Everyone Gets An Offer . . . Unless They Don’t

What should you do if you find yourself no offered?

With the Fall recruiting cycle in full swing, the attention of not only Career Services, but really the law school as a whole — since most classes have yet to start and 1L orientation is still in the offing — are on rising 2Ls and their quest to land a job for next summer.  The importance of OCI cannot be overrated, especially for those students looking to start their legal career in Biglaw, which is why I penned a fourpart OCI series that aimed to be a comprehensive look at the process geared for those students currently going through OCI or who will be doing so in the not-too distant future.

The importance of OCI rests on the fact that it is the first part of a well-established chain of events which leads to post-graduation Biglaw employment:

  1. Get a summer associate offer
  2. Work as a summer associate
  3. Get a postgraduate associate offer
  4. Profit

But what happens if step 3 never happens?  What happens if after your stint as a summer associate, there is no offer of permanent employment?

Most firms, especially among those with the largest headcounts, want to give permanent offers to their entire summer class for a host of reasons.  These firms need a new batch of first-year associates each Fall to serve as grist for the mill and size of the summer class was likely chosen to match the firm’s needs.  Furthermore, firms know that a failure to make offers to all summers give them a black mark among students when it comes to recruiting, a problem which will only be exacerbated when the sub-100 percent offer rate is discussed at least in the pages of this august publication.

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But while Biglaw firms might strive for a 100 percent offer rate, that does not always come to pass. So what should you do if you find yourself no offered?

First things first, you need to find out what happened.  If you had a few too many drinks at a firm event, disrobed, jumped into the Hudson River, and then had to be fished out by the Coast Guard, it should not come as a great surprised that you were no offered.

But to the consternation of some on this site, such tales of summer associates gone wild are few and far between these days.  So if it was not an outrageous action, determine if your lack of an offer was based on the simple economic calculation that the firm cannot afford to bring back their entire summer associate class or if it was based on your work product over the course of the summer.  Most any law firm worth their salt will be honest with you in this circumstance, as they know how much this will impact your career prospects — though there might be more caginess if the rationale was economic based, as such news can quickly turn into a conflagration that threatens to consume a firm.  While your first instinct might not be to care, because regardless of the reason, the end result is the same, that is a mistake.  If you are unclear as to the firm’s rationale, not only will you be unable to correct your own behavior, you will not know what to tell potential employers when the question inevitably arises in future interviews.

Speaking of which, the next step is to start looking for a post-graduation job ASAP.  One of the first people you should talk to after being informed of your no-offer status is someone in Career Services.  They can help you formulate a game plan to help make it more likely that your 3L job search is successful.  See if your school’s OCI has employers who are interviewing 3Ls. If so, sign up for each and every one.  Yes, you might have wanted to start your legal career in New York City instead of Boise, but at the no-offer point, it is important to broaden your horizons and maximize your chances.  In the modern legal economy, just because you start your career at a certain firm or city does not mean that will define your entire career.  As Orin Kerr recently noted, nearly 60 percent of Harvard Law’s 1997 graduating class reported having worked at least four different jobs since graduation.

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If you were someone who chose from multiple offers the previous fall, reach out to the firms that you rejected the last time around. These employers clearly saw something in your candidacy that they liked, so remind them of that while inquiring if they have any potential open slots for first-year associates.  And do not be concerned that your previous offer rejection has rendered you persona non grata at the firm.  Most everyone in this industry is an adult, so as long as you did not purposefully burn any bridges during the rejection process, they should be more than willing to speak with you.

Finally, consider trying to restart your recruiting clock.  While Biglaw firms are not necessarily fighting for the opportunity to interview 3Ls who were no offered, they typically are quite interested in interviewing current judicial law clerks.  I have previously extolled the virtues of clerking in this space, but an added bonus is that it gives you a chance to continue your job search for another year, secure in the knowledge that you both have a job for after graduation and that it will be one where you get some outstanding training.

Getting no offered can be a real punch it the gut.  It immediately transforms your final year of law school from a time of leisure and seminar classes to one of running around trying to secure post-graduate employment.  But it does not mean you have no future as a lawyer.  Figure out what happened, learn from any mistakes you might have made, and plunge back into the job search — preferably sober and fully clothed.


Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at abovethelawcso@gmail.com.