Heated Debate Over This Question: Should 2Ls Accept All Summer Offers?

A blog’s suggestion that second-year law students should consider accepting all their offers for summer associate jobs is provoking a strong reaction.

Above the Law’s suggestion is that 2Ls should accept all offers for summer associate jobs, then revoke the offers they don’t want after they learn more about the financial situation of the law firms.

“Over the past year, we’ve learned that firms will rescind offers to summer associates,” Above the Law writes. “We’ve learned that firms will defer (or revoke) offers to incoming associates. We’ve learned that firms will bring in an entire class of summers, with little intention of making offers at the end of the summer. In short, in the past year, we’ve learned.”

“Hey what is good for the goose is good for the gander, right?” the blog adds.

Above the Law has posted a rebuttal, from the writers of the Nuts & Boalts blog covering the University of California at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall law school.

“ATL's advice disgusts me,” Nuts & Boalsts writes. “Boalties: Don't hoard offers. If you have more than one opportunity at your door, it's time to start making decisions, because the earlier you decline an offer the more likely it will redound to one of your peers. …

“To hold six offers open, to attend 15 callbacks, or to delay your decisions until the last moment NALP allows is to flirt with greed and self-indulgence.”