Dear 1L,
Law-school recruiting is in crisis.
I’m trying to create a timeline to give current 1Ls some perspective. I hope it will ease some anxiety.
Please tell me what you’re hearing and seeing so I can modify and recirculate:
🔷 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 for students to secure first-round interviews.
—At a formal, on-campus interview program (OCI) that occured around the last week of July (after 1L), law firms sent representatives to law schools to conduct in-person, screening interviews.
{ —I conducted these interviews for a BigLaw firm a a T14 between 2010 and 2013. }
—Students who succeed 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 the firm.
🔷 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
“Pre-cruiting” is born. Top students and firms hold a June OCI, with a late-July OCI, too.
🔷 Fall 2023
BigLaw starts having “meet-and-greet” dinners with 1Ls in October!
BigLaw starts hiring 1L summer associates—NOT just for “diversity.”
🔷 CURRENTLY
BigLaw stops involving law schools as much: firms tell 1Ls to apply directly through firm websites.
1Ls can’t even find 1L summer jobs, but now they are supposed to apply for 2L summer jobs?
👉 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