Re-Thinking Recruiting
Report suggests giving law firms,students more breathing room
By DOUGLAS S. MALAN
On second thought, maybe it’s not such a great idea to offer a six-figure job to people in their early 20s based on only one year of law school.
Law firms and law schools are contemplating proposed changes to recruiting procedures, prompted by economic upheaval that leaves firms uncertain about how many lawyers they will need in the future.
Traditionally, students interview in August before their second year of law school and accept positions in law firms’ summer programs. These summer associates often receive offers for permanent positions – jobs they start in the fall after completing their third year in law school and receiving their J.D.
At a time when the economy was booming, law firms had no doubt that those summer associates would eventually be needed for permanent positions. But now with a slowdown in business, some question the wisdom of making hiring decisions two years in advance of a student’s arrival for full-time work.
A new National Association for Law Placement report suggests waiting five or six months between when law students interview for jobs and when positions are offered. The NALP suggests a “2L Offer Kick-Off Day” sometime in January of the students’ second year. Students would have 14 days to accept those job offers, under the proposal.
Analysis of the recruiting process is yet another outgrowth of an economic crash that has rocked the legal industry, said Lee Hoffman, the hiring partner for Bridgeport-based Pullman & Comley.
“I think it’s time for a real overhaul rather than these incremental changes,” Hoffman said. “I don’t have a silver-bullet solution, but there’s got to be a better way to do it.”
Arms Race
NALP certainly is open to suggestions. Those interested in providing feedback to the proposed change can take part in national “open mike” conference calls scheduled for Jan. 19 at 2 p.m.; Jan. 20 at 5:30 p.m.; and Jan. 28 at 3:30 p.m. To participate, call 1-888-346-3659 and enter the passcode 42606.
Written feedback can be e-mailed to NALP via suggestionbox@nalp.org. Comments must be sent by Jan. 29.
The consensus reaction is that the report is a jumping-off point for more discussion of how to change a process that doesn’t seem to be working well for anyone.
Many law firms are concerned that the current recruiting schedule starts too early. Some influential law schools have pushed on-campus interviews to earlier in August so their top students get first crack at the biggest firms. When hiring was robust, law firms rushed to offer jobs to the perceived best and brightest so as not to lose them to rival firms.
By moving job offers to January, firms and prospective hires would have more time to get to know each other, said James Leipold, executive director of NALP. “The 20-minute on-campus interview followed by a call-back [with a job offer] is not very sophisticated,” Leipold told The American Lawyer, sister publication of the Connecticut Law Tribune.
That’s especially true with so much money on the line. Even though most law firms have backed away from first-year salaries that had hit $160,000 in some markets, many new associates are still earning six-figure salaries.
Hoffman said he never has understood why firms recruit in the fall of the second year because there is so little information available about the students based on only two semesters of introductory law school work.
Plus, firms are hiring based on their projections of how many associates might be needed two years after the interview day. “There’s so much that can change in a job applicant’s life and a law firm’s life that making these decisions [that early] is difficult for both sides,” Hoffman said.
He said a better idea would be to recruit in January of the students’ second year and offer jobs in March, after the students have had some exposure to upper-level coursework.
More Information
But will law firms have a better handle on their finances 18 months from an associate’s start date compared to 24 months?
Thomas P. Cody, Robinson & Cole’s hiring partner, isn’t convinced that the extra time would make for foolproof hiring decisions. He and Marnie J. Rubin, the firm’s legal recruiting manager, have analyzed the NALP report and determined that “it has promise,” though there is plenty of room for further discussion.
Cody is convinced, though, that a January job-offer time frame would create a frantic couple of weeks for law firms as top students are nabbed by competitors and hiring “wish-lists” change on the fly.
“The offer- and decision-making process is going to be greatly condensed and there will be a lot of activity following the weeks after the kick-off day,” Cody said. “The benefit is getting more information” between the initial interview and job offer.
Brad Saxton, dean of the Quinnipiac University School of Law, said he feels “mostly positive” about the proposed change, but noted there are scenarios where the schedule could be a disadvantage to certain students.
Because law firms conduct a finite number of on-campus interviews at law schools, the same top students may eat up the majority of interview spots because they would not receive immediate job offers and, thus, take themselves out of the running.
“If all firms don’t give offers until January, to protect yourself, you keep interviewing,” said Saxton, who practiced at Hogan & Hartson in Washington, D.C., and served on the firm’s recruiting committee in the late 1980s. “The strongest people would be taking the interviews, and the others would be shut out of the process.”
Jeremy Paul, dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law, said the flaws in the early recruiting process can be linked to law firms’ attitudes.
“Too many people in firms have persuaded themselves that unless they get someone from the top sliver of the class at the top sliver of the school, they’re not going to get a good lawyer,” Paul said. “I’ve never thought that was true. Grades are important, but there’s a need for students to have developed other skills like working well with others.”
While Paul said the NALP report was a good starting point for conversation, he seemed reluctant to endorse its specific proposals. For example, he said the January job offer date would require many second-year students to go through multiple interviews and then have to wait to figure out their summer plans. There’s also concern about the interviewing process disrupting students’ school work, Paul said.
Because NALP has no enforcement power, law firms don’t have to follow its guidelines, though some top-ranked law schools might decide to ban firms from on-campus interviews. Last fall, Harvard banned a major firm for asking students to respond to job offers in a time frame shorter than what NALP suggested.
But Paul said whatever the outcome of the discussion of the recruiting process, law schools must be accommodating to the law firms. Banning firms from on-campus interviews for not complying with NALP guidelines “strikes me as a very strong step,” Paul said, and a risky one at a time of such turmoil in the job market.
“I’m not sure there’s any perch left where law schools aren’t concerned about employment” for their students, he said.•
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