Law Schools

The Recruiting Game Done Changed

All of the timelines and guideposts that served as the foundation of entry-level recruiting have been eliminated. 

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So a bit of insight as to how this column, but a small corner of the internet content mines, comes together on a weekly basis.  Ideally, I have a couple of topics percolating, often based on issues that arose in the course of my work at Vanderbilt or based on where we are in either the recruiting or academic calendar.  Some weeks it can be a struggle to come up with an issue that I think is both interesting and from which I can squeeze anywhere between 750 to 1,500 words.  And then there are weeks where the perfect column idea appears out of nowhere in your email inbox.  As you might have already surmised, the latter is how this week’s column came about.  While I had originally planned to file the first of a two-part series on how to deal with 1L Fall grades in the job search — rest assured that those columns are forthcoming, beginning likely as early as next week — an email I received Wednesday afternoon entitled “NALP Updates Recruiting Guidance” shook up my writing schedule.

I have written extensively in this space on numerous aspects of National Association for Law Placement, with particular attention being paid to the “Principles and Standards for Law Placement and Recruitment Activities.”  These are the guidelines, albeit voluntary, that have governed entry-level legal recruiting for decades.  Indeed, I devoted an entire column to December 1st and its importance (at times overstated) in the 1L recruiting cycle.  But the next time you see one of those pieces on the NALP guidelines pop up on your computer screen or device, I need to you follow in the footsteps of Ron Swanson.

Despite the innocuous title of the email, the announced changes to the Principles and Standards are sweeping.  These changes start literally at the beginning of the document with the title.  The word “standards” has been dropped and the new document is entitled “Principles for a Fair and Ethical Recruitment Process.”  In the memorandum that accompanied the new Principles, the NALP Board of Directors indicated that the changes were being made in recognition that the member organizations (i.e., law schools and law firms) “have grown past ‘one size fits all’ Standards.”  Instead of uniformity, the new principles embrace a “standard of reasonableness that provides all members the flexibility necessary to innovate and thrive in an evolving marketplace.”  So what does that mean in practice?  Good question.  Having read all 2,271 words of the new Principles, I am reminded, of all things, of my 2L First Amendment class.  One day, the professor, renowned First Amendment scholar Geoff Stone, cold called me with a question regarding “Wanted” posters created by anti-choice activists that targeted doctors.  I gave a lengthy, and I thought highly cogent, response, to which Professor Stone looked at me and said: “That all sounds very nice, Mr. Alexiou, I’m just not sure you are actually saying anything.”[1]  Similarly, the NALP Board has created a lengthy, well-written document that does not seem to actually say anything.

So if the new Principles do not say much, why did I call the changes “sweeping” up above?  The answer lies not so much as to what is in the new Principles, but rather, what has been taken out.  All of the timelines and guideposts that served as the foundation of entry-level recruiting have been eliminated.  No one-on-one meetings between Career Services and 1Ls until October 15th?  Gone.  The prohibition on formal applications, interviews, or offers between 1Ls and legal employers until December 1st?  Bye-bye.  The 28 days that 2Ls should have to make a decision on a summer associate offer?  Hasta luego.  The limit of five open offers that a 2L could hold at any one point during the Fall recruiting cycle?  Sayōnara.  There are other aspects that have been eliminated, but I have run out of synonyms or foreign language translations for the word goodbye.

So what does the legal recruiting system look like now?  The first thing that came to mind was the Wild West — please spare me the stories about how the Wild West was not that wild and actually had stringent gun laws, no one wants to see a Deadwood movie where everything is peaceful.  While the new Principles encourage law schools and firms to develop their own guidelines, at least initially, the landscape seems more like every student, school, and employer for themselves.  As I have consistently said, there has never been a “NALP police” to stringently enforce the guidelines, but in my experience, all parties involved in legal recruiting tried to at least adhere to the principles as often as they could.  When a firm acted in a way that was improper, our office could site the NALP guidelines back at them in an attempt to correct their behavior.  Similarly, I stressed to students that they should familiarize themselves with the guidelines, as they would be invaluable in pushing back against an employer that was being over aggressive.  Now?  While Vanderbilt will set its own recruiting guidelines, I will be stunned if I do not have 1Ls reaching out to me soon after arriving on campus wanting to have one-on-one meetings ASAP, nor will I be shocked in the least if certain Biglaw employers start reaching out to 1Ls at elite schools in August or September, trying to scoop them up before anyone else gets the chance.  When I was applying for clerkships as a 3L, there was an infamous (and likely apocryphal) story about someone flying to an interview and having three voicemails on their phone upon landing.  The first was from a judge offering a clerkship, the second from the same judge telling the student they had one hour to accept, and the final message informing the student that the offer had been rescinded.  While I hope such “exploding” offers do not become a regular occurence in the Biglaw landscape, it is no longer prohibited.

So where does that leave us?  Today, I felt like Cutty in The Wire.  After a 13-year stint in prison, he returned to a Baltimore drug trade that had fundamentally changed and become more violent.  With the adoption of the new NALP principles, the legal recruiting game has also fundamentally changed.  Let’s hope it also did not get more fierce.

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[1] For those who wonder if embarrassing moments from law school will stick with you more than a decade later, the answer is yes.

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.

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