Aside from the summer associate who was allegedly fired for making racist remarks, we’ve had an incredibly slow season in terms of summer associate gossip. Much to my colleague Joe Patrice’s chagrin, nary a summer associate has even blown a goat in an effort to make summer associate programs great again. We suspect that one of the main reasons for that — on top of their fears of indebtedness and unemployment — is that summer associates have been on their very best behavior in the hopes of earning a glamorous $180K paycheck as a first-year associate after graduating from law school.
Money makes the Biglaw world go ’round, and it also makes summer associates act like a bunch of little goody two-shoes. That being the case, you’d think that this summer’s offer rates would be absolutely awesome. But are they? Let’s find out which firms have handed out offers to 100 percent of their summers — information that rising 2Ls will want to know as on-campus interviewing season starts up very soon at law schools across the country.
Many firms haven’t issued offers yet — some wait until the summer program is done, and some even wait until summer associates are back in school. In fact, so far we’ve only heard about 100 percent offer rates at one law firm:
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The Hogan Lovells New York office summer program ended on Friday. All summer associates received offers along with champagne and power ball tickets for the $300 million jackpot. The 23 2Ls got offers and the two 1Ls received offers to return next summer.
What a great sendoff gift! Now, imagine if one of those HoLove summers were to actually win the jackpot. That would be absolutely, positively amazing.
If you have offer rate information to share, please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Summer Associate Offer Rates”), or text us (646-820-8477). We keep our tipsters anonymous. When we receive enough information, we’ll do a follow-up.
Thanks a bunch, and to those of you who have already landed offers, congrats!
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Staci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.