Was 2013 OCI substantially better than recent years? Forum

[bowser]

I was looking at the NALP Perspectives on Fall Recruiting 2013 and noticed something weird: The average number of offers given by a law firm in the survey was 27: http://www.nalp.org/uploads/Perspective ... ec2013.pdf

Compare that to 20 in 2012, and 16 in the Year of Infinite Sorrow (2009); 27 is pretty darn close to what the average number was in 2008, right before the crash.

Now, the report says hiring stayed mostly flat, and as someone who just went through OCI it definitely seems like it just sort of held steady. And the other metrics indicate that. But doesn't an average of 27 offers mean a ton more offers were given out overall?

[jbagelboy]

couldn't that also just mean that there's more "cross-offerization" of the same crop of top students? Firms might be mildly less selective within a certain range but theoretically it could result in the same net number of students receiving at least one offer (and the same not getting any). unless I'm misreading that chart.

[MyNameIsFlynn!]

couldn't that also just mean that there's more "cross-offerization" of the same crop of top students? Firms might be mildly less selective within a certain range but theoretically it could result in the same net number of students receiving at least one offer (and the same not getting any). unless I'm misreading that chart.

Probs this. Seems like T14 hiring is closing in on pre-recession levels, but everyone else is still down (some more than others) compared to 2008. T14 people are probably just getting a very disproportionate percentage of offers.

[oblig.lawl.ref]

It says in the source you cited:

"Anecdotally, many law firm recruiting professionals reported feeling as if they were competing fiercely with other firms for the same small group of job candidates"

So maybe this.

[sd5289]

I'm at a TT, and I know more than a few law review kids who are SOL after striking out at OCI. I only know of a few kids going into a large firm SA position this summer (hence why I tell 0L's who want Big Law to stay away).

I don't envy the position these kids are in at all.

[Anonymous User]

I have access to CLS's numbers from EIP last year (currently a student). The numbers were remarkably steady. It looks like most of the V25ish firms were making the same amount of offers (within 5ish percent of 2012). One thing to note is that the class was something like 5-10% smaller than the class before, so it's likely that more people got good jobs but I'm not sure what that means for the bigger jobs picture.

[Anonymous User]

I have access to CLS's numbers from EIP last year (currently a student). The numbers were remarkably steady. It looks like most of the V25ish firms were making the same amount of offers (within 5ish percent of 2012). One thing to note is that the class was something like 5-10% smaller than the class before, so it's likely that more people got good jobs but I'm not sure what that means for the bigger jobs picture.

Access to NYU's number as well.
Specific information is confidential but generally, hiring picked up until 2012. In 2013, there was very minimal difference in hiring (based on class size and offers) compared to 2012.
Caveat: this was based on a cursory glance, and the data only had some select vault firms

[bowser]

couldn't that also just mean that there's more "cross-offerization" of the same crop of top students? Firms might be mildly less selective within a certain range but theoretically it could result in the same net number of students receiving at least one offer (and the same not getting any). unless I'm misreading that chart.

Probs this. Seems like T14 hiring is closing in on pre-recession levels, but everyone else is still down (some more than others) compared to 2008. T14 people are probably just getting a very disproportionate percentage of offers.

But then the % of offers accepted would have to be dramatically lower, b/c all of the top applicants were turning down tons more offers. It looks like it held steady.

I mean, I agree. It doesn't seem like OCI was very different at all. That one statistic just seems really anomalous.

[POTUS2044]

couldn't that also just mean that there's more "cross-offerization" of the same crop of top students? Firms might be mildly less selective within a certain range but theoretically it could result in the same net number of students receiving at least one offer (and the same not getting any). unless I'm misreading that chart.

Probs this. Seems like T14 hiring is closing in on pre-recession levels, but everyone else is still down (some more than others) compared to 2008. T14 people are probably just getting a very disproportionate percentage of offers.

But then the % of offers accepted would have to be dramatically lower, b/c all of the top applicants were turning down tons more offers. It looks like it held steady.

I mean, I agree. It doesn't seem like OCI was very different at all. That one statistic just seems really anomalous.

A 3% drop in Accepted Offers is definitely not statistically insignificant when you're dealing with figure in the ten-thousands. Keep in mind medians stayed the same whereas averages grew, signaling the increases were primarily in the largest firms.

[Anonymous User]

3L here at a #15-#30 school. Anecdotally, it looks like the 2L class did better at 2013 OCI than my class did at 2012 OCI. This possibly fits into the narrative that T14 hiring has been stable, with any uptick in hiring maybe "trickling" down, at least a bit, into the next rung of schools.

[Anonymous User]

I'm at a top-20 school and quite a few law review folks (around 10) are unemployed for the summer after striking out at OCI and applications through their 2L year. So I HIGHLY doubt that OCI is substantially better.

[Cicero76]

I'm at a top-20 school and quite a few law review folks (around 10) are unemployed for the summer after striking out at OCI and applications through their 2L year. So I HIGHLY doubt that OCI is substantially better.

Good lord, really? How many people from one class are on LR anyway? 10 seems like it would be an awful large chunk of the 2L law review segment, and for that many high achievers at a T20 to be unemployed seems pretty ridiculous to me.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I'm at a top-20 school and quite a few law review folks (around 10) are unemployed for the summer after striking out at OCI and applications through their 2L year. So I HIGHLY doubt that OCI is substantially better.

Good lord, really? How many people from one class are on LR anyway? 10 seems like it would be an awful large chunk of the 2L law review segment, and for that many high achievers at a T20 to be unemployed seems pretty ridiculous to me.

It might depend on how you get on LR. If LR is write-on rather than grade-on, you can be on LR without biglaw grades. LR helps, but it doesn't make up for a GPA below a firm's cut-offs. (Depending on what grades you need for biglaw at any given school, of course.)

[jbagelboy]

I'm at a top-20 school and quite a few law review folks (around 10) are unemployed for the summer after striking out at OCI and applications through their 2L year. So I HIGHLY doubt that OCI is substantially better.

Good lord, really? How many people from one class are on LR anyway? 10 seems like it would be an awful large chunk of the 2L law review segment, and for that many high achievers at a T20 to be unemployed seems pretty ridiculous to me.

if its GW then LR is like at least 70 people right? so it's not quite so unexpected.

if it's Vandy then that's really bad.

[Anonymous User]

I'm at a top-20 school and quite a few law review folks (around 10) are unemployed for the summer after striking out at OCI and applications through their 2L year. So I HIGHLY doubt that OCI is substantially better.

Not sure if we go to the same T20 school, but I'd say about a third of my school's LR struck out at OCI (though almost all of them were able to find non-biglaw jobs).

[Anonymous User]

2013 OCI (Class of 2015) at CLS was 86% success rate. 2012 OCI (class of 2014) was between 70-80% (percentage was never given), so anecdotally it seems to have improved in 2013. Again like someone said above, this could be partially explained by the smaller class size for the Class of 2015 as well, so maybe the improvement is not much difference.

[Anonymous User]

2013 OCI (Class of 2015) at CLS was 86% success rate. 2012 OCI (class of 2014) was between 70-80% (percentage was never given), so anecdotally it seems to have improved in 2013. Again like someone said above, this could be partially explained by the smaller class size for the Class of 2015 as well, so maybe the improvement is not much difference.

Eh, it was 92% in another recent year. If you look at all the pre-recession years, CLS has wavered b/t 85-92%ile (people have said c/o 2014 was maybe just under 80%, but no one can confirm this - either way it's an anomaly).

[Anonymous User]

At my T6 it was different than 2012 - better in certain areas (people at the bottom and people at the top top) but worse for people in the middle...