Texas firms with low offer rates Forum

[Anonymous User]

For BigTex firms that are infamous for having low offer rates (>10% no offer rates consistently) like Baker Botts, Hayboo, NRF, and the Texas regionals (Gardere before the merger, etc), do the no offers happen because of grades, culture/fit, or both? I'm guessing at the smaller TX regionals, culture might be more important but do the big players like BB no offer mainly because of falling grades in 2L?

Also, any reason to choose these types of firms over those with higher offer rates? Is the name-brand of a BB or Hayboo in Texas worth the risk?

[Anonymous User]

For BigTex firms that are infamous for having low offer rates (>10% no offer rates consistently) like Baker Botts, Hayboo, NRF, and the Texas regionals (Gardere before the merger, etc), do the no offers happen because of grades, culture/fit, or both? I'm guessing at the smaller TX regionals, culture might be more important but do the big players like BB no offer mainly because of falling grades in 2L?

Also, any reason to choose these types of firms over those with higher offer rates? Is the name-brand of a BB or Hayboo in Texas worth the risk?

BB is very strict grade-wise. I know several 2Ls who had offers revoked due to grades. I think they have a hard cutoff for GPA.

As for the others, mostly culture and/or shittier financials. Texas firms traditionally allow for split summers so they probably feel like they have more leeway to no-offer without screwing over someone's career.

If you have two offers from Texas firms, you should be fine. Odds of being no-offered at both of two 80% offer-rate firms is 0.2*0.2 = 0.04 = 4%. I would take those odds in exchange for vastly better COL vs. NYC. If only one offer, I would go with 100% offer NYC firm.

[Anonymous User]

With a bunch of non-TX firms with 100% offer rates flooding Texas nowadays, is there a real reason to go to a BB if you have a choice? A lot of these firms seem to be doing just as well if not better than BB. I noticed that V&E's offer rates have gone up a lot in recent years... this might be their way of staying competitive for top recruits.

[Anonymous User]

BB is very strict grade-wise. I know several 2Ls who had offers revoked due to grades. I think they have a hard cutoff for GPA.

Yep, BB pressured me to keep my grades up because "we have no choice in the matter if you drop below a certain threshold."

[Anonymous User]

What are TX-office offer rates usually for the non Texas firms like Latham, Kirkland, Sidley, Akin, etc.?

[Anonymous User]

BB is very strict grade-wise. I know several 2Ls who had offers revoked due to grades. I think they have a hard cutoff for GPA.

Yep, BB pressured me to keep my grades up because "we have no choice in the matter if you drop below a certain threshold."

Curious about what this threshold would be. Any info on what is the cutoff GPA for biglaw in general (assuming you've already secured your SA position)?

[Anonymous User]

Haven’t looked at the more recent offer rates, but I have heard firms are feeling more pressure to bring up offer rates as spli summers continue to decrease in popularity.

[Right2BearArms]

What are TX-office offer rates usually for the non Texas firms like Latham, Kirkland, Sidley, Akin, etc.?

100% or very near. Latham has never no-offered anyone in the Houston office, neither has KE. Akin has not, to my knowledge, in the last several years.

No idea re: Sidley, but I would bet money they have never no-offered more than a single summer, if at all.

[Anonymous User]

Didn't BB offer everyone last year? This past summer was the first that TX firms didn't allow splits (by requiring 8 weeks). Does anyone have an idea of what actual grade cutoff we might be talking about here?

[Anonymous User]

Didn't BB offer everyone last year?

The most recent NALP data from summer 2016 shows that BB had a scary 84% offer rate at its HQ in Houston. Of course, this doesn't include data from the most recent summer. IF insiders could confirm that BB in 2017 summer had a 100% rate, that would be great news and maybe shows that BB is following in the footsteps of V&E in matching the offer rates of the NYC firms. Would be interesting to see if the other BigTex firms follow suit. Anyone have 2017 offer rate info from the other BigTex firms?

[Anonymous User]

According to ATL, BB had a 100% offer rate in Houston, NYC, and Palo Alto in 2017.

[Anonymous User]

Didn't BB offer everyone last year? This past summer was the first that TX firms didn't allow splits (by requiring 8 weeks). Does anyone have an idea of what actual grade cutoff we might be talking about here?

Yeah they seem to indirectly disallow splitting now. All my texas offers for this summer required starting with them if I decided to split, so effectively I couldn't split. Really hope that means they are all increasing their offer rates.

[Anonymous User]

2017 NALP data is up. The Big 3 all had 100% offer rates at their Houston offices. Not sure if this has ever happened before, looks like the Big 3 are stepping it up to try to compete with the out-of-staters for top talent. In Dallas, BB and NRF again had 100% rates. But V&E 90% in Dallas (ouch).

Hayboo isn't on NALP, but curious to hear from insiders. Looks like the Tex regionals are still behind the curve. Locke Lord and JW had 85% and 75% offer rates at their main offices (Dallas).

Also looks like out-of-state firms (Latham ranging all the way to places like Orrick) had 100% rates, as expected.

[Anonymous User]

Bracewell had a 100% offer rate in Houston but offered only 1/2 in Dallas.

[nealric]

I think offer rates were traditionally lower due to the split summer culture. Chances were if you got no-offered by one firm, that the second firm would make one. 1L summers also used to be more common in Texas, and no-offering a 1L (really just not inviting them back for next summer) wasn't seen as quite as big of a deal.

Things are very much in a state of flux in Texas as the market becomes more and more "nationalized." Split summers are becoming increasingly difficult to arrange, and outside firms are disrupting the status quo by importing their summer policies. I suspect that when this all shakes out, the Texas market will more closely resemble the rest of the biglaw market, with 1Ls gigs being diversity program only, no splits, and close to 100% offer rate. Hard to tell how long it will take for the transition to happen, as the rumblings began around 10 years ago.

[Anonymous User]

Hard to tell how long it will take for the transition to happen, as the rumblings began around 10 years ago.

It does seem like there's been a very big acceleration in this transition in just the last year. NRF had a particularly nasty reputation for no-offering 20-30% of its 2L classes regularly ever since their Fulbright & Jaworski days. To see them have 100% rates in both Houston and Dallas seems like very big (and very good) news. As people have said earlier in this thread, BB also had a negative reputation for their no offers and had no offered 15% just a year ago. Same with V&E up until just 2-3 years ago.

For the regional firms, I'm guessing they'll need to conform sooner or later or they'll be in trouble.

Also worth noting that total 2L summer classes have shrunk in size to compensate for the higher offer rates. I think this is still MUCH better. Much much better to not give a summer gig in the first place than to give it and then potentially (probably) ruin someone's career by no-offering them later.

[Anonymous User]

BB is very strict grade-wise. I know several 2Ls who had offers revoked due to grades. I think they have a hard cutoff for GPA.

Yep, BB pressured me to keep my grades up because "we have no choice in the matter if you drop below a certain threshold."

Curious about what this threshold would be. Any info on what is the cutoff GPA for biglaw in general (assuming you've already secured your SA position)?

I'm guessing 3.0 or 3.1. They were in my ear all during 1L to keep my grades above the (unspoken) threshold so that they could offer me a 2L SA, and my ~3.3 GPA wasn't an issue. I ended up going with a different SA, so I'm not sure what they would've done if I had fallen below the threshold between SA offer and full-time offer.

[Anonymous User]

I'm guessing 3.0 or 3.1. They were in my ear all during 1L to keep my grades above the (unspoken) threshold so that they could offer me a 2L SA, and my ~3.3 GPA wasn't an issue. I ended up going with a different SA, so I'm not sure what they would've done if I had fallen below the threshold between SA offer and full-time offer.

Thanks for sharing. Any idea on how the GPA cut-off relates to the rank of the law school? I.e. is the 3.0/3.1 for SMU/UH, for Texas, for T14 (or all of the above)?

[Anonymous User]

Anyone familiar with the historic offer rates at the Dallas offices of the Texas firms? Like past 2-3 years?