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Hiring partner at my V50 in NYC (also head of my practice group) got a little drunk at an associates birthday this week and told us the firm is seriously discussing the possibility of dropping OCI. Just thought I'd post this and give her reasons.

1. Our firm does not compete for the top students. The few that accept callbacks don't accept offers.
2. The Firm doesn't have any problem finding adequate talent outside of OCI. (Think OCI pre offers and late post offers.)
3. Dripping "down" in the USNWR rankings to fill spots hasn't had a negative effect on the firm's reputation
4. Partners don't like doing OCI. It is an all-day thing, it can be expensive, and scanning resumes and offering interviews outside of OCI is generally more efficient and effective.

Did your firm also cut its incoming summer associate class by half?

Wild Card wrote:Did your firm also cut its incoming summer associate class by half?

Not sure about OP, but my V50 cut our income summer associate class by 30% this year. Also, quite frankly, we could probably pull out of OCIs just fine and do just fine for OP's stated reasons. Pick up a few summers from T14s, some top Fordham/BC students, and a few top 5-10% students at even more regional schools near our offices. Quite frankly, I think this is the smart move from a talent acquisition standpoint. In many ways, I have much more confident in the kid who was top 10% at Fordham than one who is bottom 50% at Harvard, as crazy as that might sound.

Wild Card wrote:Did your firm also cut its incoming summer associate class by half?

No, our class is generally 16-20 summers and I think it is 18 this year.

My v70 has also gotten rid of oci. We recruit now specifically for openings based on groups. Our summer classes have been massively reduced too.

Anonymous User wrote:My v70 has also gotten rid of oci. We recruit now specifically for openings based on groups. Our summer classes have been massively reduced too.

Any ideas how common this reduction in summer class size has been at biglaw firms? I know it’s an easy cost cutting measure.

I can see many firms not requiring OCI to attract the candidates they need. Do clients actually care about the pedigree of a first year? Within certain ranges, I think not. The client cares about the work product and the bill. I’m curious as to the opinions of in-house counsel.

TLS has been advising people to mass mail pre OCI for years and this seems to confirm mass mailing as a valid and necessary strategy.

Npret wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:My v70 has also gotten rid of oci. We recruit now specifically for openings based on groups. Our summer classes have been massively reduced too.

Any ideas how common this reduction in summer class size has been at biglaw firms? I know it’s an easy cost cutting measure.

I can see many firms not requiring OCI to attract the candidates they need. Do clients actually care about the pedigree of a first year? Within certain ranges, I think not. The client cares about the work product and the bill. I’m curious as to the opinions of in-house counsel.

TLS has been advising people to mass mail pre OCI for years and this seems to confirm mass mailing as a valid and necessary strategy.

Quoted anon. And for the record I’m only anon so I don’t out myself.

Didn’t the ABA or vault come out with data last year that showed summer classes in 2017 were down 25% across the board in the v100? Since 2017, my firm has reduced summer classes even more.

We still are attracting t13 talent. It’s much more competitive when we have only a handful of summer positions in each office. I believe firm wide we had less than 20 summers last year. At a v70. More office locations in the US than summers.

We recruit by word of mouth and recommendations now. If group x has a need, we let certain people know at t13 law schools and get those spots filled that way. Much more cost efficient.

I found an above the law article on class size in firms over 700 lawyers. The law.com article they quote is archived.

https://abovethelaw.com/2018/01/the-inc ... ate-class/

Here’s a detailed NALP report on 2017 recruiting but their reports are exceedingly bland. Just fyi. I haven’t read it.

https://www.nalp.org/uploads/Perspectiv ... uiting.pdf

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding OP's post, but if that reason his/her firm is pulling out of OCI is mostly "the students we want won't accept their offers," I think that says a lot more about OP's firm than it does about OCI.

LBJ's Hair wrote:Perhaps I'm misunderstanding OP's post, but if that reason his/her firm is pulling out of OCI is mostly "good students won't come here," I think that says a lot more about the future of OP's firm than it does about the future of OCI.

Many large firms survive, and thrive, all the time without top-tier talent. Many pay market, too.

cheaptilts wrote:

LBJ's Hair wrote:Perhaps I'm misunderstanding OP's post, but if that reason his/her firm is pulling out of OCI is mostly "good students won't come here," I think that says a lot more about the future of OP's firm than it does about the future of OCI.

Many large firms survive, and thrive, all the time without top-tier talent. Many pay market, too.

sure. my point is just that the story here is the firm can't get people from OCI, not that OCI is fundamentally a broken process.

and yes, many firms do fine without top tier talent. query whether you want to work there, given the choice. the first step is "we don't need associates from T14s to get this work done." the logical corollary is "we don't need to pay our associates like T14 associates to keep them here." what's good for General Motors is not always good for America.

LBJ's Hair wrote:

cheaptilts wrote:

LBJ's Hair wrote:Perhaps I'm misunderstanding OP's post, but if that reason his/her firm is pulling out of OCI is mostly "good students won't come here," I think that says a lot more about the future of OP's firm than it does about the future of OCI.

Many large firms survive, and thrive, all the time without top-tier talent. Many pay market, too.

sure. my point is just that the story here is the firm can't get people from OCI, not that OCI is fundamentally a broken process.

and yes, many firms do fine without top tier talent. query whether you want to work there, given the choice. the first step is "we don't need associates from T14s to get this work done." the logical corollary is "we don't need to pay our associates like T14 associates to keep them here." what's good for General Motors is not always good for America.

Firm can get people from OCI but they find it more effective and efficient to get median kids from the T14 and top kids further down outside of the process.

Anonymous User wrote:Firm can get people from OCI but they find it more effective and efficient to get median kids from the T14 and top kids further down outside of the process.

So the weird thing to me is, why are only top T13ers listing your V50 on their OCI bidlists? Why aren't the median kids targeting your firm at OCI? It seems to me that most T13ers who'd bid on a V50 (assuming "V50" here means "ranked around 50") would be median kids. Admittedly it's been a while since I did OCI, but I recall my classmates were generally pretty self-aware of which firms they should be targeting based on their class rank. It seems super odd that your firm would be dealing with swathes of (for example) top 10% T13ers bidding on them and then flaking.

QContinuum wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Firm can get people from OCI but they find it more effective and efficient to get median kids from the T14 and top kids further down outside of the process.

So the weird thing to me is, why are only top T13ers listing your V50 on their OCI bidlists? Why aren't the median kids targeting your firm at OCI? It seems to me that most T13ers who'd bid on a V50 (assuming "V50" here means "ranked around 50") would be median kids. Admittedly it's been a while since I did OCI, but I recall my classmates were generally pretty self-aware of which firms they should be targeting based on their class rank. It seems super odd that your firm would be dealing with swathes of (for example) top 10% T13ers bidding on them and then flaking.

Honestly I don't know. Maybe the 3 Partners that go to all the OCIs just don't want to anymore.

QContinuum wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Firm can get people from OCI but they find it more effective and efficient to get median kids from the T14 and top kids further down outside of the process.

So the weird thing to me is, why are only top T13ers listing your V50 on their OCI bidlists? Why aren't the median kids targeting your firm at OCI? It seems to me that most T13ers who'd bid on a V50 (assuming "V50" here means "ranked around 50") would be median kids. Admittedly it's been a while since I did OCI, but I recall my classmates were generally pretty self-aware of which firms they should be targeting based on their class rank. It seems super odd that your firm would be dealing with swathes of (for example) top 10% T13ers bidding on them and then flaking.

Likely an issue of the firm being too picky offering CBs. Ie, the students are self-aware (the top T13 kids are flaking on the firm), but the firm isn't (not offering CBs to median kids who might actually take the offer).

Dechert?

Anonymous User wrote:

Wild Card wrote:Did your firm also cut its incoming summer associate class by half?

No, our class is generally 16-20 summers and I think it is 18 this year.

Is this common? I always thought NY classes were much larger. That's right around, if not a touch smaller than, the size of the summer class at my 200-250 attorney DC office. I recall law school classmates going to NY in summer classes of like 80 or more.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Wild Card wrote:Did your firm also cut its incoming summer associate class by half?

No, our class is generally 16-20 summers and I think it is 18 this year.

Is this common? I always thought NY classes were much larger. That's right around, if not a touch smaller than, the size of the summer class at my 200-250 attorney DC office. I recall law school classmates going to NY in summer classes of like 80 or more.

My NYC-based V50 only has about 35 summers across all offices. Things have been financially on the up-and-up, so I'm assuming the smaller class size is in anticipation of a contraction in the market. Last year, we had roughly 50 summers.

Like most things in this profession, OCI is a relic of another time, and it doesn't make much sense now. Firms can get good applicants the second spring grades come through, and they can pre-screen grades instead of wasting their time with applicants who would never meet their cutoffs (which happens all the time). It costs a shitload in terms of opportunity cost travel time and fees to the schools. It really only survives if enough people are lazy about applying to a bunch of different firms that firms can't fill their classes without it, which is becoming less and less true. Firms are loath to drop it for fear of being forgotten, but really they should love the idea that they could fill their entire summer class beforehand.