Harvard, NYU Law Students Left Hanging as Big Law Firms Slash Job Offers

[Purveyor]

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Many students entering their final year at top law schools including Harvard and New York University haven’t landed the full-time jobs they would normally have claimed by now, firms and school officials said, a reflection of the shrinking demand for legal services.

The stark reality of the legal marketplace was illustrated by yesterday’s 2010 job offers by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, the highest-grossing U.S. law firm. It projected a 50 percent cut in summer hiring, said Howard Ellin, the recruiting partner for Skadden. The firm hired 225 students this summer and plans to hire less than half that for summer 2010.

The number of first-round interviews for second- and third- year Harvard Law School students fell 20 percent this year, Mark Weber, assistant dean for career services, wrote in an e-mail, adding that it’s too early to predict how many will get second interviews. At NYU, interviews plunged this school year compared with last, with callbacks for second interviews dropping “dramatically,” said Irene Dorzback, dean of career services.

“When I was at NYU 10 years ago, top-performing students got an average of 25 callbacks,” Jonathan Cole, a senior associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, said in an interview last week on the Greenwich Village campus. “Today, they’re lucky if they get 10.” When it comes to getting a job, he said, “no one is taking anything for granted.”

Traditionally Hire

A law degree typically takes three years to obtain. Law firms traditionally hire students for summer internships after their second year of school, then offer them jobs beginning after graduation the following year. Large U.S. firms are delaying start dates for 2009 and 2010 graduates, and hiring fewer students for next summer and beyond.

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BLOOMBERG: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=avCjq2MsxrnQ

[Skink]

1. welcome to the jungle.

Maybe they should all become public defenders. Or be like Obama and dedicate 20 years to community organization for the greater good.

[primavera]

6. Amen

As with so many professions in this country, far too many go into law not with the expectation of doing an honest day's work for an honest day's wage, but rather with the expectation of getting obscenely wealthy. It's high time those aristocrat-wannabes got a dose of reality.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Boo hoo! You might have to suffer in Chicago, Toronto, LA, SF or Atlanta. nt

[merh]

3. TORT REFORM

LOL - I know defense lawyers who publicly were supporting tort reform in our state but behind the scenes they were fighting against it. They had to please their clients (insurance companies and corporations) - evil plaintiffs' suits were costing them money. But they knew, from a practical stand point that tort reform, limiting filings, would harm their business. What would they defend if there were no suits filed?

Now we have tort reform and those same lawyers are not hiring or have had to cut positions - they have to actually work their cases and don't have the associate flunkies they relied on. They don't have the work.

You see, plaintiffs don't get to file suits, the caps make it impossible for plaintiff firms to be able to afford them, the cost to litigate is too high compared to the little damages that can be recovered.

Filings are down and the lawyers don't have the work.

[HamdenRice]

4. I know a young NY big firm lawyer who was layed off & went to New Zealand for a job

It was a massacre last year from what I've heard -- hundreds laid off. That said, the firms will probably still hire. They are replacing over paid senior associates with first years.

[appamado amata padam]

5. Boo hoo -

get in line like everybody else.

[Brickbat]

7. "Only 10" callbacks? Ho-hum.

Let me know when they send out 100 resumes and don't hear back on any of them.

[Romulox]

8. Too bad the big law firms aren't "too big to fail", or they could get on government gravey train

just like their banker colleagues.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

9. Yesterday I ran into the Mom of a friend of my son's. She told me he was attending NYU Law

School. He obtained his bachelors at George Washington. She was telling me about how he has student loans of well over $100,000. Ben is brilliant and I hope by the time he graduates in 3 years, he'll be able to get a good job.

On edit..

On the other hand, another one of my son's friends graduated from University of Chicago, scored scary high on his law boards and is now working for a company that teaches how to take the law boards. He's making great money. :)