Firms to Avoid Forum

[84651846190]

lol... Glad I was able to read that before it got deleted. If someone worked with me during the summer and just didn't show up to events and slacked off in general, I'd be unhappy too if they went back to their law school and bad-mouthed my firm because it no-offered them "for no reason." It sounds like Tanicius got to hear that person's side of the story, whereas the anon got to see what was actually going on. Firms do awful shit to people and often deserve to be bad-mouthed, but there seems to be a presumption that if someone got no-offered, it was probably because the firm is a heartless jackass. That is certainly the case with places like Brown Rudnick, but just 1 person getting no-offered (as mentioned in Tanicius/anon's anecdote) is probably not because of economical reasons / law-firm douchebaggery.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/02/27/law ... 250-staff/

[Anonymous User]

There are firms that are just douchey. One of my classmates was no-offered by Latham last year because they thought she was "too aloof." No warning, no prior talk about her attitude or interaction with other people. Just bam, good luck to you! Knowing her, she's a person who works hard and keeps her head down. Had nothing to do with financials. It was just a shitty, out-of-nowhere decision, probably because she just wasn't fratty enough for them. I think that's the kind of behavior that the OP wants to catalog here.

Anon b/c I'm confident I summered with above-referenced classmate (Latham LA; Boalt student). Your classmate was no offered because {edited}. The no offered SA was perfectly nice, and I'm sure a good student. But just because she was surprised by the no offer does not mean the no offer was objectively surprising.

Latham recruiting? Either way, I'm sure you were given this information in confidence. Fairly despicable to post it on TLS like this. I'm sure anyone at Boalt will be able to work out who you're talking about.

LOL, sure, last summer I held positions as both a SA and a Recruiter. . . And exactly what objective standard of decency did my disclosure fail? The no offered SA herself openly volunteered all the above information {edited}. Unless a Mod advises me to edit the post, I don't think I've unfairly treated the SA, whether or not her fellow Boalties could out her.

tldr: The above-referenced no offer was reasonable and not based on insufficient frat-ness. There may still be reasons to avoid Latham LA (such as poor partnership prospects or residual 2009-based layoff fear), but personality rejection within the firm is not one of them.

[84651846190]

Also, this:

http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id ... forum_id=2

[20141023]

.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Honestly, I think it's impossible to speculate about why any given individual gets no-offered (I mean generally, not so much the specific case described here since two of the people ITT clearly know the person at issue). Some people tend to assume that anyone no-offered is some kind of mouth-breather who can't handle human interaction, which I think is completely unfair. That's not to say that no one gets no-offered for being a mouth-breather who can't handle human interaction - there are some people who can make a good impression for a screener/callback but not a whole summer. But in a vacuum it's impossible to say why any given no-offer happens. (I also think getting no-offered for "fit" usually says more about the firm/employer than the person in question - one employer's mouth-breather is another employer's golden boy. Face it, people who make to top schools and through OCI to a SA are generally not incompetent fools, or they wouldn't have made it that far.)

[NYSprague]

lol well obviously that was an example of law-firm douchebaggery, but to assume that every single no-offer by Latham & Watkins from here on out is because they are jackasses is what I was talking about above.

Assume douchebaggery for your own best interests.

The layoff tag on ATL brings up 65 pages of stories going back to 2007. The no offer tag has 8 pages going back to 2008.

[AntipodeanPhil]

There are firms that are just douchey. One of my classmates was no-offered by Latham last year because they thought she was "too aloof." No warning, no prior talk about her attitude or interaction with other people. Just bam, good luck to you! Knowing her, she's a person who works hard and keeps her head down. Had nothing to do with financials. It was just a shitty, out-of-nowhere decision, probably because she just wasn't fratty enough for them. I think that's the kind of behavior that the OP wants to catalog here.

Anon b/c I'm confident I summered with above-referenced classmate (Latham LA; Boalt student). Your classmate was no offered because [mod edit: other reasons we probably don't need to go into]. The no offered SA was perfectly nice, and I'm sure a good student. But just because she was surprised by the no offer does not mean the no offer was objectively surprising.

Latham recruiting? Either way, I'm sure you were given this information in confidence. Fairly despicable to post it on TLS like this. I'm sure anyone at Boalt will be able to work out who you're talking about.

LOL, sure, last summer I held positions as both a SA and a Recruiter. . . And exactly what objective standard of decency did my disclosure fail? [EDITED]. Unless a Mod advises me to edit the post, I don't think I've unfairly treated the SA, whether or not her fellow Boalties could out her.

You're aware that a mod edited your previous post to remove the information, right? And then you reposted it. And no one knows who you are, since -- while you're willing to post embarrassing personal information about someone else, and enough information to identify that person -- you're not willing to post under your own username.

Also, your use of information that you admit you derived from the Latham internal facebook probably violates firm policy.

Since you're obviously incapable of understanding basic standards of human decency, I'm not going to try and explain that. I'm just glad I'm not summering at Latham LA.

[84651846190]

Honestly, I think it's impossible to speculate about why any given individual gets no-offered (I mean generally, not so much the specific case described here since two of the people ITT clearly know the person at issue). Some people tend to assume that anyone no-offered is some kind of mouth-breather who can't handle human interaction, which I think is completely unfair. That's not to say that no one gets no-offered for being a mouth-breather who can't handle human interaction - there are some people who can make a good impression for a screener/callback but not a whole summer. But in a vacuum it's impossible to say why any given no-offer happens. (I also think getting no-offered for "fit" usually says more about the firm/employer than the person in question - one employer's mouth-breather is another employer's golden boy. Face it, people who make to top schools and through OCI to a SA are generally not incompetent fools, or they wouldn't have made it that far.)

This. There are no offers that happen purely because the firm doesn't need as many SAs as it thought it would.

[jbagelboy]

sigh I was going to put Latham LA relatively high on my bid list, so this is relevant to my interests/discouraging to me

[ph14]

sigh I was going to put Latham LA relatively high on my bid list, so this is relevant to my interests/discouraging to me

There are lots of good LA firms.

[AntipodeanPhil]

LOL, sure, last summer I held positions as both a SA and a Recruiter. . . And exactly what objective standard of decency did my disclosure fail? The no offered SA herself openly volunteered all the above information {edited}. Unless a Mod advises me to edit the post, I don't think I've unfairly treated the SA, whether or not her fellow Boalties could out her.

tldr: The above-referenced no offer was reasonable and not based on insufficient frat-ness. There may still be reasons to avoid Latham LA (such as poor partnership prospects or residual 2009-based layoff fear), but personality rejection within the firm is not one of them.

LOL. I love that the only part of your post that you decided to edit, at least initially, was the part where you admitted that you got some of personal the information you posted here from Latham's internal facebook.

[El Pollito]

This thread is a train wreck.

[jbagelboy]

This thread is a train wreck.

I think it just got interesting actually. It's always fun when someone's anecdote gets called out. Six degrees of net separation and all that

[Old Gregg]

sigh I was going to put Latham LA relatively high on my bid list, so this is relevant to my interests/discouraging to me

I vote basically shit talking all of the V100 so you can say that you didn't bid any firms on the basis of such information

[El Pollito]

This thread is a train wreck.

I think it just got interesting actually. It's always fun when someone's anecdote gets called out. Six degrees of net separation and all that

Well yes, it's interesting because it's a train wreck, and because you're pretending this has changed your mind about Latham.

[jbagelboy]

This thread is a train wreck.

I think it just got interesting actually. It's always fun when someone's anecdote gets called out. Six degrees of net separation and all that

Well yes, it's interesting because it's a train wreck, and because you're pretending this has changed your mind about Latham.

Hey come on - I'm just bored of reading about eminent domain. I'll step out and observe

[Anonymous User]

Same anon.

You're aware that a mod edited your previous post to remove the information, right? And then you reposted it.

I don't believe it had been Mod-edited yet. Fixed.

And no one knows who you are, since -- while you're willing to post embarrassing personal information about someone else, and enough information to identify that person -- you're not willing to post under your own username.

There's nothing unreasonable about this. See rules on anonymous posting.

Also, your use of information that you admit you derived from the Latham internal facebook probably violates firm policy.

Lol, no. The 'facebook' is a printout flip-book disseminated on a one-time basis to all SAs. It is our property. I can mail you my copy if you'd like.

Since you're obviously [circular] incapable of understanding basic standards of human decency, [citation?] I'm not going to try and explain that.[k] I'm just glad I'm not summering at Latham LA.[me too]

.

[AntipodeanPhil]

Same anon.

Since you're obviously [circular] incapable of understanding basic standards of human decency, [citation?] I'm not going to try and explain that.[k] I'm just glad I'm not summering at Latham LA.[me too]

The fact that you want a citation for my reference to "basic standards of human decency" speaks volumes here.

[Anonymous User]

Since this thread is still going, Pillsbury Winthrop could be added to the list. They only had 9 summers last summer and still no-offered 2 people because they over hired. At least some of the summers were told right at the beginning of the summer that only 7 of them would be getting an offer…

[Anonymous User]

I'll chime in too and add in Winston Strawn DC. Let's just say I got very good/candid interviewers who talked "frankly" with me about what type of decision I would be making if I went there.

[Anonymous User]

Same anon.

The fact that you want a citation for my reference to "basic standards of human decency" speaks volumes here.

It speaks most voluminously about your false-consensus bias.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Anon, I don't want to out you because you did post information about where you summered and all, but why don't you and Antipodean Phil stop this pissing match, and people can get back to identifying firms they think suck.

[Blessedassurance]

This thread is worse than roadkill.

why don't you just let the thread go on? it's not the worst thread on tls. why does it bother you so much?

[Lincoln]

Surprised no one has mentioned Dechert. At the beginning of summer 2012 it told its classes in two offices (I think) that its offer acceptance rates had been higher than in previous years and they therefore had a larger summer class than planned; consequently, they would no offer about 10% of the summer class. At my school alone, two people were no-offered as a result. The high acceptance rate would have been known at least by mid-fall 2011, and they could have told their last few accepting applicants to allow them to take any secondary offers. Instead they let the summer associates play hunger games, hoping they wouldn't be considered bottom 10%.

I want to stress that I do not have first-hand knowledge of this, as I did not summer at Dechert, but I heard this from people who actually got offers, so I have no reason to doubt it.

Edited for accuracy.

[sparty99]

You can also put the Washington DC Public Defender's Office on this list as well.