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Vault, Home To Law Firm Prestige Rankings, Becomes 'Firsthand' Subsite, Which Says Job Seekers Don't Care About Prestige

Did anyone consult the lawyers on this one?

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Vault Law has been one of the most trusted resources for law students and lawyers for more than two decades, providing law firm rankings and profiles based on the insider perspectives that lateral candidates want and need. Year after year, Vault has surveyed thousands of associates to create the rankings that lawyers rely upon to find out what they need to know, ranging from which law firms are the most prestigious to which law firms are the best ones to work for.

But what would happen if Vault were to just disappear all of sudden?

To the untrained eye, that certainly looks like exactly what happened. The Vault website now redirects to the Firsthand website, where Vault Law lives as a sub-site (not to worry, it’s there complete with all of its law firm rankings).

“Why has Vault destroyed its platform with whatever this ‘Firsthand’ is?” a reader asks. “We have relied on Vault for years and now it’s gone overnight?”

This past January, Infobase, the company that owns Vault, acquired Firsthand, a career mentoring and engagement platform for students and alumni. Over the course of 2021, the sites have been merging to create a new brand geared towards those who are seeking professional work in COVID times.

According to Firsthand — the name the companies settled on — these post-pandemic job seekers are living in a world where remote work is now the norm and “company culture, social impact, and quality of life outweigh the importance of traditional job criteria like money, prestige, and advancement opportunities.” (Shhh, don’t tell them — or maybe DO — but lawyers still really care about money and prestige.) Here’s an excerpt from their message introducing the new brand:

The old Vault and Firsthand brands focused on the idea of vaulting ahead to a narrow definition of career success, like getting your foot in the door at a prestigious firm and working your way up to partner. With our new brand, we’re widening our perspective to recognize that the path to success is rarely straight and that there are many ways to define success.

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Aww. That’s nice.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to compute with the reality that most young lawyers are facing, which is up to six figures of debt attached to a law degree that isn’t going to pay itself off. Everyone got a break from their loans since March 2020, but those bills will be coming due sooner than anyone would like, and a big, fat paycheck from a prestigious firm will help them manage their law school debts more easily than any other definition of success.

Are you worried about the Vault name and the prominence of its law firm rankings now that Vault is just a subsection of Firsthand? We’ve reached out to Vault for comment on that. Here’s what we were told:

While this is a time of change for us, the Vault Law editorial team will still be here, publishing the same rankings and resources that law students, laterals, and others in the legal industry have come to value and trust over the years. Meanwhile, we are excited about the new opportunities we can now offer legal job seekers, including one-on-one mentoring and virtual career fairs.

Introducing the New Firsthand Brand and Platform [Firsthand]

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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