Akin Gump Among the Firms Rescinding Job Offers to 2Ls

J.D.
Dec 9, 2008 12:32 PM CST

“Ya cain’t sit hereh.”

“Seat’s takin’.”

- Forrest Gump, 1994

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Boston IP
Dec 12, 2008 7:47 AM CST

Guess some of these former summer associates will have to go SmallLaw with McLeod and spew sour grapes on those that like BigLaw and are successful at it.  Besides, they don’t want to be in BigLaw with the BigBoys and BigGirls.  We are just ugly trolls who hoard money and beat our first year associates.  And the partners sit in the gold leafed board room all day just thinking of ways to make the associates more miserable It’s an ugly place (starting at $145,000 year for no experience).

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B. McLeod
Dec 12, 2008 8:32 AM CST

I certainly agree that Boston could use some spiffing up.  Especially all that crumbling street infrastructure and the filthy building facades.  The few howling mad people with half their hair cut who wander the streets of the business district shouting obscenities also do not improve the overall impression upon the tourist.  However, I think “ugly place” is a little harsh.

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Boston IP
Dec 12, 2008 8:40 AM CST

I think the “pointy-haired” reference may be to the evil boss in Dilbert.  B. McLeod has an obvious disdain for anyone with a job and thinks we’re all evil people.  Don’t hate the player, B.

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B. McLeod
Dec 12, 2008 9:19 AM CST

To clarify further, I do not think that the managers of large law firms are “evil.”

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B. McLeod
Dec 12, 2008 9:42 AM CST

Because I do not have to.  I thought they had that same rule in Boston?  Adopted at a tea party or some such?

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rs
Dec 12, 2008 9:55 AM CST

Sadly enough, this is the end result of letting too many people into law school for way too long.  It takes things like this for that trend to stop.

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Boston IP
Dec 12, 2008 10:01 AM CST

So, RS, you would limit who can go to law school?  I though we had a free economy that allowed everyone the opportunity to try to be whatever they wanted.  I think it happened at a tea party or something.  What makes law different from any other profession?  There are engineers who can’t find jobs because there are “too many” getting into engineering school.  Should we limit who can go into that profession?  Where does it end?

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B. McLeod
Dec 12, 2008 10:47 AM CST

What a careful and valuable analysis, based on complete speculation.  That was a rare jewel (not indicative of the firm’s trial work, I hope).  Many thanks to Harvey Birdman, and God bless England.

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Andy the lawyer
Dec 12, 2008 11:07 AM CST

The bottom line = big firms or small or none, there are too many lawyers in the USA.  I predict that during the next several years, thousands will do what our forefathers did—leave the home country to seek a better life elsewhere.  India might be a good bet, since so many US firms are sending work there.

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boomboomroom
Dec 12, 2008 11:34 AM CST

Even if there are too many lawyers (though I personally disagree), there are never enough good lawyers.

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Boston IP
Dec 12, 2008 12:24 PM CST

What about a liberal arts major that comes out of Harvard with $100k in debt?  Or an engineer from MIT with $80k+ in debt?  Or any degree from almost any private university for that matter.  Life’s not fair.  Why are we supposed to be any more above this?  You find what you like to do, get an education, work hard and hopefully you can find a job.  It certainly isn’t any worse for attorney’s (and in fact is probably less bad for attorneys) than a lot of other professions.  I didn’t go into law school with any delusions that I would definitely get a job where I wanted, or even get a job period.  There are no guarantees that come with your JD.

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Boston IP
Dec 12, 2008 12:54 PM CST

Or, maybe, just maybe, we like what we do and enjoy the work and the firm for whom we work.  There is a little concept to warp your world.  And I think that to the hundreds of pro bono clients many big firm help every year, the charities for whom we raise thousands of dollars every year, the schools at which we volunteer, and the families we support, our firm’s existence is very consequential and well known to a large population.  And I’m sure we are all well known to you as scour the internet trying to find the big firm that might someday accept you.  Is there a firm named Lambda Lambda Lambda?

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B. McLeod
Dec 12, 2008 2:55 PM CST

And, maybe not.  It’s very telling when some SOC8 feels the need to “justify” his firm’s existence by extolling its (promotional) “good deeds” in the world.  Those don’t really count when you have to point them out to try to make the firm look like something other than what it really is.  And really, I have no use for your big firms, which have nothing that I want or need.  If I was going to hook up with one, I certainly would not consider one that would accept me.

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cheez-it
Dec 12, 2008 4:38 PM CST

my parents own two coin-operated car washes and a laundromat, and we’re filthy rich. you lawyers are losers.

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laughing at BostonIP
Dec 12, 2008 4:49 PM CST

I like how BostonIP boasts about his job in biglaw when he doesn’t even make top of the market salary…$145 - LOL

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B. McLeod
Dec 12, 2008 6:18 PM CST

Sure.  In the big firm model, lawyers who come in right out of school, like Boston IP, have no existing clientele.  They have no individual practice record, and so derive their whole professional status and identity from the firm in which they are employed.  The firm pays them a salary.  Nothing is wrong with a $145,000 salary.  Some of the posters are just picking on Boston IP because the high end of the scale is a $170,000 starting salary, and he obviously did not make the cut (and/or the firm he boasts of is really not a top firm).  The firms expect to cover the cost of their fledgling lawyer by billing clients for that lawyer’s learning curve at rates of several hundred dollars per hour.  As a rule of thumb, the firms want to generate billings for each fledgling (typically called “non-revenue associates”) that are about 3x the “associate’s” salary cost.  Hence, the firm will have a “billables goal” for each “associate” which is determined by how many hours that “associate” has to bill, at the hourly rate the firm has set for the “associate’s” work, in order to reach the annual 3x salary number the firm expects to make by billing for the “associate’s” work.  The resultant billable hours target will vary by firm, but is likely to fall in the 2,000 to 2,400 billable hours range.  Usually, there is a limit to the number of years the firm will be willing to keep a fledgling on this basis (often 5-7 years), and if the “associate” cannot develop the client base needed to become a “revenue associate” during this period, on a basis satisfactory to the firm, the “associate” will be “outplaced.”  At the large firms, “non-revenue associates” are a low form of life, and are usually treated as fungible and interchangeable, paid at “x” salary with “y” bonus simply according to how long they have been employed by the firm.  The firm will also have an established “attrition rate,” which represents the percentage of “non-revenue associates” who ultimately quit for other prospects or are “outplaced” for failure to produce expected billables/revenue.  Usually, they do not disclose this rate, and it is up to job candidates to try to figure out via research how high a given firm’s attrition rate is.  In hard economic times, support staff and “non-revenue associates” are the first to go, the order of that depending upon the individual firm’s philosophy as to which are more valuable to the firm.

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B. McLeod
Dec 12, 2008 8:05 PM CST

Verily.  And, at that 5-to-7 year mark, a significant percentage of Big Law “associates” will have been put out.  If you have had friends who experienced this, you will know what I mean when I say they look stunned.  Suddenly, their whole identity as lawyers, and the only practice environment they have ever known, is taken away from them.  It actually takes months to talk them back to the real world and to convince them they are still the same lawyers they were during all those years at their firm.  Most make it back, and eventually get over it, often with help and tips from their solo friends who have been standing up in their own clothes for years.

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B. McLeod
Dec 13, 2008 7:56 PM CST

Probably.  But it’s always good to take a little time out for the occasional lunch with old classmates.

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