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

[sunynp]

HELP!!!

18 days ago I received an offer from a top 100 NY law firm. It is my only offer, and I have been waiting to hear back from several other firms that placed me "on-hold". Two days ago, the firm that gave me an offer called me to say that more students than expected had accepted their offer and that the firm had reached their max summer class size.

The recruiting coordinator inquired as to where else I was considering, and strongly suggested that I look elsewhere. When I asked her if she was revoking me offer, all I got was "We really don't want to" and a request for me to follow up with other firms and my school's career services. When I told her that I wanted to accept right then on the spot, she said I should follow up with other firms first and call her back on Monday.

I plan on calling first thing Monday (tmrw) morning to tell her I am accepting. Can she say no to my acceptance?? Can a firm really revoke an offer prior to the 28 days, just because they reached their max??? Isn't this there own fault for accepting too many students? Can they really even pressure me into deciding this early- before I have even heard back from everywhere I am "on-hold"????


Somehow this all doesn't seem right... I went from being completely calm and thrilled to have one "guaranteed" offer, to now being completely stressed out about potentially ending up with nothing.

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated

OP: how long have you been on hold? You might contact those firms. They may have already decided not to make you an offer, and you need to know where you stand.

[IAFG]

Where I come from, a firm acting responsibly wouldn't screw up its offers/yield calculus badly enough to either revoke or soft-revoke said offers.

Where I come from, it's cornbread and chicken.

... anyone?

Sounds like a number of firms got acceptances from people they thought were likely to go elsewhere. It may be an unexpected trickle down effect of bigger firms hiring fewer people etc. After last year's hiring which seemed like a small step up, these year sounds like it is probably treading water or going backwards.

Firms might have been blindsided by this. If they want to try to be able to offer 100% of the summer associates, they have to keep the class smaller.

Or, they may have realized now that they wont need as many first years next year as they had hoped. So it is better to just not get the people in the firm summer program if they aren't going to need them.

Well, you can play the blame game or you can try to mitigate its impact on you personally. So,

I agree that you should try to accept, but actually do follow up with all those firms you're on hold with and try to accept somewhere else instead. Obviously this firm isn't going to be pissed if you accept and turn them down to go somewhere else.

While OP may be able to strong-arm the firm into letting him start this summer, if there's any hope of summering somewhere else, OP needs to try to make that happen.

[sunynp]

Where I come from, a firm acting responsibly wouldn't screw up its offers/yield calculus badly enough to either revoke or soft-revoke said offers.

Where I come from, it's cornbread and chicken.

... anyone?

Sounds like a number of firms got acceptances from people they thought were likely to go elsewhere. It may be an unexpected trickle down effect of bigger firms hiring fewer people etc. After last year's hiring which seemed like a small step up, these year sounds like it is probably treading water or going backwards.

Firms might have been blindsided by this. If they want to try to be able to offer 100% of the summer associates, they have to keep the class smaller.

Or, they may have realized now that they wont need as many first years next year as they had hoped. So it is better to just not get the people in the firm summer program if they aren't going to need them.

Well, you can play the blame game or you can try to mitigate its impact on you personally. So,

I agree that you should try to accept, but actually do follow up with all those firms you're on hold with and try to accept somewhere else instead. Obviously this firm isn't going to be pissed if you accept and turn them down to go somewhere else.

While OP may be able to strong-arm the firm into letting him start this summer, if there's any hope of summering somewhere else, OP needs to try to make that happen.

Just trying to explain what might have gone wrong at the firm. I do strongly agree that OP should reach out to her other options. But she may have been on hold a while and I don't know how much to hope for from those firms. She definitely needs an answer from them.

[cinephile]

Where I come from, a firm acting responsibly wouldn't screw up its offers/yield calculus badly enough to either revoke or soft-revoke said offers.

Where I come from, it's cornbread and chicken.

... anyone?

Where I come from, a lot of front porch sittin'.

But seriously, I hope this works out for you. Either they let you accept or you call those other firms and get off the waitlists. Good luck.

[Anonnn]

I'd be curious to know what the average firm offer:acceptance ratio is. Frankly, I find it kind of odd that firms are willing to over-offer their summer classes the way they do.

When these firms hit their summer class target early are we generally talking classes of 5-10 or classes of 30-50?

[Anonymous User]

One of my offer letters actually stated "will stay open for 28 days or until our summer class has been filled." I appreciate the candidness, but it really makes it difficult to make a balanced decision.

[LawIdiot86]

One of my offer letters actually stated "will stay open for 28 days or until our summer class has been filled." I appreciate the candidness, but it really makes it difficult to make a balanced decision.

That would have motivated me to accept on the spot unless I had another offer that did not contain conditional language.

[09042014]

I'd be curious to know what the average firm offer:acceptance ratio is. Frankly, I find it kind of odd that firms are willing to over-offer their summer classes the way they do.

When these firms hit their summer class target early are we generally talking classes of 5-10 or classes of 30-50?

It probably depends on the hiring practices of the firm. One firm told me 4:1 offer to acceptance.

Firms can't just only give 10 acceptances if they have ten spots. Because after 28 days, they'll have 2-3 people. And the pool of potential students is smaller because they already took offers from other firms. All the top students are gone.

[Anonnn]

I'd be curious to know what the average firm offer:acceptance ratio is. Frankly, I find it kind of odd that firms are willing to over-offer their summer classes the way they do.

When these firms hit their summer class target early are we generally talking classes of 5-10 or classes of 30-50?

It probably depends on the hiring practices of the firm. One firm told me 4:1 offer to acceptance.

Firms can't just only give 10 acceptances if they have ten spots. Because after 28 days, they'll have 2-3 people. And the pool of potential students is smaller because they already took offers from other firms. All the top students are gone.

I get that. I wonder if they vary these rates at all based on the competitiveness of the candidate. 4:1 seems awfully high though. For 10 spots you could end up with 40 acceptances! Obviously you know that you won't get 40 acceptances but still...There's gotta be a better way to sort this all out for students and for firms.

I guess this is why career service offices harp so much on dropping callbacks once you have an offer you're likely to accept.

[Anonymous User]

FYI: I have heard multiple independent rumors of oversubscribed summer classes. The firm I accepted an offer from, for instance, had 10+ acceptances when they were aiming for 6-8 summers. Also heard rumors of larger firms (think V10 in NY) with similar oversubscription problems, but firms of that size and financial security can handle a few extra acceptances in a way that smaller firms cannot.

My advice: if you are still deciding between two firms that are fairly close in your mind, I would encourage you to call or email their recruiting departments and ask them how many summers they were aiming to have this year and how many offers the firm has had accepted so far. The firms only have an incentive to tell you the truth here (if they are oversubscribed, telling you they are means you're less likely to accept their offer, which they want; if they are undersubscribed, telling you that truth removes fear of being in an oversubscribed class). Figuring out if a firm is oversubscribed is important information that you need to know before accepting somewhere.

Likewise, even given OP's horror story, I wouldn't go out and immediately accept an outstanding offer if I'm still waiting on other firms that I'd prefer. I would first contact recruiting and ask them about their yield to date. If it is full or very close to being full, I would then strongly consider accepting. But if you ask and they indicate that they still have a fair number of spots remaining, I imagine you can wait a bit longer.

[hookem14]

One of my offer letters actually stated "will stay open for 28 days or until our summer class has been filled." I appreciate the candidness, but it really makes it difficult to make a balanced decision.

The firm I accepted an offer from was very explicit that when the class was filled, that was it. I was told that "it shouldn't really be an issue as long as you accept within the 28 days," but it still scared me enough to say yes after just a week.

[rad lulz]

Where I come from, a firm acting responsibly wouldn't screw up its offers/yield calculus badly enough to either revoke or soft-revoke said offers.

Where I come from, it's cornbread and chicken.

... anyone?

Where I come from, a lot of front porch sittin'.

But seriously, I hope this works out for you. Either they let you accept or you call those other firms and get off the waitlists. Good luck.

Where I come from, tryna make a livin

[unc0mm0n1]

I'd be curious to know what the average firm offer:acceptance ratio is. Frankly, I find it kind of odd that firms are willing to over-offer their summer classes the way they do.

When these firms hit their summer class target early are we generally talking classes of 5-10 or classes of 30-50?

It probably depends on the hiring practices of the firm. One firm told me 4:1 offer to acceptance.

Firms can't just only give 10 acceptances if they have ten spots. Because after 28 days, they'll have 2-3 people. And the pool of potential students is smaller because they already took offers from other firms. All the top students are gone.

I get that. I wonder if they vary these rates at all based on the competitiveness of the candidate. 4:1 seems awfully high though. For 10 spots you could end up with 40 acceptances! Obviously you know that you won't get 40 acceptances but still...There's gotta be a better way to sort this all out for students and for firms.

I guess this is why career service offices harp so much on dropping callbacks once you have an offer you're likely to accept.

But you also have to think they don't give acceptances out at the same time. For instance, I got an offer from firm A 1 day after my callback, my friend who applied to the same firm didn't get an offer until a little over 2 weeks later. By that time me and few other people made our decisions so the firm had a better picture of where they stood before they handed out more offers. Also I've heard of firms gauging interest before they give out offers later in the cycle i.e. finding out the likelyhood of you accepting or who else you're interviewing with.

[Anonymous User]

The situation sucks. But, I can’t say threating, what you hope will be, your future employer of exposure and bad press is the best way to start off. Would you threaten your prom date of calling her a slut if she decided to go with someone else? You might, but you are likely not to get any nookie.

While I agree you should not rollover and getting in the door is better than being in the cold, the threat of outing was not the way to go about it. Someone said in the thread if you are in you will have an equal shot at the offers, but I can’t agree with this point. The firm now knows your tendencies and your responses. As a former employer myself, I would be looking at you with a slanted eye because I have to worry about how you will act the first time you don’t agree with your boss or feel that you’ve been treated poorly. Will your first response always be the same? You might be able to say no to us, but they will not know that.

As for this NALP offer guidelines and whether it’s fair—who cares welcome to life. This process was created as a “UN treaty” (play by it as long as it suits us) amongst the big firms when lawyers were in need and jobs to be had. Even in the best of times STUDENTS should be thrilled to be treated as such. Now, they should be downright grateful. In the real world most job offers (that’s what these are) will not have a 28-day period while you sniff around elsewhere. The most I’ve ever had was a week after an offer where during interviewing I didn’t know what the offered terms were. During OCI 90% time you know what the offer is going to be.

Going back to the dating analogy (from a guy’s perspective) in the good days students where the hot girls and firms were the boys (some were hotter than others), and firms (especially the less hot) were willing to give a window of acceptance in hopes that the hot girls (students) would accept. All adding to the old saying “girls, in the end, have all the power.” Well that saying is still the same except the firms are now the girls and the students are now the boys, add to the fact there are less “dates” to be had. So, if you were the girl (firm) how would you feel about giving out a window (even if you were just trying to be nice) only to feel like the boy (student) is waiting for something better, especially when the girl thinks they have just as much to offer as the next and have other boys waiting to accept. To wrap it up, what does this mean? If the firm thought you were hot enough they would have waited even if it did put them at SA Class +1—you must not have been that hot to them and you missed your chance at the prom.

Waiting is fine but you take your chances. An offer is only open until it is accepted or rescinded, even if it does say it would stay open. If you disagree you could always sue them—that’s one way to get noticed.

[nevdash]

As a former employer myself, I would be looking at you with a slanted eye

Racist, please moderate.

[wcarlwilson]

As a former employer myself, I would be looking at you with a slanted eye

Racist, please moderate.

Would you prefer evil eye, stink eye, glaring eye or GTFO eye?

[dingbat]

I wonder if they vary these rates at all based on the competitiveness of the candidate

Probably not. If you're competitive enough to get an offer, you get an offer. Firms don't know if you screwed up your OCI bidding, did particularly badly on another interview, or phenomenally well at theirs. They just know from past experience that X% of offers get accepted and they make offers accordingly.

As for a firm screwing up their offer ratio, take a look at SLU, that gave out too many scholarships. Back in the nineties a medical school (I don't remember which) screwed up and accepted too many students, so they ended up offering free rides to anyone who would defer. It's a best-guess approach, but based on historic trends usually quite accurate and being slightly under or over isn't that big a deal. Every once in a while, there's a big fuck up (especially when the long-term trends are upended)

[Anonymous User]

The situation sucks. But, I can’t say threating, what you hope will be, your future employer of exposure and bad press is the best way to start off. Would you threaten your prom date of calling her a slut if she decided to go with someone else? You might, but you are likely not to get any nookie.

While I agree you should not rollover and getting in the door is better than being in the cold, the threat of outing was not the way to go about it. Someone said in the thread if you are in you will have an equal shot at the offers, but I can’t agree with this point. The firm now knows your tendencies and your responses. As a former employer myself, I would be looking at you with a slanted eye because I have to worry about how you will act the first time you don’t agree with your boss or feel that you’ve been treated poorly. Will your first response always be the same? You might be able to say no to us, but they will not know that.

As for this NALP offer guidelines and whether it’s fair—who cares welcome to life. This process was created as a “UN treaty” (play by it as long as it suits us) amongst the big firms when lawyers were in need and jobs to be had. Even in the best of times STUDENTS should be thrilled to be treated as such. Now, they should be downright grateful. In the real world most job offers (that’s what these are) will not have a 28-day period while you sniff around elsewhere. The most I’ve ever had was a week after an offer where during interviewing I didn’t know what the offered terms were. During OCI 90% time you know what the offer is going to be.

Going back to the dating analogy (from a guy’s perspective) in the good days students where the hot girls and firms were the boys (some were hotter than others), and firms (especially the less hot) were willing to give a window of acceptance in hopes that the hot girls (students) would accept. All adding to the old saying “girls, in the end, have all the power.” Well that saying is still the same except the firms are now the girls and the students are now the boys, add to the fact there are less “dates” to be had. So, if you were the girl (firm) how would you feel about giving out a window (even if you were just trying to be nice) only to feel like the boy (student) is waiting for something better, especially when the girl thinks they have just as much to offer as the next and have other boys waiting to accept. To wrap it up, what does this mean? If the firm thought you were hot enough they would have waited even if it did put them at SA Class +1—you must not have been that hot to them and you missed your chance at the prom.

Waiting is fine but you take your chances. An offer is only open until it is accepted or rescinded, even if it does say it would stay open. If you disagree you could always sue them—that’s one way to get noticed.

Please don't give advice. This was just horrible.

[Anonymous User]

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

[ph14]

The situation sucks. But, I can’t say threating, what you hope will be, your future employer of exposure and bad press is the best way to start off. Would you threaten your prom date of calling her a slut if she decided to go with someone else? You might, but you are likely not to get any nookie.

While I agree you should not rollover and getting in the door is better than being in the cold, the threat of outing was not the way to go about it. Someone said in the thread if you are in you will have an equal shot at the offers, but I can’t agree with this point. The firm now knows your tendencies and your responses. As a former employer myself, I would be looking at you with a slanted eye because I have to worry about how you will act the first time you don’t agree with your boss or feel that you’ve been treated poorly. Will your first response always be the same? You might be able to say no to us, but they will not know that.

As for this NALP offer guidelines and whether it’s fair—who cares welcome to life. This process was created as a “UN treaty” (play by it as long as it suits us) amongst the big firms when lawyers were in need and jobs to be had. Even in the best of times STUDENTS should be thrilled to be treated as such. Now, they should be downright grateful. In the real world most job offers (that’s what these are) will not have a 28-day period while you sniff around elsewhere. The most I’ve ever had was a week after an offer where during interviewing I didn’t know what the offered terms were. During OCI 90% time you know what the offer is going to be.

Going back to the dating analogy (from a guy’s perspective) in the good days students where the hot girls and firms were the boys (some were hotter than others), and firms (especially the less hot) were willing to give a window of acceptance in hopes that the hot girls (students) would accept. All adding to the old saying “girls, in the end, have all the power.” Well that saying is still the same except the firms are now the girls and the students are now the boys, add to the fact there are less “dates” to be had. So, if you were the girl (firm) how would you feel about giving out a window (even if you were just trying to be nice) only to feel like the boy (student) is waiting for something better, especially when the girl thinks they have just as much to offer as the next and have other boys waiting to accept. To wrap it up, what does this mean? If the firm thought you were hot enough they would have waited even if it did put them at SA Class +1—you must not have been that hot to them and you missed your chance at the prom.

Waiting is fine but you take your chances. An offer is only open until it is accepted or rescinded, even if it does say it would stay open. If you disagree you could always sue them—that’s one way to get noticed.

Nice try, biglaw human resources employee.

[homestyle28]

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

[clown?bro]

Going back to the dating analogy (from a guy’s perspective) in the good days students where the hot girls and firms were the boys (some were hotter than others), and firms (especially the less hot) were willing to give a window of acceptance in hopes that the hot girls (students) would accept. All adding to the old saying “girls, in the end, have all the power.” Well that saying is still the same except the firms are now the girls and the students are now the boys, add to the fact there are less “dates” to be had. So, if you were the girl (firm) how would you feel about giving out a window (even if you were just trying to be nice) only to feel like the boy (student) is waiting for something better, especially when the girl thinks they have just as much to offer as the next and have other boys waiting to accept. To wrap it up, what does this mean? If the firm thought you were hot enough they would have waited even if it did put them at SA Class +1—you must not have been that hot to them and you missed your chance at the prom.

Nice analogy. I think "waiting" should be analogized to "holding out for true love (versus losing your virginity on the football field)" cause use it or lose it, correct? you don't want to be the only virgin on your hall freshmen year (i.e., be working for a non-market paying firm in a secondary market)...also, clearly being on LR is the functional equivalent of playing Varsity football, but if you wrote on and your grades are average...what is that in terms of getting a date, like being some kind of hefty lineman?

[Anonymous User]

I wonder if they vary these rates at all based on the competitiveness of the candidate

Probably not. If you're competitive enough to get an offer, you get an offer. Firms don't know if you screwed up your OCI bidding, did particularly badly on another interview, or phenomenally well at theirs. They just know from past experience that X% of offers get accepted and they make offers accordingly.

That's what I thought before I went through the OCI process, but they do know. They know because they ask. Every CB I went on had at least one person asking the obligatory, "so where else are you interviewing" and when it got late enough into the cycle it became "where do you have offers?" Not to mention, when you eventually do turn down offers from firms, they almost all will ask where you're going "for their records." I don't know why else they would be requesting this data if not to try and project where certain candidates are likely to go based on their stats.

Anecdotally, I went something like 9/9 offer to callback at firms under V25 but like 1-5 in the V25-V100 range. Timing of the CBs, markets, and class sizes were not materially different. At least two of the lower ranked vault firms that rejected me accepted classmates of mine whose grades I am very familiar with and they were about .3-.5 GPA points below me and on secondary journals while I am on the flagship LR. I realize it may well just be narcissism to assume that they all wanted me, but I was certainly "competitive," by any objective standard at least. I don't think it can be written off as personality either, because from my perspective I genuinely thought my best callback in terms of "fit" was with one of the firms that rejected me. Also, I don't put much stock in Vault rankings and would have strongly considered joining them over the firm I eventually went with had they made me an offer so I doubt they were picking up on some "this place is beneath me" vibe from me.

[KidStuddi]

Waiting is fine but you take your chances. An offer is only open until it is accepted or rescinded, even if it does say it would stay open. If you disagree you could always sue them—that’s one way to get noticed.

No consideration for the option and therefore not enforceable. You'd only get noticed for having slept through contracts.

[sunynp]

I love that the firm shill expressly says summers should feel grateful about having a job. Most firms feel this way behind the facade of fun and games.

I've posted before- never ever complain about anything regarding your summer job.

OP that means being extremely professional with the way you handle this situation.