Can a firm revoke an offer prior to the 28 day deadline? Forum

[09042014]

Firm shills, you realize this would just lead to students accepting every offer and then dumping when they get a better one, right?

[Old Gregg]

This thread went downhill very quickly.

[KidStuddi]

Firm shills, you realize this would just lead to students accepting every offer and then dumping when they get a better one, right?

Part of me wonders if this doesn't already happen more than we think. I know more than a few people who actually dropped multiple seat deposits at law schools because they couldn't decide or wanted to go somewhere else when they got in off the waiting list. If people are willing to throw money away because they can't make up their mind about law schools, I can imagine many of them give firms soft yeses only to change their mind later. Sure the NALP guidelines might scare a couple of them straight, but I doubt all of these people grew out of the habit of being noncommittal in just a little bit longer than a year.

[mar9]

So I'm curious to hear what happened, OP?!

Update: Thanks for all the responses and suggestions, I found several very useful in figuring out how best to handle the situation.

Fortunately, things were resolved. I emailed the firm over the weekend (with a scanned copy of their offer letter) indicating my acceptance, and followed up with a call first thing Monday morning. The recruiting coordinator told me that the firm would uphold it's offer and sent me an email confirming that I had been accepted into the summer program. I guess, as someone mentioned earlier, they could just fire me on the first day of the summer- but it seemed important to the firm to uphold it's offer, despite being oversubscribed, so I think I'm all clear. I think strong pressure from my school's office of career services made a big difference.

Although it wasn't fun going 3 days with the serious concern that my (only) offer had been revoked prior to the 28 days- it seems like the firm was trying to be relatively responsible in informing students with outstanding offers that there may not be a position for everyone at the end of the summer. It didn't matter for me, since this was my only offer, but had I had other offers it might have led me to accept elsewhere (which, of course, was the firm's goal all along, as they were already over their target summer size).

I feel pretty luck that, in the end, everything worked out but it sure would have been nice for them to make it clear during the initial phone call that my offer was NOT being revoked. The "We've reached our maximum size" and answering my "Am I losing my offer?" with "Well, we don't want to revoke anyone's offer, but we are strongly encouraging you to explore other options" left me pretty uneasy for a few days.

I now know to expect an uneasy feeling again at the end of the summer, since I was straight up told that there will not be an offer for everyone, but I'd still take it any day over getting the offer revoked now, which guarantees no full time offer and might mean spending the summer applying my legal knowledge to the Starbucks cash register. (But hey, Grande Frappuccino v Venti Latte kinda sounds like an old school contracts case).


Thanks again- and good luck to anyone in a similar position

[thesealocust]

Do good work and keep your game face on this summer, but you should probably be hunting for an alternative still.

[09042014]

Write a thank you letter or something to the recruiting people, maybe? What does everyone else think?

Like The Sea Locust says, keep looking for this summer.

[IAFG]

Do good work and keep your game face on this summer, but you should probably be hunting for an alternative still.

Right. Don't withdraw anywhere and stay in touch with your outstanding firms. This is the one time when it's going to be totally, completely okay to bail after accepting an offer.

[keg411]

Do good work and keep your game face on this summer, but you should probably be hunting for an alternative still.

Right. Don't withdraw anywhere and stay in touch with your outstanding firms. This is the one time when it's going to be totally, completely okay to bail after accepting an offer.

+1.

[KidStuddi]

Fortunately, things were resolved. I emailed the firm over the weekend (with a scanned copy of their offer letter) indicating my acceptance, and followed up with a call first thing Monday morning. The recruiting coordinator told me that the firm would uphold it's offer and sent me an email confirming that I had been accepted into the summer program. I guess, as someone mentioned earlier, they could just fire me on the first day of the summer- but it seemed important to the firm to uphold it's offer, despite being oversubscribed, so I think I'm all clear. I think strong pressure from my school's office of career services made a big difference.

I'm usually anti-note, but I'd send those career service people something nice.