinds of questions you may be asked and prepare responses to those questions. Nothing turns off an interviewer more than “ummms” and “uhhhs.” You don’t have to memorize your responses verbatim (and you shouldn’t), but being prepared will help you avoid any Miss Teen South Carolina answers to any interviewer questions.
While it is impossible to cover every single question an interviewer may ask, Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, legal recruiter and former hiring partner, provides his recommended responses to commonly asked questions, adds comments explaining the purpose of the question, and points out any “traps” the interviewer may be setting by asking you the question.
Below are some of the most common questions asked during on-campus interviews….
Continue reading “Career Center: Questions You May Be Asked In Your Interview”
Gregory Berry
One of the most compelling characters to populate our pages lately is Gregory S. Berry. As you surely recall, Gregory Berry is the Penn Law grad and ex-associate at Kasowitz Benson who is now suing his former firm for a whopping $77 million.
Thus far, reader sentiment doesn’t seem favorable towards Berry. According to Above the Law sources, Greg Berry wasn’t popular at Penn Law, where he was known for sending strange emails about his traffic court misadventures to his classmates. A tipster who knew Berry during his first career, as a software engineer who “conquer[ed]” Silicon Valley, expressed the view that Berry was “very inflexible,” lacking in a sense of perspective, and “not a good fit with the dot.com 1.0 work-style.”
In fairness to Berry, however, we have heard more positive opinions as well. For example, one Penn classmate described Berry to us as “a nice, smart dude, and a go-getter.”
And now a second source has contacted us, also to defend Greg Berry — and to criticize Berry’s former employer, Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman….
Continue reading “In Defense of Gregory Berry (Plus a few more funny stories.)”
Congratulations! After enduring several hours of OCI “speed dating,” you scored a callback interview. You have done your research, gotten “in the zone,” and it’s off to the firm reception area for a day of interviews. You’re tense — which is proof that you’re alive and that you care. You’re worried that you don’t know as much as you should — which is proof that you are not arrogant or presumptuous. You’re as focused as you were the day before final examinations began at the end of first year — because you know there is a lot on the line.
Exhale, check your breath, and make sure you reviewed the following tips, courtesy of Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, before you set out for your interview….
Continue reading “Career Center: The Callback Interview – Why the Relaxed, Well Prepared Student Will Prevail”
I know what you did this summer –- so thanks for filling out the 2011 Summer Associate Experience Survey. We’ve highlighted a few more of the unique and memorable summer programs in 2011. For more summer associate program information, check out the updated summer associate program sections of the law firm profiles on the Career Center, sponsored by Lateral Link.
To continue with our summer program superlatives, click on the links below to see if your firm received any accolades….
Continue reading “Career Center: 2011 Summer Associate Survey Results (Part 2)”
Welcome to our latest round-up of summer associate offer rate news. This post contains the latest list of law firms and offices with 100 percent offer rates. In future posts, we’re going to shift gears and focus on firms with lower-than-average offer rates.
An offer rate that’s lower than 100 percent is not necessarily newsworthy. The fall recruiting process by which summer associates are selected isn’t perfect. Sometimes candidates look great on paper and do well during interviews, but then do something during the summer — turning in disappointing work product, getting drunk and acting inappropriately — that causes them to get no-offered. And sometimes people get no-offered for reasons that aren’t their fault — office politics, discrimination. Stuff happens.
We’re not expecting 100 percent offer rates all around. At the same time, there is such a thing as an unusually low offer rate. If you know of an office with an unusually low offer rate — which we will arbitrarily define here as something under 66 percent, or two-thirds — please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Offer Rate”).
Now, on to the updated list of firms and offices with 100 percent offer rates….
Continue reading “Summer Associate Offer Rates: Another Update
(Now we’d like to hear about the no-offering….)“
Now that 2011 summer programs have officially come to an end at Biglaw firms everywhere, law students are returning to their schools a little less naïve about working in Biglaw, a little bloated from all the free food, and seriously missing their fat summer associate paychecks. But how hard did they have to work, and how well were they fed on the firm’s dime?
Here at the Career Center, we know that summer programs are about much more than numbers and stats. So we surveyed summer associates at the top law firms in the country to find out about all aspects of their summer experience. Based on these survey results, brought to you by Lateral Link, we have completely updated the summer associate program sections of the Career Center’s firm profiles.
As befits the end of any school year, we’re also handing out some summer program superlatives to commemorate the 2011 summer class. Click on the links after the jump to see if the firm you work at, or want to work at, made the cut….
Continue reading “Career Center: 2011 Summer Associate Survey Results (and Some Summer Program Superlatives)”
In this week’s Career Center Tips Series, Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, an expert recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner, discusses the importance of research prior to on-campus interviewing.
View the interview as an athletic contest that requires energy, preparation, and constant flexibility. You will turn the tables and impress the employer with your knowledge of her firm. Even the toughest question (about bad grades and the like) can be handled with aplomb. The lawyer who projects an image of relaxed self-confidence will carry the day. Think for a moment about the differences between nervous, high energy politicians (George Bush “41″ and Michael Dukakis) and relaxed and self confident politicians (Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton). In politics, law, or medicine, a good bedside manner is critical to care for citizens, clients and patients.
You have begun a multi-decade career as a lawyer after investing three years and a small fortune. Just as the first year of law school was a demanding mélange of information, chaos, rumor, fact, stress, and progress, so too will be the process of finding the right place to continue your career. From the beginning of the process through the final decision, the student who understands the prospective employer will compete more effectively.
How can you become better prepared for an interview? Read on, after the jump….
Continue reading “Career Center: Ready, Set, Interview — Researching Your Way Into a Job Offer”
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….
Continue reading “Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Schiff Hardin (Plus offer rate news.)”
Now that the summer is almost over, the Career Center will be switching gears and posting tips and advice on the most magical time of the year for law students — On-Campus Interviews (OCI). In the next few weeks, law firms will be dropping down the chimneys of law schools across the country, giving summer clerkship offers to good little boys and girls. Obviously, you need the grades and class rank to be initially placed on the “Good List,” but to remain on that list once firms are “checking it twice,” it is important to be prepared when firms are “gonna find out who is naughty or nice.”
Now enough with the Christmas puns and on to the first OCI Tips post, brought to you by Lateral Link’s Frank Kimball, legal recruiter and former Biglaw hiring partner….
Continue reading “Career Center: Preparing for On-Campus Interviews — Know Your Strengths & Limitations”
