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Law Practice Management

Big Law Firms’ Predicament: Committed to Hire More Lawyers than Needed

Posted Aug 27, 2008 4:54 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Because big law firms make associate hiring commitments two years in advance, they are finding themselves in a bind.

As the economic downturn has cut into legal work, the firms are pledged to hire more lawyers than they need. Some firms are hiring several new associates even though they recently laid off other lawyers. The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) takes a look at the reason for the unusual situation: summer associate programs.

Large law firms hire summer associates in well-paid internship programs between their first and second years of law school. At the end of the summer, most of these students are hired to begin work after graduation. Law firms don’t want to turn down too many for fear they will be labeled a sweatshop, or troubled, or unfriendly to women.

The newspaper says the “strange and rigid hiring process ... has been entrenched for a long time.” A few smaller law firms have ditched their summer associate programs and some larger law firms are questioning whether they are the best way to hire. But widespread change is unlikely.

Some law firm managers say the programs are beneficial because they are a good way to evaluate potential new hires. And being among the first firms to change could prove disastrous. Jay Zimmerman, the chairman of Bingham McCutchen, explained why. “To get the best law students, the best talent, you absolutely have to be in this market," he told the newspaper.

Comments

1.

Hadley V. Baxendale
Aug 29, 2008 7:54 AM CST

First, let me say the ones who will lose are the clients who will pay for the busy work those associates will have to do to earn their keep. Meanwhile, they will find pressure to stretch out their work to meet those onerous billable requirements.  Finally, lower level partners will have less to do-and earn less—if their work has to be shifted down to the idle associate pool.
The business model is failing.

2.

Bill
Aug 29, 2008 8:11 AM CST

Will this profession ever get beyond this smoke and mirrors hiring concept that the students who get the best grades in law school are destined (or even more likely) to become the best lawyers?

3.

HVB
Aug 29, 2008 8:19 AM CST

Will the law students ever get beyond this smoke and mirrors concept that the big firms who pay the highest starting salaries are destined (or even likely) to be the best place to spend your life?

4.

Bingham Summer
Aug 29, 2008 8:20 AM CST

JayZ has it right - the summer program gives a real opportunity to see who can actually do hack work without excessive supervision.  This is the best way to fill the pipeline with fresh bodies to staff client’s projects at lower billing rates (even if it takes them longer).  If you worry about quality of work in the face of mid-level associate attrition, you can always buy out another regional firm.

5.

Summer Ass
Aug 29, 2008 8:25 AM CST

Oh yeah, you can really sort out the best candidates at the baseball game, theatre shows, endless cocktail receptions, and overblown entertainment schedules.  The summer program as a good way to “evaluate potential new hires,” good one, ha ha.

6.

J
Aug 29, 2008 8:30 AM CST

The article incorrectly asserts that most hiring takes place 2 years out. Its not, its a year out. Interviews are between 1l and 2l and the summer internship is between 2l and 3l, a year before most lawyers start. How hard is it to dial back the number of offers given to summer associates who will start a year later?

7.

Duhh
Aug 29, 2008 9:32 AM CST

Hello J, read a little closer.  The article points out that the firms are under pressure to give offers to its summer associates for fear of reputational harm (“sweatshop” or “unfriendly to women”, etc.).  Thus, the ‘hiring commitments’ (not, as you put it, “most hiring”) are for the summer associate program, given from the interviews conducted between 1L and 2L.  Unless you know of some way to avoid the 3L year and bar study during the post-3L year, this recruiting takes place 2 years before the associate starts.

8.

cjt
Aug 29, 2008 9:44 AM CST

The big firm hiring process is flawed from the top down.  I spent my summer clerking at a state court and I’ve learned and done things that my classmates who went to big firms won’t touch until they’ve been there five or six years. 

Any business model where you have to fight to get work just to meet some arbitrary number is flawed.

9.

hoorayawesome
Aug 29, 2008 9:53 AM CST

Duhh, who takes a full year to study for the bar unless you don’t pass the first time?  As a person who somewhat recently went through this process, I can vouch that if you are interviewed between 1L & 2L (or fall of 2L year, as it was at my law school), you work between 2L & 3L, and return to the firm the following year, probably w/in 4 months of graduating (here, you graduate in May, take the bar in July, start work in August or Sept.).  So including bar study, it’s about 12 or 13 months from when the summer program ended the previous year (~August) and offers would have been made.  The “2 years” the article might be talking about is the 2 years between hiring the person for the SUMMER and the time they start as a “real” associate.  But the firm isn’t making an actual commitment to keep the person on when they hire them only for the summer; the real “hiring decision” is therefore really only about 12-13 months out.  The problem the article is highlighting is that firms feel like they can’t NOT make permanent offers to TOO many summer associates without being rejected by all the new talent the following year.  Applicants want to know their chances are pretty good (in the 80% range, if you ask me…) that they’ve found a permanent job when they accept a summer position or they won’t apply and your firm will get bad word of mouth.  I think the solution is to simply hire fewer summer associates.  Firms should not hire for more summer positions than they are prepared to take on as full-time associates the following year.  Nothing prevents a firm from hiring laterals if they need more bodies in the office later.  If firms still need entry-level people to fill a shortfall of bodies, there seem to be a lot of stray returned-from-judicial-clerkship attorneys needing to be snapped up.  Those applicants are still “entry level” first year associates, but they have an added credential, to boot.

10.

Professor
Aug 29, 2008 12:27 PM CST

“hoorayawesome,” you, too, missed the point of the article.  It’s hard enough to forecast hiring needs one year out, much less two years out.  The sudden downshift in the economy brought light to this hiring practice.  Next time, be very careful before you use the word “duhh.”

11.

ByChance
Aug 29, 2008 2:57 PM CST

“Professor,” although I agree with the difficulty of forecasting hiring needs ahead of time, your last sentence seems prejudiced.  I read “hoorayawesome” started his/her comment with “Duhh” to address the comment written by “Duhh,” not to mean the word.

12.

Dan
Aug 29, 2008 4:39 PM CST

Knowing what I know now about big firms, if I needed a lawyer and no small firm would take my case, I’d go pro bono.  Only an idiot would hire a large firm with management practices like this.

I interviewed with some large firms in fall of my 2L year after completing a fantastic summer internship with a public interest agency where I actually represented clients under a TPO.  The big firms asked me questions like “how much work did you do for other lawyers?”  I was like, uhh… Hello?  I handled my own cases, top to bottom, you know, the kind of work actual lawyers do?  No use.  All they wanted was research and writing slaves.  They had gorgeous law libraries in their firms, I just don’t want to spend the first 5-10 years of my career sitting in one.

13.

kay sieverding
Sep 2, 2008 4:07 PM CST

There is an easy and honorable solution which is to use the extra lawyers for an Access to Courts peace corps.  The extra lawyers help can be used in the U.S. and the extra lawyers can be sent to Africa and Iraq to set up good quality civil and criminal law systems. Their employers can take it as a tax deduction.

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