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Does this even exist anymore in legal hiring?

Or more specifically, does this exist for someone outside of the t-14 (i.e. top 15% at a t20-30, with solid work experience)?

Any more? Did it ever exist? (Of course not.)

And, if it did exist, you would be in no danger of being yield-protected.

I think it exists to a limited degree. When I was interviewing (Top 5% T10), all of my callbacks from were from V25's and none of them were from firms lower than V25. This was not because I bid on solely top firms given that I bid quite a few V50 & V100 firms. I think one of the reasons that I was more successful at top firms is because I was better able to articulate a reason for why I wanted to work there. However, other friends in similar positions were successful at both less selective firms and more selective firms.

I would say that there is a small degree of yield protection, but if you are a good interviewer (I am not) you can overcome that. The reason that decisions might seem like yield protection is because top firms will assume you really want to work for them whereas less selective firms might be skeptical as to why you want to work there as opposed to top firms. Also, this really only applies for people who are at the very top of the class.

For you, I wouldn't worry too much about given that you have good but not exceptional grades. Best of luck at OCI!

I've heard of something like "yield protecting" happening at the callback stage where candidates with GPAs way over the cutoff get rejected. However, that may just be because the people rejected didn't fit with the firm and are trying to blame their rejection on yield protection.

Firms do not yield protect at the screening stage when grades matter the most. Since matriculation rate does not matter for rankings, firms will give out a lot of callbacks and hope they can convince people to come to the firm. There also may be an ego aspect to it as well. No firm wants to admit they are not the first choice for top students.

Yes. It happens. Flying you back for a callback and putting you up in a hotel is a non-trivial transaction cost. It's also a cost when attorneys have to take time out of their busy days to interview you. Firms don't want to give callbacks to folks who won't accept an offer. There are some exceptions (e.g., at least in some years, Skadden NY has given almost blanket offers to HYS students, hoping a few will bite), but mostly firms don't want to waste their time. Why would they?

I was among the top 3 students at my T14 after 1L year, and think it is possible that I encountered some yield protection during OCI (in 2008, so class of 2010).

I did 25 screening interviews and had callback offers from 22, including Williams & Connolly and several other firms of that general caliber. Yet I got no callback at Reed Smith DC, Dewey DC, or A&P DC. Those results felt random at the time, but didn't bother me much, since none of those firms were near the top of my list. Could be I bombed the interviews, but based on my batting average in screening interviews and callback --> offer rate (9 of the 10 I went on -- all but White & Case, which was imploding at the time), that seems somewhat unlikely.

Anonymous User wrote:I was among the top 3 students at my T14 after 1L year, and think it is possible that I encountered some yield protection during OCI (in 2008, so class of 2010).

I did 25 screening interviews and had callback offers from 22, including Williams & Connolly and several other firms of that general caliber. Yet I got no callback at Reed Smith DC, Dewey DC, or A&P DC. Those results felt random at the time, but didn't bother me much, since none of those firms were near the top of my list. Could be I bombed the interviews, but based on my batting average in screening interviews and callback --> offer rate (9 of the 10 I went on -- all but White & Case, which was imploding at the time), that seems somewhat unlikely.

+1. In fact, I know an awful lot of people who got called back by W&C/Covington but not A&P, which is a real head scratcher (myself included).

Each firm will have a different point of view, but there's definitely evidence to suggest some measure of YP occurs to some group of candidates. Not nearly to the same extent as when applying to law school, though.