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Hi folks. Long story short, I'm an associate in DC who's thinking about putting in some applications for other DC firms. However, I'm slightly concerned that word of this will make it back to my firm somehow - perhaps it's just paranoia on my end, but I don't need my partners knowing that I've been thinking about making moves. Does anyone have any experience with how discreet these things usually are?

Happened to me as a summer. I started interviewing elsewhere during the summer and the head of recruiting at my summer firm revealed that someone in recruiting at one of the firms where I interviewed (and received an offer) shared that I had interviewed there. Totally inappropriate, IMO. That said, other firms I interviewed with expressly asked for my consent to contact my summer firm to confirm my employment and offer status before doing so. Firms *should* have strong incentives not to develop a reputation for outing potential candidates to their current employers. Your risk is nonzero but probably small.

It also largely depends on the type of law you're going into. Some fields are really small and insular (like trademark law), and the more insular it is, the more chances there will be that someone at your firm is going to figure out you're out looking for jobs at other firms. I.e., I would go into any interview assuming your firm is going to find out, if you're moving from one trademark job to another trademark job, or other areas of law that don't include a lot of attorneys.

If you're doing something much less tight-knit, there's a smaller chance of the information getting disclosed, but there is still always a chance the firm's going to want to contact your firm to figure out your employment status, to ask about you, or even just generally to gossip about you. It sucks because it's really hard to get a new job when potential employers are so laissez-faire about your job search, but I don't know that there's a whole lot you can do about it, other than withholding consent to contact your current firm (which may be fine, or which may give the new firm reason to think you're hiding something).

Anonymous User wrote:Happened to me as a summer. I started interviewing elsewhere during the summer and the head of recruiting at my summer firm revealed that someone in recruiting at one of the firms where I interviewed (and received an offer) shared that I had interviewed there. Totally inappropriate, IMO. That said, other firms I interviewed with expressly asked for my consent to contact my summer firm to confirm my employment and offer status before doing so. Firms *should* have strong incentives not to develop a reputation for outing potential candidates to their current employers. Your risk is nonzero but probably small.

What benefit comes to the second firm by doing that? That sounds totally inappropriate.

The only two scenarios I can imagine this happening for are i) the recruiting contacts were good friends, and thought helping each other out was entertaining/more important than their firm's standing or ii) in some underhanded way the second firm thought by making things awkward at your summer firm this could force your hand to accept their offer in some way. Totally weird. I can only imagine outing candidates weakens their ability to have their pick of the best people.

What happened in the end? Which firm did you accept?

I interviewed elsewhere during my summer place as well - told my summer firm that I had to leave early on a certain day (didn't give reasons), they didn't pursue as to why and it never got back to me.

When I started shopping firms while still at my firm, in my email I made sure to put in the subject line "confidential associate application" and in the body I expressly requested that they exercise discretion. It never got back to my firm that I had been shopping (at least not that I am aware of). I'm pretty sure that as long as you make it clear you are applying in confidence, you should be fine. It's not like this is uncommon in our line of work.

Anonymous User wrote:When I started shopping firms while still at my firm, in my email I made sure to put in the subject line "confidential associate application" and in the body I expressly requested that they exercise discretion. It never got back to my firm that I had been shopping (at least not that I am aware of). I'm pretty sure that as long as you make it clear you are applying in confidence, you should be fine. It's not like this is uncommon in our line of work.

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. Agreed that it should be fine, just a little paranoid since I've only got one career, and I don't need it tanked.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Happened to me as a summer. I started interviewing elsewhere during the summer and the head of recruiting at my summer firm revealed that someone in recruiting at one of the firms where I interviewed (and received an offer) shared that I had interviewed there. Totally inappropriate, IMO. That said, other firms I interviewed with expressly asked for my consent to contact my summer firm to confirm my employment and offer status before doing so. Firms *should* have strong incentives not to develop a reputation for outing potential candidates to their current employers. Your risk is nonzero but probably small.

What benefit comes to the second firm by doing that? That sounds totally inappropriate.

Because the second firm is more invested in vetting you than protecting your current job status. They also want to be able to ask your current firm what your standing there is, to figure out if you're trying to flee because you're about to get fired, or whether you're in good standing and legit just want a change of locale. They also want to be able to ask their colleagues in other firms what you've been like and whether or not they should take a risk on you.

In a nutshell, their benefit is getting information about you that they don't trust you'll give them. They largely don't care what effect that has on your current career.

This happens a lot, BTW; I work in patents and the partners in my firm most definitely knew when someone was looking to make a jump to another firm, even if the partners didn't say anything at the time to the person interviewing elsewhere. They didn't get petty and fire the people leaving, so there is that silver lining (i.e., your firm may most definitely hear about your job search, but they may not do anything about it because they need you either way). But I think this is more common than people think.

Anonymous User wrote: This happens a lot, BTW; I work in patents and the partners in my firm most definitely knew when someone was looking to make a jump to another firm, even if the partners didn't say anything at the time to the person interviewing elsewhere. They didn't get petty and fire the people leaving, so there is that silver lining (i.e., your firm may most definitely hear about your job search, but they may not do anything about it because they need you either way). But I think this is more common than people think.

How big of a market are you in?

SplitMyPants wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: This happens a lot, BTW; I work in patents and the partners in my firm most definitely knew when someone was looking to make a jump to another firm, even if the partners didn't say anything at the time to the person interviewing elsewhere. They didn't get petty and fire the people leaving, so there is that silver lining (i.e., your firm may most definitely hear about your job search, but they may not do anything about it because they need you either way). But I think this is more common than people think.

How big of a market are you in?

It's not market specific. I'm in a fairly large market (NYC/Boston/CA). People who have applied for NYC jobs still had this happen. People who have applied to firms in Virginia and NC have still had this happen. If people know people at your firm, they'll reach out. If people are wondering why you'd leave your awesome firm, they'll reach out. If they just have a global policy to ask, they'll ask. Etc.

Anonymous User wrote:

SplitMyPants wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: This happens a lot, BTW; I work in patents and the partners in my firm most definitely knew when someone was looking to make a jump to another firm, even if the partners didn't say anything at the time to the person interviewing elsewhere. They didn't get petty and fire the people leaving, so there is that silver lining (i.e., your firm may most definitely hear about your job search, but they may not do anything about it because they need you either way). But I think this is more common than people think.

How big of a market are you in?

It's not market specific. I'm in a fairly large market (NYC/Boston/CA). People who have applied for NYC jobs still had this happen. People who have applied to firms in Virginia and NC have still had this happen. If people know people at your firm, they'll reach out. If people are wondering why you'd leave your awesome firm, they'll reach out. If they just have a global policy to ask, they'll ask. Etc.

Good to know, thanks.

Anonymous User wrote:

SplitMyPants wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: This happens a lot, BTW; I work in patents and the partners in my firm most definitely knew when someone was looking to make a jump to another firm, even if the partners didn't say anything at the time to the person interviewing elsewhere. They didn't get petty and fire the people leaving, so there is that silver lining (i.e., your firm may most definitely hear about your job search, but they may not do anything about it because they need you either way). But I think this is more common than people think.

How big of a market are you in?

It's not market specific. I'm in a fairly large market (NYC/Boston/CA). People who have applied for NYC jobs still had this happen. People who have applied to firms in Virginia and NC have still had this happen. If people know people at your firm, they'll reach out. If people are wondering why you'd leave your awesome firm, they'll reach out. If they just have a global policy to ask, they'll ask. Etc.

Not to be accusatory, but how do you know? This is a pretty big bomb to drop, and any support would be appreciated.

Anonymous User wrote:Not to be accusatory, but how do you know? This is a pretty big bomb to drop, and any support would be appreciated.

You hear a lot of things at happy hours/holiday parties when the partners get liquored up.

I can't give an exhaustive list of the firms that contacted our HR, but things the partners have told me and other people in my group, compared to what I know about various people's interview schedules, convinces me that they really do have a sense of when people are applying for other jobs, and where.

The one thing I don't know, though, is the extent to which this happens when you're going from one field to a completely different one (i.e., copyright litigation to a veterans rights nonprov). I suspect it would happen less then because I suspect less people would know each other in such disparate fields, but I dunno.

Terrifying. Unrelated, but I once knew that a coworker was leaving the firm because I was sleeping with one of the recruiters at his recruiting firm (not his recruiter, though). Has given me a healthy streak of paranoia about this whole process. Regardless, I'm not gonna stay at this firm for the rest of my life, so I guess I gotta take some chances.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Happened to me as a summer. I started interviewing elsewhere during the summer and the head of recruiting at my summer firm revealed that someone in recruiting at one of the firms where I interviewed (and received an offer) shared that I had interviewed there. Totally inappropriate, IMO. That said, other firms I interviewed with expressly asked for my consent to contact my summer firm to confirm my employment and offer status before doing so. Firms *should* have strong incentives not to develop a reputation for outing potential candidates to their current employers. Your risk is nonzero but probably small.

What benefit comes to the second firm by doing that? That sounds totally inappropriate.

The only two scenarios I can imagine this happening for are i) the recruiting contacts were good friends, and thought helping each other out was entertaining/more important than their firm's standing or ii) in some underhanded way the second firm thought by making things awkward at your summer firm this could force your hand to accept their offer in some way. Totally weird. I can only imagine outing candidates weakens their ability to have their pick of the best people.

What happened in the end? Which firm did you accept?

I interviewed elsewhere during my summer place as well - told my summer firm that I had to leave early on a certain day (didn't give reasons), they didn't pursue as to why and it never got back to me.

I think it was a combination of (i) and (ii). It made me really uncomfortable that my summer firm's recruiting person specifically made me aware that they knew about the situation. I was also felt pretty violated by what I saw as a breach of confidentiality in an obviously sensitive situation by the interviewing firm. Fortunately I had interviewed at other firms as well and ended up accepting an offer at an entirely different firm, where I am happyish and only pray to be involved in a non-fatal but serious transit accident on my way to the office two or three days out of the week. The situation referenced above wasn't the determining factor in my decision not to accept either of those offers, but it certainly was *a* factor, mostly because I saw it as being very consistent with more fundamental things I didn't like about my summer firm and because fuck the interviewing firm.

Did you end up returning to your summer firm or going elsewhere?

Surprise. Biglaw firms don't care if you leave. They are designed with the idea you will leave.

Though maybe they will be pissed that a summer is looking while on their dime. Don't think I've ever seen that.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Happened to me as a summer. I started interviewing elsewhere during the summer and the head of recruiting at my summer firm revealed that someone in recruiting at one of the firms where I interviewed (and received an offer) shared that I had interviewed there. Totally inappropriate, IMO. That said, other firms I interviewed with expressly asked for my consent to contact my summer firm to confirm my employment and offer status before doing so. Firms *should* have strong incentives not to develop a reputation for outing potential candidates to their current employers. Your risk is nonzero but probably small.

What benefit comes to the second firm by doing that? That sounds totally inappropriate.

The only two scenarios I can imagine this happening for are i) the recruiting contacts were good friends, and thought helping each other out was entertaining/more important than their firm's standing or ii) in some underhanded way the second firm thought by making things awkward at your summer firm this could force your hand to accept their offer in some way. Totally weird. I can only imagine outing candidates weakens their ability to have their pick of the best people.

What happened in the end? Which firm did you accept?

I interviewed elsewhere during my summer place as well - told my summer firm that I had to leave early on a certain day (didn't give reasons), they didn't pursue as to why and it never got back to me.

I think it was a combination of (i) and (ii). It made me really uncomfortable that my summer firm's recruiting person specifically made me aware that they knew about the situation. I was also felt pretty violated by what I saw as a breach of confidentiality in an obviously sensitive situation by the interviewing firm. Fortunately I had interviewed at other firms as well and ended up accepting an offer at an entirely different firm, where I am happyish and only pray to be involved in a non-fatal but serious transit accident on my way to the office two or three days out of the week. The situation referenced above wasn't the determining factor in my decision not to accept either of those offers, but it certainly was *a* factor, mostly because I saw it as being very consistent with more fundamental things I didn't like about my summer firm and because fuck the interviewing firm.

Did you end up returning to your summer firm or going elsewhere?

Glad to hear it's worked out well for you haha. Yes, to make you aware of it - that is the part I find most strange. Glad you were able to find a position elsewhere.

I stayed with my summer firm - it was a place that did not have a 100% offer rate so was interviewing elsewhere just for security, not because I didn't like the firm.