Baby, It's Cold Out There! Law Firms Respond to Proposed Changes in Recruiting at Law Schools

Change does not come easily to the citizens of Law Firm Land. Witness the tepid reaction, if not downright frigid, by some big law firms to the National Association of Law Placement (NALP) Report's (pdf) recommendation to move the period when offers are extended to law students to January, five months after on-campus interviews.

For those not yet familiar with the acronym from the on-campus interviewing (OCI) experience, NALP is the national organization of law schools and employers that, among other things, sets guidelines on the annual on-campus interview season, and determines how long students can hold onto a job offer before making a decision. Tradition is king here -- the process has remained pretty much the same for 40 years, with law firms recruiting on campus in the fall and making offers shortly thereafter.

The recent NALP Commission and subsequent Report (see our earlier post detailing the Report's recommendations) came as a result of the recession, where law firms found themselves overstaffed and forced to lay off hundreds of lawyers in New York and nationwide, and delayed by up to one year the first-year start dates.

Jones Day was an early critic of the plan for an “offer kick-off day” in mid-January during students’ second year of law school and now has offered more details in a critique (PDF) on its website that says the plan is an anticompetitive “radical restructuring” of the recruitment process.

NALP solicited comments to the recommendations in the Report and they are hearing back from member law firms and law schools. According to Jim Leipold, executive director at NALP, "almost universally people felt a January kick-off date was too late." The biggest issue? Recruiting officials at firms have expressed concerned that a January "offer kick-off day" will create a prolonged recruiting season with law firms spending nearly half a year wining and dining top students.

Leipold told the New York Law Journal, reaction to its proposals among the schools and firms is "mixed." NALP is reviewing feedback from more than 825 members, including more than 125 written comments.

NALP's Jim Leipold was a guest on Law School Podcaster's segment, "The Current Economic Environment: What It Means for Law School Applicants & Students." Tune into the full show to hear more on this topic.

Summer Associate Offers In January? NALP Report Recommends Changes in Recruiting At Law Schools

Ever wonder about the "logic" behind incoming 2L law students leaving their summer vacations in mid-August, heading back to campus, wearing their nicest business suits, to join the frenzied fray that is known as "on-campus interviewing (OCI)?"

Whether you look at it from the point of view of the students pressured to participate and decide early before fully considering the full range of employment options, the law firms trying to assess and anticipate future hiring needs two years in advance or the law schools pressured to schedule OCI just as the semester is starting, there's considerable dissatisfaction with the timing guidelines for law firm recruiting. Ashby Jones, Lead Writer for the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, observed in a recent Law School Podcaster show "the thing about law school and hiring is that it all happens in advance to a degree that a lot of people find sort of absurd."

These concerns, made worse by the economy, may finally lead to changes in the recruiting timeline. NALP's (National Association for Law Placement) Commission on Recruiting and the Legal Profession issued an initial report (PDF) this week recommending that law firms shift away from rolling offer deadlines to a framework based on specific dates ("Offer Kick-Off Days") before which offers for employment cannot be made. The ABA Journal reports that the NALP Commission recommends moving back the date for summer associate job offers until mid-January of the second year of law school (establishing an "offer kick-off day") and proposes "shortening the period of time during which offers remain open from 45 days to 14 days."

While this initial Phase I of the NALP Commission's report focused on potential changes that could be implemented as early as the 2010-2011 academic year, and thus focused mainly on timing guidelines, the NALP Commission also plans to look more closely at the topic of fundamental legal recruiting model changes. That could be pretty interesting.

While the American Lawyer reports that some law firms are worried the proposed changes will just mean they have to "wine and dine" candidates for a longer period of time, the NALP Commission suggests that a January Kick-Off Day might open up the possibility for employers "to experiment with more in-depth interviewing and assessment techniques" and "allow law firms to make decisions after receiving year-end financial data."

Jim Leipold, is the Executive Director at NALP, and was a recent guest on our Law School Podcaster segment, The Current Economic Envcironment: What It Means for Law School Applicants and Students. He gave us a bit of a preview of what we're hearing now and some insight into why the economy might be driving some of the possible changes in law firm recruiting. "Things were beginning to happen before the recession for a number of reasons but the recession accelerated most of those changes and I think will support those changes. I think, over time, we’ll see more firms drift toward recruiting later so, rather than the focus being on students as they return to school in the beginning of their second year, recruiting will probably begin to happen later in the second year, whether that’s late Fall or early Spring, and there too, different firms may choose to recruit at different times. So students are just going to have to be prepared for a much broader range of practices and understanding for each firm that they’re interested in what course that firm is choosing.”

To hear more on this topic, tune in to the full show, "The Current Economic Environment: What It Means for Law School Applicants and Students."

In This Tough Job Market, Law School Still Makes Sense: Expert Advice for Law School Applicants and Students About Current Economic Conditions

It’s not exactly news that the recession has significantly impacted the legal job market. Big Law firm hiring is down and there’s fewer opportunities and increased competition for public sector jobs as well. But, rather than just dish about “the number of layoffs” and “which Big Law firms are deferring start dates,” we talked to the experts for you to learn specifically where the changes in the marketplace are, strategies that applicants and students can use to maximize their job seeking opportunities and what our experts see as the emerging trends in legal recruiting. We've got it all covered in our new show, The Current Economic Environment: What It Means to Law School Applicants and Students.

Law School Podcaster Host, Diana Jordan gets right into things by getting a snapshot from our guests of the current recruitment landscape and the latest on what’s happening on law school campuses around the nation during the great rite of passage for students – the Fall Recruiting Season. She begins with insightful analysis from Jim Leipold, the Executive Director at NALP, National Association for Law Placement, a nearly 30-year-old non-profit, serving the needs of all those involved in the legal employment process. He says that while the downturn has significantly affected certain sectors, there are some silver linings. “The current recession has certainly had a dramatic impact and it’s had an impact across all sectors but it’s hit hardest probably the largest law firms whose practices were the most closely tied to the financial sector and, in particular, firms in New York City. And also public practice settings that require public funding or grant funding. Those are the two areas that have had the most dramatic slowdown. In fact, there’s a lot of firms positioned in the middle that have thrived during the recession, in part because they have lower cost for offering legal services to corporations. And, at a time, when “Corporate America” has been trying to save money on their legal spend, some of the middle-tier law firms have actually been using this economic recession to grow and hire more lawyers.”

While the number of employers coming to campus is generally smaller and employers that are coming to campus, typically are hosting fewer schedules and seeing fewer students than they have in the past, Leipold says that law firms are not withdrawing entirely from the recruiting process, but they may be delaying it. “ I think law firms have just seen that they need to almost put recruiting on hold for a little while until they see where this settles, when the economy is going to pick up, what sort of work they have. They’re not so much withdrawing from the recruiting process but delaying it, hoping to get a better sense of what their own situation will be financially.”

Leipold also shared NALP’s observations about the growing diversity in recruiting practices that the recession has helped to accelerate and may support in the future. Listen to the show to hear what NALP considers the future might look like for law firm recruitment.

During this show, we also get strategic advice directly from those on the front lines with the students and grads going through the job search in this uncertain market by talking with Carole Montgomery, Director of the Career Development Office at The George Washington University Law School and Kevin Donovan, Senior Assistant Dean for Career Services at the University of Virginia Law School.

We also hear how the recession has affected applications and financial aid from Jason Wu Trujillo, Senior Assistant Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid at The University of Virginia Law School and from Johann Lee, the Assistant Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Northwestern University Law School.

We are also joined by Ashby Jones, who writes the Law Blog at the Wall Street Journal and covers notable trends in the legal marketplace for the business community. He gives us his unique perspective on the job market during this tough economy and some valuable advice on practice areas that are in demand now and those that may continue to see growth in the future.


Listen to the full show on our website or from iTunes.