We’ve devoted a lot of coverage to the NALP guidelines regarding summer associate hiring. At the beginning of the recruiting season, I suggested that the NALP guidelines were so toothless that law students should disregard them, just as the law firms have done. During the fall recruiting season, Sullivan & Cromwell was eager to ignore NALP, and they were stopped only by collective law school action, inspired by Harvard Law School.
After a second consecutive year of nobody being happy with the NALP guidelines, in January the organization finally indicated that it might change things up before the next recruiting season. The core of the proposed new program would be to set a date before which firms could not extend offers to potential summer associates. At the time, I was unimpressed:
I don’t know. Increasingly, I’m of the belief that the old system just needs to be blown up and a new one should be built from scratch. How can a firm make a realistic hiring decision nearly two years in advance based on one year of law school? How can a law student make an informed choice when firms straight-up lie to them?
We now know that my lack of confidence in NALP’s new proposals was nothing compared to what they were feeling at Jones Day. The firm has been all over the web today, making it known that it’s not at all impressed with NALP or the new proprosed guidelines, which it perceives as anti-competitive.
AI Is Killing Legal’s Billable Hour. It’s Also Repeating Its Worst Mistake
Law firms and legal departments are writing the future of the profession in separate rooms. What happens when they actually work together?
Gregory Shumaker, the hiring partner at Jones Day, wrote a seven-page missive to NALP explaining why their proposed new rules are misguided and potentially illegal.
Boy, I almost feel sorry for the NALP crew. They’re caught between a bunch of different masters and have an enforcement apparatus U.N. peacekeepers would laugh at.
There are many persuasive counterpoints Shumaker brings up about the new NALP proposal. But, if you been following along with Jones Day’s recent history, you know that the firm isn’t going to let an opportunity to slam its competitors go by. JD has weathered the recession well, and they want to make sure everybody knows it:
Apples! How do you like them?
As you might have guessed, I’m not exactly the kind of guy who worships at the altar of laissez-faire markets. I worry that left to their own devices law firms will (continue to) take advantage of the informational asymmetry between themselves and new recruits. I also worry that when long-term management goes bad, it is young lawyers who suffer broken careers, while the managers who made the terrible decisions keep their jobs and their million-dollar profits. Then those same managers feel the need to opine on the “entitlement” problem of the people whose careers they just destroyed, and blood starts cascading down my face.
Despite these misgivings, it’s really hard to argue with the clear truth of this next statement:
That’s the kind of “we don’t need no stinkin’ bailout” capitalism that true jackboots are supposed to support.
But my favorite JD point is this one:
There is something so refreshing about the truth. When you see the truth just staring back at you, like it is in this Jones Day letter, it makes you wonder why more people don’t try this whole truth-telling thing. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.
I mean, isn’t it 100% obvious that the biggest concern for law students right now is not when offers are made, but whether or not their potential employer is full of crap? It doesn’t really matter if you lie to law students in August, or November, or January. This isn’t a problem of timing, this is a problem of law firms lying to people in the class of 2009 and the class of 2010. The new NALP proposals don’t do anything about that problem.
So, give Jones Day some credit here. They’ve got a competitive-advantage right, and they’ve earned it by telling the truth to their people and their new hires. I guess that’s why the firm isn’t afraid to tell the truth to NALP. This whole “being honest” thing seems to be working out pretty well for the firm.
You can read the full Jones Day letter over on their website.
There has been a lot of reaction to the Jones Day letter throughout the blogosphere all day today. Click on the links below to see what others are saying.
Hey NALP, Don’t Put Us in the Same Camp as the Rest, Says Jones Day [WSJ Law Blog]
Jones Day: NALP Plan for Delayed Job Offers Is Radical and Anticompetitive [ABA Journal]
Jones Day is Not Thrilled with the Proposed OCI Rules [Am Law Daily]
Jones Day Is Still Really Angry About Proposed NALP Guidelines [Business Insider]
Earlier: Is It Time to Revamp the NALP Rules?
Accept Your Offers: All of Them
Harvard Law School to the Rescue
New NALP Rules Could Be on the Way
Jones Day Slams Its Competitors
