Some Deferred Associates at Cravath May Start on Time, if Luck Is on Their Side
Some deferred associates at Cravath, Swaine & Moore are getting good news: The law firm won’t be pushing back their 2010 start dates after all.
The firm is making the offer to once-deferred associates who haven’t yet lined up a job after their graduation in 2010, according to Above the Law and the New York Law Journal. If there are too many takers, however, Cravath will hold a lottery to determine which associates may come on board.
Cravath had announced its plan in June to defer 120 associates in its 2010 class until 2011. The firm agreed to pay the grads a $65,000 stipend.
Cravath hiring partner Rowan Wilson told the New York Law Journal that the lottery is being used “to make sure none of them reads anything into whether they were selected because they’re perceived to be better,” he said.
Says Above the Law: “I bet that when people received a summer associate offer from Cravath, they weren’t expecting to have their careers reduced to a Powerball drawing. Personally, I would have gone with a Survivor-style reality show where we lock potential Cravath starters in a dorm and watch them cannibalize each other.”
