Law-school recruiting is in crisis
I’m trying to create a timeline to give current 1Ls some perspective. I hope it will ease anxiety.
Please tell me what you’re hearing and seeing so I can modify and polish:
Please tell me what you’re hearing and seeing so I can modify and polish:
🔷 HISTORICALLY
NALP (the National Association for Law Placement, Inc.) imposed strict rules for law firms & law schools on recruiting for 2L summer jobs.
—It was only AFTER the 1L academic year that students had to worry about finding a job for 2L summer.
—Law schools collected students’ applications and created an orderly process with standardized deadlines for students to secure first-round interviews.
—Law firms partnered with the schools, and a formal, on-campus interview program (OCI) occurred at each school.
—During OCI, law firms sent representatives to law schools to conduct in-person, screening interviews of students seeking a summer position.
{ —I conducted these interviews for a BigLaw firm a a T14 between 2010 and 2013. }
—Whereas OCI used to occur in September and October of a student’s 2L year, in recent years, OCI had moved earlier—to around the last week of July.
—Students who succeeded in a screening interview were invited to visit the firm for a half-day, in-person interview, after which job offers were declined or extended, and students had until a specific date to get back to firms.
🔷 2019
NALP got legal advice: what it’d been doing might violate antitrust rules.
NALP stopped regulating the process.
🔷 2020
Pandemic pandemonium. Summer OCI canceled.
Students and firms started fending for themselves.
👉 ENTER LinkedIn
🔷 2021-2022
Law schools tried to continue the former process, and late-July OCI resumed, but with the initial, screening interviews taking place virtually.
🔷 Summer 2023
Formal “precruiting” was born. Top students and firms held a June OCI, with a late-July OCI, too.
🔷 Fall 2023
BigLaw started having “meet-and-greet” dinners with 1Ls and started recruiting for 1L summer associates—NOT just for “diversity.”
Those early dinners were not just about jobs for after 1L summer. Instead, firms started recruiting then and there for 2L summer associates.
🔷 CURRENTLY
BigLaw is involving law schools less and less, with many firms instructing 1Ls to apply directly through the firm’s websites.
⬇️
WHAT??? 1Ls can’t even find jobs for after 1L, but now they are supposed to apply for 2L summer jobs at the same time?
👉 Anxiety and chaos abounds.
***
Too dramatic? Not really.
This is what I’m seeing.
This is what students are telling me.
This is what law-school career counselors are telling me.
What are you seeing and hearing?
What can I do to help?
Thank you for your support and any new information. 🙏🏻
💌 Amanda
#Dear1L