Anonymous User wrote:Anonymous User wrote:Anonymous User wrote:Not sure if this has been posted yet, but Paul Hastings ATL no-offered roughly 40% of their summer class.
Details?
Across the firm or office specific?
Don't have any other details except it was no-offers for ~3 of 8 summers. But apparently, that is par for the course down in Atlanta according to another poster. Seems like a pretty SPS market to me.
This info is specific to that office; I don't know anything about their other offices.
los blancos wrote:
Pretty much every firm every year no-offers 40% of their class in ATL. That's just how they do things down there.
Is this fairly common in the Southeast in general? The "300-ish lawyers/smaller classes/more no-offers/almost everyone makes partner" model?[/quote]
The Southeast in general is far less hesitant to no-offer someone. Here's my list why:
(1) While you're far from guaranteed partnership, many southeast firms are more midlaw than biglaw -- smaller offices and not as much turnover. It is easy to give out 100% offers when you're expecting the attrition rate you see at NY firms, but it doesn't scale down to 50 attorney offices.
(2) Southeast is far more dependent on real estate (and lit based on RE) than finance. IDK if you noticed, but there's not a lot of construction or RE transactions going on.
(3) Easier to piss off an attorney in a smaller office and their vote counts more. I know for a fact a big reason why I didn't get an offer because I pissed off an associate due to my personality. In a larger office, the partner would likely just say, "lol that's cute, here's 15k documents for you to review this weekend I make decisions bitch," but one voice counts for a lot more when it's one of 25-50.
(4) SE firms do not have the monstrously huge cases with banker boxes of docs as far as the eye can see. It's easier to staff a case with 1 partner / 1 or 2 junior associates if the petty stuff is mostly going to be small motions and hearings. If I wanted to, I could fit all the docs from "big" cases at the firm I worked for in my office without too much effort. There's a reason why firms like Quinn say junior associates handle "all things discovery," because there's so much of it to do.
(5) SE firms tend to be a small to medium satellite office if they're not standalone shops. PH Atlanta bills the same rates as NY, likely because 75% of their work emanates from NY. A satellite office likely does not have as good of a hold on the work flow as a primary office because they are not actually originating much business. That's also why some prominent SE firms (Alston/K&S) almost always give out 100% offers; they're also more NY style than a lot of other southern firms too.
I know lots of sociable and cool people with good grades who got no offered, it's not nearly as much of a lock for an associate position as NY is. I hope this doesn't come across as bitter; a lot of the things I wrote were reason why I was more attracted to a southern firm. They make for great associate life, but it's definitely tougher to get into the door.
I could write more but holy shit it's almost 3 am.