Law schools sell OCI slots to law firms - not news, I guess Forum

[truevines]

When I was a 1L, I thought the career service people really meant it when they said "we're trying very hard to get you jobs."

Then, the recruiter at my firm told me that the firm had to pay for OCI slots and a huge premium for a hospitality suite. I felt very angry. Not only did I have to break the bank to go to law school, but also law school sold me like a patent portfolio to law firms and told me that they were helping me out.

This law school thing is really sick.

[Pokemon]

Yep.... law schools charge firms. One would think they would not do that once the economy was sour and they started the race for which school will have oci first.

[Aberzombie1892]

It's a lose lose scenario. Schools need to charge firms to prevent firms from coming to OCI without a serious interest in hiring people. On the other hand, charging firms keeps less financially successful firms from being able to pay for the opportunity to interview students. While government/PI employers pay less than firms to interview on campus, it's still more than many is them have allocated to recruiting.

[jbiresq]

It makes a bit of sense when they have to rent hotel rooms, because that's a big cost. However, when they get them for free (like UChicago does, at least,) effectively the firms are just getting charged for the lunch and coffee they lay out for the interviewers.

[truevines]

It makes a bit of sense when they have to rent hotel rooms, because that's a big cost. However, when they get them for free (like UChicago does, at least,) effectively the firms are just getting charged for the lunch and coffee they lay out for the interviewers.

And, you think the $50k/per tuition does not include the fees/expenses for the OCI?

[Sheffield]

When I was a 1L, I thought the career service people really meant it when they said "we're trying very hard to get you jobs."

Then, the recruiter at my firm told me that the firm had to pay for OCI slots and a huge premium for a hospitality suite. I felt very angry. Not only did I have to break the bank to go to law school, but also law school sold me like a patent portfolio to law firms and told me that they were helping me out.

Just another way some schools game the $ystem. Other than very modest charges for reasonable miscellaneous services (set up, clean-up, etc.), schools should do everything they can to get their students employed.

FWIW: When firms do pay out the bigger $$$ and a student reneges on an offer, etc., the school takes the heat and the student catches hell. True.

[jbiresq]

It makes a bit of sense when they have to rent hotel rooms, because that's a big cost. However, when they get them for free (like UChicago does, at least,) effectively the firms are just getting charged for the lunch and coffee they lay out for the interviewers.

And, you think the $50k/per tuition does not include the fees/expenses for the OCI?

Obviously. The school made a nice profit on OCI I'm sure.

[Pokemon]

It's a lose lose scenario. Schools need to charge firms to prevent firms from coming to OCI without a serious interest in hiring people. On the other hand, charging firms keeps less financially successful firms from being able to pay for the opportunity to interview students. While government/PI employers pay less than firms to interview on campus, it's still more than many is them have allocated to recruiting.

Eh... do not really agree with this. Firms coming to OCI already spend a decent amount of money in flying attorneys/partners as well as lost billing time for them. It is not like they need to pay extra to show that they care about hiring people.
Maybe smaller law firms from the region where the school will be located will just show up for the sake of showing up without plans of hiring someone, but the school can pass a rule that during regular OCI, only firms with NALP SA programs can come, and the rest can visit in September or Spring OCI.
I think schools do it simply because they can and it has been the tradition. In the same way that once some firms go to 160k the rest follow to attract the talent, once some firms pay the rest of them will pay schools to recruit from them.

[adonai]

My TTT doesn't make employers pay for OCI slots, but they don't come anyway.

[Sheffield]

I noticed that in NYC a BL OCI firm only attended of 2 of 3 T14s and opted for a lessor ranked school (or schools). I wondered if it was because of [OCI] fee budget reasons (certainly no travel expense would have been incurred). For that reason it is possible that the OCI fee for firms is substantial.

There was a recent thread where a school official at a lower ranked tier 1 school claimed that the OCI fee was minimal. I would think schools outside the T14 would be not be reckless when it came to soliciting firms — especially these days, because schools are sensitive about their employment rates. But one never knows.

[Aberzombie1892]

I noticed that in NYC a BL OCI firm only attended of 2 of 3 T14s and opted for a lessor ranked school (or schools). I wondered if it was because of [OCI] fee budget reasons (certainly no travel expense would have been incurred). For that reason it is possible that the OCI fee for firms is substantial.

There was a recent thread where a school official at a lower ranked tier 1 school claimed that the OCI fee was minimal. I would think schools outside the T14 would be not be reckless when it came to soliciting firms — especially these days, because schools are sensitive about their employment rates. But one never knows.

Which schools? A good amount of NLJ firms recruit regionally, even of that means hiring from some non-T14s over T14s. For example, Jones Walker does this - it doesn't OCI at any T14.

[09042014]

Firms pay a ton for recruiting. I bet it cost my firm ~50-100K to recruit me. The OCI fee is just a drop in the bucket.

Though Career services should be smart about the fee. If a firm is canceling their OCI slot, they should waive the fee in an attempt to keep them.

But I doubt any firms who are looking to recruit, would think twice about paying a fee. It might stop the lookie lous. Though even at NU's OCI where firms had to pay, a buddy had an interview that was basically "we aren't taking 2Ls, we are looking at what is out there."

[KidStuddi]

Firms pay a ton for recruiting. I bet it cost my firm ~50-100K to recruit me. The OCI fee is just a drop in the bucket.

I agree with most of what you wrote but, 50-100k? What?
How the hell could the costs ever get that high?

[camelcrema]

Maybe I misread the info in this thread because it's late, but is having to pay for OCI slots really keeping firms from hiring students? Wouldn't the ones who don't want to pay for OCI slots just list their positions on the school's job board?

[bk1]

Firms pay a ton for recruiting. I bet it cost my firm ~50-100K to recruit me. The OCI fee is just a drop in the bucket.

I agree with most of what you wrote but, 50-100k? What?
How the hell could the costs ever get that high?

If he's factoring in SA costs (which really are a part of recruitment) then it's pretty easy to get that high.

If he's not then it's harder but maybe not impossible if you take all the interviews given and then divide by the number of people who accept SA spots, factoring in all the attorney time that went into recruiting all those SAs (hours that those partners/associates could have been billing to clients instead).

[imchuckbass58]

Firms pay a ton for recruiting. I bet it cost my firm ~50-100K to recruit me. The OCI fee is just a drop in the bucket.

I agree with most of what you wrote but, 50-100k? What?
How the hell could the costs ever get that high?

It's at least that. The rule of thumb in a similar industry (consulting) is that it costs roughly your first year salary to recruit you in direct costs (i.e., not taking into account interviewer time).

The biggest costs are SA salary ($30k+ right there) and recruiting events, but the real killer is yield. The firm has to pay not only what it cost to recruit you, but to recruit all the others who either declined, were rejected, or dropped out at some point in the process.

For every person a top firm hires, there were probably at least 4 that got offers (25% yield is quite good for V10 firms at T14s), 8-10 that did final rounds, and 20+ that did screeners. Thus in order to get one hire, you needed to fly 10 candidates in for final rounds and put them up at a hotel (at costs approaching $1k each), and you had to wine and dine 4 offerees (easily hundreds of dollars each). They had to pay to rent an interview room, rent a hospitality suite, buy giveaway items (keychains, etc.), print those shiny pamplets, etc. Not to mention, if you are at a non-local school, the firm had to fly in 10 interviewers and recruiting people and put them up in hotels to interview at your school, to maybe yield 5 or 6 acceptances. Incidentally, this is also why firms love recruiting at local schools.

Also, SAs are really expensive. Say as an SA you go out to lunch 3 times per week at $75 / head (not uncommon in NY). Really, it's $150 per lunch, because the firm is paying for an associate to eat with you. That's close to $5k in summer lunches alone. Add in the evening events and you can easily be looking at $50k per head just for the summer program.

[LawIdiot86]

Firms pay a ton for recruiting. I bet it cost my firm ~50-100K to recruit me. The OCI fee is just a drop in the bucket.

I agree with most of what you wrote but, 50-100k? What?
How the hell could the costs ever get that high?

It's at least that. The rule of thumb in a similar industry (consulting) is that it costs roughly your first year salary to recruit you in direct costs (i.e., not taking into account interviewer time).

The biggest costs are SA salary ($30k+ right there) and recruiting events, but the real killer is yield. The firm has to pay not only what it cost to recruit you, but to recruit all the others who either declined, were rejected, or dropped out at some point in the process.

For every person a top firm hires, there were probably at least 4 that got offers (25% yield is quite good for V10 firms at T14s), 8-10 that did final rounds, and 20+ that did screeners. Thus in order to get one hire, you needed to fly 10 candidates in for final rounds and put them up at a hotel (at costs approaching $1k each), and you had to wine and dine 4 offerees (easily hundreds of dollars each). They had to pay to rent an interview room, rent a hospitality suite, buy giveaway items (keychains, etc.), print those shiny pamplets, etc. Not to mention, if you are at a non-local school, the firm had to fly in 10 interviewers and recruiting people and put them up in hotels to interview at your school, to maybe yield 5 or 6 acceptances. Incidentally, this is also why firms love recruiting at local schools.

Also, SAs are really expensive. Say as an SA you go out to lunch 3 times per week at $75 / head (not uncommon in NY). Really, it's $150 per lunch, because the firm is paying for an associate to eat with you. That's close to $5k in summer lunches alone. Add in the evening events and you can easily be looking at $50k per head just for the summer program.

No, the real killer is the opportunity cost of lost revenue. Assume 8-10 people did final rounds with four lawyers each and 40 did screeners with one lawyer each. Assume each interview was 20 minutes long. Assume a blended rate of $550 per lawyer. That's $14,000 of lost billables just to the interviews. That doesn't count longer lunches (about half of callbacks), travel time to screeners, bodies filling suites or standing at tables or time in committee meetings/filling out forms. Then remember that during the summer, the firm loses the time associates spend at lunch with the SAs when they otherwise would be grabbing food at their desk and all the time partners spend redoing the SAs' work or filling out forms about the SAs. I suspect another 10-15k per SA is foregone revenue, then the 30k in salary, and all the other expenses.

[westphillybandr]

Firms pay a ton for recruiting. I bet it cost my firm ~50-100K to recruit me. The OCI fee is just a drop in the bucket.

Where did you pull this number from?

[Pokemon]

I read on a paper (I wish I could remember the link) on legal recruitment, and the number that the authors mentioned was 50k to 100k per student they hired. People generally underestimate the costs that firms incur, from 1L positions as advertisement, recruiting mixers, suites and interviews, callbacks, and of course SA programs (include here the people that leave the firm after summer for clerkships or other firms). People are the number 1 asset of firms, and as such they spend on them more than what other industries do.

[84651846190]

I'm just waiting for law schools to start selling naming rights for OCI.

Email from Dean: "GET EXCITED FOR THIS YEAR'S BED, BATH & BEYONCAMPUS INTERVIEWS!!!"

[AllTheLawz]

TBF a lot of schools spend a lot of money on OCI. A lot of schools rent out the large majority (if not all) of a $300+/night hotel, hire consultants, provide finger food and snacks all day, etc. Maybe it could be built into tuition but I wouldn't bet on it.

[09042014]

Firms pay a ton for recruiting. I bet it cost my firm ~50-100K to recruit me. The OCI fee is just a drop in the bucket.

Where did you pull this number from?

30k just for my SA where I maybe billed 10 real hours.

15k signing bonus/bar stipend

Taxes on that ^

relocation costs

hotel/air fare 800 bucks. multiply by 4x for those who turned them down and by another 2x for those who get a cb but no offer

6k for a partner to spend 6 hours at an oci suite.

You could easily find 50K where they either wrote me a check or spent something directly on me (airfair hotel lunches dinners)

[reasonable_man]

The last time I did a round of clerk hiring, I was completely disappointed by most of the local Career Services offices I dealt with and I wasn't even doing OCI, I was just submitting a job to be posted on the school's job placement board. One would think that career services would do a much better job than they do (especially in this economy).

[Renne Walker]

The benefit of charging a significant OCI fee eliminates the tire kickers. No student wants to waste time (and in some occasions an OCI slot) to meet with a less than serious firm. IMO: If firms want a seat at the table, they should pony up (as they say in NYC).

[reasonable_man]

The benefit of charging a significant OCI fee eliminates the tire kickers. No student wants to waste time (and in some occasions an OCI slot) to meet with a less than serious firm. IMO: If firms want a seat at the table, they should pony up (as they say in NYC).

You actually believe that?