AM LAW: SUMMER ASSOCIATE HIRING DOWN 44 PERCENT OVER 2009

[romothesavior]

in simcity 2000, fusion plants were usually invented at some point between 2000 and 2050. they were expensive but never polluted or melted down. the best thing to do usually was to just create a huge ass waterfall and hydroelectric the shit out of that though. solar and wind were too weak and expensive.

TITMFCR

[steve_nash]

in simcity 2000, fusion plants were usually invented at some point between 2000 and 2050. they were expensive but never polluted or melted down. the best thing to do usually was to just create a huge ass waterfall and hydroelectric the shit out of that though. solar and wind were too weak and expensive.

I like you.

[Sell Manilla]

Someone said solar energy was the next big thing and said nuclear power was on the decline.

Not true at all.
1) I gave clear evidence for why solar thermal will probably be a major growth industry & provide JD jobs (saying nothing about it not leaving room for other technology)
2) You said nuclear is the shiznit & belittled solar thermal as if I were a child in a sandbox.
3) I provided further evidence, defending solar thermal as a major growth industry, not commenting on nuclear.
4) You reacted to my post, clearly without reading the link, & made up the notion that I had dissed nuclear.
5) I pointed out that you had totally fabricated my alleged dissing of nuclear, & foolishly threw in an afterthought of "also, nuclear waste?" Not wanting to push your buttons, considering you already were claiming I was dissing nuclear, I thought of a quick, uneducated excuse for nuclear waste that was ridiculous & rightly used as humor fodder
6) You continued to shove words down my throat.

I've tried to stay out of this recently, but can't help it when you make shit up about what I said...
if you can quote me on saying "nuclear power [is] on the decline," do it. Otherwise, stop plz.

[underdawg]

one of you jokers should just be the bigger man or something

[Sell Manilla]

one of you jokers should just be the bigger man or something

That works if you're insulting one another, or even disagreeing.
I'm simply trying to not be misquoted as saying that solar is the next craze or that nuclear is not a happenin' technology.
Also, I'd like to hop on the bandwagon of +1'ing your comment if it's not too late.

[underdawg]

look im not trying to fight, brah

[swc65]

So moving on from the so interesting new-clear (in Palin teleprompter type) convo.


As for never returning to boom-time levels of legal employment- I hope we never do. People stumbling out of law school after drinking away their time for three years and landing in the bottom of class and then they get high paying legal jobs, that's a a good bubble-about-to-burst indicator. We do not have to return to 2007-8 levels to for things to get better. All that has to happen for things to get better is to improve from the BOTTOM. Therefore the predictions that things will get better are probably right while the "oh this is the new normal" predictions are probably wrong. Someone mentioned the auto industry as support for their "new normal" assertions. Ask all the people in the southern US who are building Hondas, Nissans, Toyos, and now Mercedes how the destruction of the "American" auto industry has affected them.

Yes there are legal and economic headwinds facing legal employment. As some people point out, there are other areas that are growing and will pick up some of the slack.

I am not saying that things are going to be rosy next year. I am saying that it is highly likely that things will improve (and there is evidence that it already has improved- this is not to say it's at pre-ite) from the bottom and probably soon.

Where do people get this idea that we are simply going to stay where we are economically forever? Read the book This Time is Different. Financial crises happen. They suck and take more time than other crisis to fade away, but they do eventually fade.

Additionally, things can change rather rapidly. Just look at Europe. A few months ago Europe was seen as being on the verge of collapse because of sovereign debt. Now, growth is high, confidence is up, and banks are recapitalized. There are still problems, but the rhetoric has changed dramatically.


Also, NY to 190!!! probably through massive inflation though

[NYAssociate]

.

[JohnBoy]

look im not trying to fight, brah

Don't tase me bro!


I concede to the man with the extensive hours logged in simcity, since that is a bad ass mtfking game.
/shit argument

[JohnBoy]

So moving on from the so interesting new-clear (in Palin teleprompter type) convo.


As for never returning to boom-time levels of legal employment- I hope we never do. People stumbling out of law school after drinking away their time for three years and landing in the bottom of class and then they get high paying legal jobs, that's a a good bubble-about-to-burst indicator. We do not have to return to 2007-8 levels to for things to get better. All that has to happen for things to get better is to improve from the BOTTOM. Therefore the predictions that things will get better are probably right while the "oh this is the new normal" predictions are probably wrong. Someone mentioned the auto industry as support for their "new normal" assertions. Ask all the people in the southern US who are building Hondas, Nissans, Toyos, and now Mercedes how the destruction of the "American" auto industry has affected them.

Yes there are legal and economic headwinds facing legal employment. As some people point out, there are other areas that are growing and will pick up some of the slack.

I am not saying that things are going to be rosy next year. I am saying that it is highly likely that things will improve (and there is evidence that it already has improved- this is not to say it's at pre-ite) from the bottom and probably soon.

Where do people get this idea that we are simply going to stay where we are economically forever? Read the book This Time is Different. Financial crises happen. They suck and take more time than other crisis to fade away, but they do eventually fade.

Additionally, things can change rather rapidly. Just look at Europe. A few months ago Europe was seen as being on the verge of collapse because of sovereign debt. Now, growth is high, confidence is up, and banks are recapitalized. There are still problems, but the rhetoric has changed dramatically.


Also, NY to 190!!! probably through massive inflation though

Yo for reelz son, I been said that. We teamin up on these doubters.

[Warhawk]

*walks in*

Antimatter, people!

*dives out through a window*

[JohnBoy]

sorry Sell Manilla, can we be friends?

[Sell Manilla]

sorry Sell Manilla,

No worries.

can we be friends?

Only with on-call benefits & I get to pitch exclusively.

[JohnBoy]

Only with on-call benefits & I get to pitch exclusively.

Too far.

Where are you going to school?

[XxSpyKEx]

"Obviously we were in the midst of one of the greatest economic downturns in recent history last year," says Steven Sletten, chair of Gibson, Dunn's firmwide hiring committee, commenting on the decrease. "We had to make adjustments on the margin and thought it was prudent to reduce the size of the summer program somewhat." He says he does not expect the size of next year's program to be dramatically different from this year's. Latham did not return calls for comment.

Gibson was one of the largest though. The Gibsons of the world aren't the firms that we're all hoping to see increases - its more the Cravaths and Morgan Lewises (cut by 80%/100%) that we're hoping to see really pick up hiring.

Is ML even doing a program next year?

Yes. And they're doing lots of interviews at all the schools I have seen.

So... maybe they'll hire 1 person after all of that, but the signs such as we have them point to a large(ish) summer program at MLB.

---

For the record, I have seen a metric fuckton of data, and I firmly believe there will be more Class of 2012 (Summer of '11, recruiting of '10 - god this system can be hard to keep track of) offers than there were for the Class of 2011 (Summer of '10, recruiting of '09). Everyone was a little shocked to see current OCI numbers, but the actual # of interviews and # of firms hiring is up most places I look. This year will be hard as compared to the boom, but I'd bet every dollar I have it's better than last year.

This article, to repeat, does not tell us anything knew. We had and reviewed and discussed this very data when it was released months ago. We've been operating under its assumptions all along.

I would as well. Something like 40-50% of all NALP firms in Chicago were not hiring (at all) for this summer (because they filled up their 2011 class with 2010 grads). Those firms have to hire a few people to keep the pipeline moving, otherwise they will have no one to do they BS new associate work. Add 1-2 associates to 35 law firms, that's 35-70 more people getting hired, which is a huge increase from the 250 that got this SAs this summer (but still no where near the 800 that got SAs in 2008 for c/o 2009).

I think a lot of you have some serious misunderstandings of the situation here. This is all a fairly subjective take, I suppose, but as one who practiced in a Vault 100 for some time before transitioning out, I might be able to offer some insight.

First, it's devastatingly naive to parse out the number as something like the "top 60% at a T20" getting an offer. Think of it more as 5% or so of all law students. Then subtract out large sections for the most elite schools on down the line. And realize that summer associate positions may include 1Ls (rarely, but very possible at smaller firms) and may include splitters (again, rarer these days than in the ol' days). And realize that even with good offer rates of 90%, that's 300 or so who're left out after their summer gig. And realize that the AmLaw 200 list includes law firms of fewer than 200 attorneys who don't pay $100,000, much less $160,000.

Now, maybe that's all well and good for you, because you figure you'll be in the top X% of Y school which is ranked Z and obviously must get you a job in an AmLaw 200 firm, and whatever salary they pay you will be just fine because it'll be better than the salary would've had at A with your B degree. There's really nothing I can do to try to talk you out of that way of approaching the world.

But additionally troubling is the perpetual optimism (or perhaps bare hope) that things will get back to where they were before this recession. I think people don't understand the shifts that have taken place. People here are treating lawyers-at-big-law-firms as a kind of fungible "employee" that should go up and down with unemployment, and as soon as unemployment numbers drop, then there will be more lawyers-at-big-law-firm positions. But sometimes, some jobs, like we've seen with, say, automotive manufacturing or telephone customer service, will simply never come back.

From around 1990 to 2008, there were a number of incredible boom times for lawyers, peppered with some occasional corrections in the legal marketplace. There were a number of Internet companies that started up, sought venture capital, engaged in mergers and buyouts, and filed for IPOs. There were real estate booms and development in a number of regions. And with the boom of the Internet, discovery costs in litigation increased significantly, as e-mail and electronic paper trails gave significantly more work to litigators.

But there have been a number of dramatic changes in the last several years. After Sarbanes-Oxley, the number of companies filing for IPOs has dropped dramatically and may never return. With the stabilization of the Internet, and the lessons learned from the dot-bust, there are fewer pure start-up opportunities and more in-house development, and that kind of innovation may never return (in terms of legal jobs; I'm not saying Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. aren't still developing). Mergers and acquisitions have fallen in the down economy because there simply isn't the capital to do them, and there's increasing skepticism from the SEC about these kinds of blockbuster deals. The bursting of the real estate bubble and ensuing legislation have dramatically limited access to credit and real estate development opportunities, which may never return. (While much of the content of the financial reform bill is largely undetermined at the moment, it will, in all likelihood, make such opportunities still scarcer.) Firms have found ways to streamline electronic discovery, or at the very least outsource it. Litigators' bread and butter was often discovery in the down times; now that you can scan all the documents and store them remotely, someone, literally anywhere in the world, can do it.

And this outsourcing has led to other related issues. Let's set aside the very real issue. Gargantuan firms began to experience break-outs as partners (who, perhaps, didn't like their shares, or feared getting ousted when they turned a certain age) trekked out on their own with a client book. And they could undercut the gargantuan firms and offer the same services. While this is nothing new, lower costs were a significant motivating interest for many companies over the last few years looking for legal services. Companies would look to smaller firms to handle issues more efficiently. You may have read much about the "death of the billable hour"; and while reports of its death are greatly exaggerated, it certainly has led to a number of alternative or fixed-fee arrangements at firms, even the biggest firms, to drop the prices for clients.

So we have two important phenomena. We have a number of legal areas that were extremely hot for a period that have cooled substantially and may never return, or at least certainly won't return in the next decade with anything near their former glory; and a number of movements of firms to lower-priced alternatives of the big law firms.

Are there legal jobs out there? Of course. But I think (and here I get a bit subjective) the opportunities are shifting toward these smaller, dispersed centers that can afford to do legal work at a lower rate (because they're not concerned about, say, premium Manhattan office space or keeping their PPP above $1MM), and away from these former hot areas. If you want to do litigation, I think the road is going to be very difficult ahead as discovery is scaled back and outsourced. If you want to do transactional or corporate work, you will live and die by what happens in the regulatory world in Washington.

Finally, firms have learned that they can get away with a lot. They've moved an increasing number of attorneys to the contract attorney system. After all, it was something of a tease to bring in 100 associates each September and acknowledge that only 1 would be left standing in a decade to make share partner. So why not trim that associate class, then bring in the bottom quarter of it at a reduced-price, reduced-benefit scale and let them do a lot of the grunt work?

So this is an exceedingly downer of a post. But it's meant to be so to quash some of the rampant optimism. If you get a JD, you can definitely hit the streets and have a long and prosperous career. But if you think that you're going to waltz into a 500-attorney office and get $160,000 to start, and that if you just wait long enough those booming glory days for everyone are coming just around the corner, I think you'd be sadly mistaken.

So how much do you think law schools will raise tuition by in the next 10 years, as salaries continue to drop (as a result of "lower priced" legal services)? My prediction is that law schools will continue to increase tuition around 10% per year (roughly 3 times the CPI, as they have been doing), and yet, even more students will want to attend law school.

[let/them/eat/cake]

So moving on from the so interesting new-clear (in Palin teleprompter type) convo.


As for never returning to boom-time levels of legal employment- I hope we never do. People stumbling out of law school after drinking away their time for three years and landing in the bottom of class and then they get high paying legal jobs, that's a a good bubble-about-to-burst indicator. We do not have to return to 2007-8 levels to for things to get better. All that has to happen for things to get better is to improve from the BOTTOM. Therefore the predictions that things will get better are probably right while the "oh this is the new normal" predictions are probably wrong. Someone mentioned the auto industry as support for their "new normal" assertions. Ask all the people in the southern US who are building Hondas, Nissans, Toyos, and now Mercedes how the destruction of the "American" auto industry has affected them.

Yes there are legal and economic headwinds facing legal employment. As some people point out, there are other areas that are growing and will pick up some of the slack.

I am not saying that things are going to be rosy next year. I am saying that it is highly likely that things will improve (and there is evidence that it already has improved- this is not to say it's at pre-ite) from the bottom and probably soon.

Where do people get this idea that we are simply going to stay where we are economically forever? Read the book This Time is Different. Financial crises happen. They suck and take more time than other crisis to fade away, but they do eventually fade.

Additionally, things can change rather rapidly. Just look at Europe. A few months ago Europe was seen as being on the verge of collapse because of sovereign debt. Now, growth is high, confidence is up, and banks are recapitalized. There are still problems, but the rhetoric has changed dramatically.


Also, NY to 190!!! probably through massive inflation though

so you're saying all the power is generated from the bottom?

[Sell Manilla]

Can anyone link us to the stats from '08 to '09?

Also, can anyone link us to a rough estimate of changes in all JD jobs over the past few years?

[drew]

So moving on from the so interesting new-clear (in Palin teleprompter type) convo.


As for never returning to boom-time levels of legal employment- I hope we never do. People stumbling out of law school after drinking away their time for three years and landing in the bottom of class and then they get high paying legal jobs, that's a a good bubble-about-to-burst indicator. We do not have to return to 2007-8 levels to for things to get better. All that has to happen for things to get better is to improve from the BOTTOM. Therefore the predictions that things will get better are probably right while the "oh this is the new normal" predictions are probably wrong. Someone mentioned the auto industry as support for their "new normal" assertions. Ask all the people in the southern US who are building Hondas, Nissans, Toyos, and now Mercedes how the destruction of the "American" auto industry has affected them.

Yes there are legal and economic headwinds facing legal employment. As some people point out, there are other areas that are growing and will pick up some of the slack.

I am not saying that things are going to be rosy next year. I am saying that it is highly likely that things will improve (and there is evidence that it already has improved- this is not to say it's at pre-ite) from the bottom and probably soon.

Where do people get this idea that we are simply going to stay where we are economically forever? Read the book This Time is Different. Financial crises happen. They suck and take more time than other crisis to fade away, but they do eventually fade.

Additionally, things can change rather rapidly. Just look at Europe. A few months ago Europe was seen as being on the verge of collapse because of sovereign debt. Now, growth is high, confidence is up, and banks are recapitalized. There are still problems, but the rhetoric has changed dramatically.


Also, NY to 190!!! probably through massive inflation though

so you're saying all the power is generated from the bottom?

[JohnBoy]

For the upcoming summer, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is expecting 300 law students, down from 321 in 2007. The number of its summer associates in 2007 soared above those in 2006, when the law firm brought aboard 219 summer associates.

Some individual statistics for 2008:
Latham & Watkins also has reduced the number of associates it is expecting. This year, it plans to welcome 264 law students, compared with 284 in 2007. In 2006, the firm hired 276 law students for its summer slots.

Sidley Austin also is preparing for fewer summer associates this year. In 2007 it had 232, compared with 217 this year. Jones Day, which brought on 262 summer associates last year, expects 248 this season. In addition, Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner recently decided to trim its summer associate program from 11 to eight weeks and to delay the start date for first-year associates from September to January.

Kirkland & Ellis, which hired 229 summer associates in 2007, is planning on 190 this year.

Summer associate hiring at least at some top firms may have declined, but law firms in general appear to be casting a wider net for the summer associates they bring on.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1206357948571

[270910]

For the upcoming summer, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is expecting 300 law students, down from 321 in 2007. The number of its summer associates in 2007 soared above those in 2006, when the law firm brought aboard 219 summer associates.

Some individual statistics for 2008:
Latham & Watkins also has reduced the number of associates it is expecting. This year, it plans to welcome 264 law students, compared with 284 in 2007. In 2006, the firm hired 276 law students for its summer slots.

Sidley Austin also is preparing for fewer summer associates this year. In 2007 it had 232, compared with 217 this year. Jones Day, which brought on 262 summer associates last year, expects 248 this season. In addition, Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner recently decided to trim its summer associate program from 11 to eight weeks and to delay the start date for first-year associates from September to January.

Kirkland & Ellis, which hired 229 summer associates in 2007, is planning on 190 this year.

Summer associate hiring at least at some top firms may have declined, but law firms in general appear to be casting a wider net for the summer associates they bring on.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1206357948571

You're a son of a bitch. I read "For the upcoming summer, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is expecting 300 law students" and was super excited. Then I realized you were posting an old article. I award you no points, and my God have mercy on your soul.

[JohnBoy]

From the ABA:

Stats for summer associates were the worst, with the median number of offers dropping to seven for 2010 hiring. The median number of offers for students recruited in 2008 was 10, dropping from 15 in 2007, NALP reports.

At large firms with more than 700 lawyers, the median number of offers dropped to eight in 2009, down from 18.5 in 2008 and 30 in 2007. And while larger firms of more than 500 lawyers were the most likely to cut back on-campus recruiting efforts, smaller firms with 100 lawyers or fewer were more likely to have kept to their regular on-campus recruiting schedule.

NALP estimates that at least 3,200 and as many as 3,700 graduating law students faced deferrals.

Perhaps a beacon of light:

NALP Executive Director James Leipold expects law school recruiting to continue hobbling along until at least the class of 2012 graduates, "though the worst does now seem, we hope, to be behind us."

Source:http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/summer_associate_offers_plummet_hitting_17-year_low

For those with time on your hands, and an affinity for charts:http://www.abajournal.com/files/PerspectivesonFallRec09.pdf

[Anonymous User]

I would like to see a breakdown of how these statistics are related to law schools according to their ranking and to their location - big city or big legal market vs. small town.

I also dont know if taking a scholarship from a lower ranked law school is better than having to take debt from a t14. Maybe a t14 can provide you with a job while a t30 cant? Of all the t14s that i visited, most of the students there had jobs, real jobs, not like the bs some law schools report. Of the t 30 - 40s i visited, most of them did not have a job at all.

[Sell Manilla]

^ Yes. Could a long-time member of TLS who's respected please start a new thread in the employment section devoted to macro stats? Not just individual articles, but trying to put the puzzle together to determine how bad it really is/isn't?

I realize BigLaw will wind up being the focus, but I'd really like to know about JD position trends across the board.

[Anonymous User]

Macro analysis.....

ITS F ing BAD out there! (But not as bad as it was....)

[Sell Manilla]

^ Roger.
But seriously, I wanna know what % of T10 students are employed at graduation. T11-20.... T21-30. etc.
I wanna know what % of TTT kids are employed at graduation etc.
It'd be good to track all JD jobs as a % of all JD graduates over the past few years as well.