Split Summer Acceptance Timeline Forum

[Anonymous User]

I just had a pre-OCI callback, and I want to accept if I get an offer, as it is my top choice right now. However, I'm also interviewing with a boutique firm that I really like too. The boutique expects you to split the summer with another, usually larger firm and only takes a few SAs, which seems pretty typical, so I likely would not hear back from them until definitely after OCIs, if not a week or two later. If I get an offer there, I would want to accept both and split.

Is it acceptable to accept an offer earlier and then come back requesting to split later? Or should I wait until I have both offers in hand when making the request to split upon acceptance? I'm not sure what the proper protocols are for this kind of thing and my career office is discouraging me from splitting altogether.

[beepboopbeep]

I split my summer, now long ago, between a boutique and a big firm. Firms care a lot about this -- splitting is a hard no for many big firms. You will need to work it out before accepting another offer. That is also when you have the most leverage, but even then your leverage is limited.

I would also ask the boutique whether they care which half of the summer they are. Firms that don't have hard line no split rules often prefer being first half, sometimes to the point of having a rule about that (e.g. "no second half splits"). One of my two 2L SA firms was like this.

Ignore your CSO's discouragement. Firms hate splits and the CSOs are trying to protect that relationship. I am incredibly grateful that I decided to split -- experiencing two offices gave way more useful insight than I thought it would. I mostly just wanted to earn more to offset debt and thought the summer programs never really tell you anything about the firm. That's probably true a lot of places, but not all of them.

[Anonymous User]

I split my summer, now long ago, between a boutique and a big firm. Firms care a lot about this -- splitting is a hard no for many big firms. You will need to work it out before accepting another offer. That is also when you have the most leverage, but even then your leverage is limited.

I would also ask the boutique whether they care which half of the summer they are. Firms that don't have hard line no split rules often prefer being first half, sometimes to the point of having a rule about that (e.g. "no second half splits"). One of my two 2L SA firms was like this.

Ignore your CSO's discouragement. Firms hate splits and the CSOs are trying to protect that relationship. I am incredibly grateful that I decided to split -- experiencing two offices gave way more useful insight than I thought it would. I mostly just wanted to earn more to offset debt and thought the summer programs never really tell you anything about the firm. That's probably true a lot of places, but not all of them.

OP here, thanks for the response! I know the big firm requires at least the first six weeks of the summer, but the program is only nine weeks, so I could potentially do the whole program depending on start date at both firms. The boutique is cognizant of that reality and expect their summers to work in the second half. I know there have been several people over the past few years that have made this split, with some choosing one and some the other at the end of it.

[Anonymous User]

I split both summers, and in both instances I accepted the offers weeks apart. I never had an issue with any firm saying absolutely no to splitting, although some had similar requirements to your big firm like X amount of weeks, must be the first half, etc. I'd also ignore CSO. Splitting was a great chance to feel out different types of firms and made me more sure about my final decision. Also, when I declined one firm's offer the end of the summer, they clearly stated if my first choice wasn't what I expected it to be to give them a call. While idk how firm that offer is if I wanted to lateral, it was still great networking.

If you know big firm requires first six weeks and you can give them that, then ask before/when you accept whether the firm allows splitting---it sounds like you know the answer is yes, since other people have made the same split. The recruiter will probably say something like 'yeah, definitely, you'll have to stay for 6 weeks at start, let us know if you'll be here for 6 or 9 weeks as soon as you know you'll be splitting' and that'll be the end of it until you hear back from the boutique.