Fordham Makes Reed Smith Pay a Price! Forum

[rondemarino]

No, get their calculations done a few weeks earlier and realize that they didn't want to come sometime before 10 minutes after the last minute.

^^ This. I definitely recognize that MrOrange and thesealocust have raised valid points. However, I don't think law schools' response in this climate should be to bend over to every legal employer out there. At some point schools need to start taking the longer view of things. Fish & Richardson and Irell haven't paid a price for rescinding offers to graduates (in Fish's case, this happened AFTER students had registered for bar exams). The more schools keep bending over, the more leeway it gives legal employers to keep making offers that aren't worth a damn or recruiting SAs without informing them of the the firms intention of no-offering a significant portion of their class.

[seeker63]

I think this is awesome. Firms need to get their act together, and if they don't there should be consequences. And they should be the kind of consequences that bubbly music, bright colors, and a good publicity campaign can't solve.

This reminds me of when NCAA teams get sanctioned for breaking recruitment rules.

[Anonymous User]

Firms like this rely heavily on schools in Fordham's tier. Harvard, Yale, and Stanford grads aren't banging at their door for offers.

Maybe two years ago. Reed may well be assuming that In This Economy they can pick up T3, T6, or T14 grads at a better rate then usual. They probably wouldn't be wrong.

And that's all very well and good, but the point stands.

There's absolutely no reason why Reed Smith couldn't run the numbers and come to the conclusion that they didn't want to recruit at Fordham more than a few weeks in advance of OCI.

Schools can't do much to protect their students from things like "cold offers", which have the potential to dramarically fuck up a person's life and career, but they can at least prevent firms from dicking around and abusing the OCI process.

[thesealocust]

edit: n/m

[dalilama]

Bottom line, as a student choosing where you'd want to go to law school in the next few years, wouldn't this have to at the very least be a factor when considering Fordham? The fact that some employers may be turned off, and no employer is going to say "Hey, there's a school with 'backbone', I am hiring one of them there fiesty kids.". They may say, as has been pointed out, that dealing with Fordham is not worth the risk of a public relations nightmare if Fordham get its panties in a bunch.

Bad form by the dean, there were better plays here than this.

[Anonymous User]

But the dean sending a mass email scolding the firm for being unprofessional? That's pretty low... and it could have been handled much more discretely, especially in the age of online legal tabloids. I think that calling out behavior like this publicly is insulting and as unprofessional as the initial misconduct.

Not really.

It was unprofessional of someone within Fordham to forward the e-mail to ATL, etc.

The Dean is no doubt attempting to soothe a (justifiably) jittery class of second and third year students, some of whom just lost a valuable bid slot. He can't just say nothing.

[Mark71121]

No, get their calculations done a few weeks earlier and realize that they didn't want to come sometime before 10 minutes after the last minute.

^^ This. I definitely recognize that MrOrange and thesealocust have raised valid points. However, I don't think law schools' response in this climate should be to bend over to every legal employer out there. At some point schools need to start taking the longer view of things. Fish & Richardson and Irell haven't paid a price for rescinding offers to graduates (in Fish's case, this happened AFTER students had registered for bar exams). The more schools keep bending over, the more leeway it gives legal employers to keep making offers that aren't worth a damn or recruiting SAs without informing them of the the firms intention of no-offering a significant portion of their class.

yeah, but you don't punish the class of 2017 because the firm was a little late on deciding not to bring in SAs during the summer of 2010, especially when the alternative is showing up at OCI with no intention to hire and wasting EVERYONE'S time.

and like another poster said, fordham is the last school that should be pulling this kind of crap. it is not a very good school and firms don't recruit much from there to begin with.

[OperaSoprano]

I am glad my school didn't do this, though. As good as it feels to see some reaction to this firm's actions, I do think it's risky. I hate being c/o 2011.

Life is risky, lol. I admire Dean Treanor for having the balls to do this.

To Corsair: Reed Smith knew, or should have known, that the economy was craptastic. I agree that they probably shrank their class size, but I don't think they needed to wait this long to let schools know what they should have known months ago.

[rondemarino]

No, get their calculations done a few weeks earlier and realize that they didn't want to come sometime before 10 minutes after the last minute.

^^ This. I definitely recognize that MrOrange and thesealocust have raised valid points. However, I don't think law schools' response in this climate should be to bend over to every legal employer out there. At some point schools need to start taking the longer view of things. Fish & Richardson and Irell haven't paid a price for rescinding offers to graduates (in Fish's case, this happened AFTER students had registered for bar exams). The more schools keep bending over, the more leeway it gives legal employers to keep making offers that aren't worth a damn or recruiting SAs without informing them of the the firms intention of no-offering a significant portion of their class.

I agree that Reed's behavior is far from ideal. I agree we should know about it and I agree we should talk about it. I agree that doing so might make firms more respectful in the future. I might even support Fordham sanctioning the firm in some way - give it a crappy room next year, ban it for a year quietly, loose its check for registering for EIW/OCI/whatever...

But the dean sending a mass email scolding the firm for being unprofessional? That's pretty low... and it could have been handled much more discretely, especially in the age of online legal tabloids. I think that calling out behavior like this publicly is insulting and as unprofessional as the initial misconduct.

The ban is fine. When/If the market returns to 'normal' Reed Smith is going to be back finding themselves far down on bid lists of T-14 graduates.

+1, on the part of about the scolding. People don't react well to being called out in public. More tact would have been better and would have had the same effect.

[Mark71121]

But the dean sending a mass email scolding the firm for being unprofessional? That's pretty low... and it could have been handled much more discretely, especially in the age of online legal tabloids. I think that calling out behavior like this publicly is insulting and as unprofessional as the initial misconduct.

Not really.

It was unprofessional of someone within Fordham to forward the e-mail to ATL, etc.

The Dean is no doubt attempting to soothe a (justifiably) jittery class of second and third year students, some of whom just lost a valuable bid slot. He can't just say nothing.

what are you talking about? deans at every other law school have said nothing when firms pull out. everybody understands the situation.

[Anonymous User]

and like another poster said, fordham is the last school that should be pulling this kind of crap. it is not a very good school and firms don't recruit much from there to begin with.

*facepalm*

What part of T30 and NYC do you not understand?

[rondemarino]

and like another poster said, fordham is the last school that should be pulling this kind of crap. it is not a very good school and firms don't recruit much from there to begin with.

... which explains why so many of their graduates end up in Big Law.

[OperaSoprano]

No, get their calculations done a few weeks earlier and realize that they didn't want to come sometime before 10 minutes after the last minute.

^^ This. I definitely recognize that MrOrange and thesealocust have raised valid points. However, I don't think law schools' response in this climate should be to bend over to every legal employer out there. At some point schools need to start taking the longer view of things. Fish & Richardson and Irell haven't paid a price for rescinding offers to graduates (in Fish's case, this happened AFTER students had registered for bar exams). The more schools keep bending over, the more leeway it gives legal employers to keep making offers that aren't worth a damn or recruiting SAs without informing them of the the firms intention of no-offering a significant portion of their class.

yeah, but you don't punish the class of 2017 because the firm was a little late on deciding not to bring in SAs during the summer of 2010, especially when the alternative is showing up at OCI with no intention to hire and wasting EVERYONE'S time.

and like another poster said, fordham is the last school that should be pulling this kind of crap. it is not a very good school and firms don't recruit much from there to begin with.

ORLY? The National Law Journal disagrees with you:



Fordham places way above its rank.

[Anonymous User]

i just wanted to try out the anonymous post button! woooo! and i agree with what Fordham did. when the economy bounces back, i bet Reed will be sorry--they will need Fordham again.

[thesealocust]

edit: n/m

[Anonymous User]

what are you talking about? deans at every other law school have said nothing when firms pull out. everybody understands the situation.

1) Just because everybody else shuts up doesn't mean that it the de facto right way to go.

2) There's a difference between saying, "Oh, gee. We know it's July and we're really sorry but we can't come this year," and "Uh. We know it's a week before OCI and you've already set the schedule and people have made bids and stuff. But we're not coming because we think we can do better." That's just insulting.

[Mr. Matlock]

and like another poster said, fordham is the last school that should be pulling this kind of crap. it is not a very good school and firms don't recruit much from there to begin with.

Well, the NLJ 250 would beg to disagree with you.

If this were Bob Jones, Liberty, or Cooley, we'd all be having a good laugh right now. But the fact is, Fordham does very well with "The Big Boys".

Edit: Well no surprise.... OS beat me to the punch!

[Mark71121]

fordham was a good school during boom times. let's see what happens to fordham (and other non-HYSCCN) schools in the next few years.

[thesealocust]

edit: n/m

[danquayle]

The bottom line: Law schools must do their best to help their students acquire law jobs.

Does this help Fordham students in their respective job hunts?

Most unemployed people I know would take working for a jerk employer over no work at all.

[thesealocust]

edit: n/m

[revolution724]

2008 was boom times? Wow.

[OperaSoprano]

Fordham placed way above its rank in 2008.

Fixed that for you. Everybody's going to suffer ITE, and while I'm sure fordham will still do well for itself and well compared to its rank, the halcyon days of 40+% NLJ 250 don't at the moment seem likely to return anytime soon.

Yes, that's true. No one knows how bad it will be. A friend at a higher ranked school just got no-offered (to my shock), and I was definitely upset, though I'm not biglaw bound myself.

I admire Dean Treanor's courage. Fordham was always the underdog of NYC, and now my school is standing up for itself.


Historically, we've placed top third out to 40%.

[Anonymous User]

2008 was boom times? Wow.

Class of 2008 people were interviewed in 2006, HTH.

Whatever y'all want to say about Reed Smith, they're still paying $160k. Any firm offering $160k could probably stick to hiring top 25% to 33% at T14 ITE and still fill their class.

[thesealocust]

edit: nm