My firm did not give return offer to a summer associate, should I be worried. Forum

[Anonymous User]

I’ve never personally worked with this summer, but he seems to be a normal human being. I have friends who worked directly with the summer, and they agree that he is a nice person. The summer didn’t jump into the hudson river or made any discriminatory comments or did anything like that. I’m not sure if he is the only summer who didn’t get an offer, but I’ve started to worry about my job. Is my firm in some kind of financial trouble?

Some background, my firm is a v10 big law, the summer is a T6 rising 3L.

[Anonymous User]

Is this Weil? Don't they no-offer one or two summers every year? There are some firms that no-offer few people every year regardless of their business situation. Not all firms have 100% offer rate.

[Anonymous User]

OP here, my firm had 100% offer rate for all the past years that I know of and it’s definitely not one of the firms known for this kind of things.

[nixy]

Do you know anything about their work product? They could be socially fine and not do anything inappropriate, but if their work product was really bad, or they blew deadlines (or even just if one influential partner felt that way), that could get someone no-offered at even a 100% offer firm. Admittedly it would have to be pretty egregious, but it’s not necessarily something that would be apparent from social interaction with other SAs.

[inter-associate]

I can think of quite a few reasons why someone might get no offered even if they are nice people that don't do anything stupid in social settings. Unlikely that one no offer has anything to do with the health of your firm, and mass no offers will definitely show up on ATL pretty quickly. I wouldn't think too much into it.

[Anonymous User]

Not sure if it’s a good idea to post here, but I have other reasons to be worried. Senior partner leaving. Junior associates forced to choose between going to client’s oversea offices which only pay a third of big law salary or leaving the firm.

[uncle_rico]

Honestly you should just post the firm that this happening at. Especially since you're posting anonymous, there is no way this could get back to you because you haven't given any identifiable information other than being a member of the summer class. It will help those going through the recruitment process now and the only reaction I could imagine the firm having is to be more hesitant to not extend an offer if they see themselves being talked about.

[smokeylarue]

Not sure if it’s a good idea to post here, but I have other reasons to be worried. Senior partner leaving. Junior associates forced to choose between going to client’s oversea offices which only pay a third of big law salary or leaving the firm.

LOL this jumped the shark, close the thread down

[QContinuum]

Not sure if it’s a good idea to post here, but I have other reasons to be worried. Senior partner leaving. Junior associates forced to choose between going to client’s oversea offices which only pay a third of big law salary or leaving the firm.

LOL this jumped the shark, close the thread down

Do you have knowledge suggesting that anon OP's info is wrong?

[dlutfy]

Is this Weil? Don't they no-offer one or two summers every year? There are some firms that no-offer few people every year regardless of their business situation. Not all firms have 100% offer rate.

Weil offered all 121 of their summers in 2018 according to Vault.

[Anonymous User]

Is this Weil? Don't they no-offer one or two summers every year? There are some firms that no-offer few people every year regardless of their business situation. Not all firms have 100% offer rate.

Weil offered all 121 of their summers in 2018 according to Vault.

Weil is always 100% offer.

[Anonymous User]

I’ve never personally worked with this summer, but he seems to be a normal human being. I have friends who worked directly with the summer, and they agree that he is a nice person. The summer didn’t jump into the hudson river or made any discriminatory comments or did anything like that. I’m not sure if he is the only summer who didn’t get an offer, but I’ve started to worry about my job. Is my firm in some kind of financial trouble?

Some background, my firm is a v10 big law, the summer is a T6 rising 3L.

Skadden NY. And I hear it was to one of their verrrry few POC summers, as well. Yikes.

[Npret]

Is this Weil? Don't they no-offer one or two summers every year? There are some firms that no-offer few people every year regardless of their business situation. Not all firms have 100% offer rate.

Weil has given 100% offers for years. Maybe 20 years ago they would no offer one or two people.

[Anonymous User]

Is this Weil? Don't they no-offer one or two summers every year? There are some firms that no-offer few people every year regardless of their business situation. Not all firms have 100% offer rate.

Weil offered all 121 of their summers in 2018 according to Vault.

Weil is always 100% offer.

When I was in law school doing OCI and choosing firms in 2015, Weil had no offered two or three summers the year before and that was one of the factors that made me not choose Weil. Also, I recall White and Case had no offered a summer or two for some years prior to 2015. Obviously things may have changed subsequently and both firms may have become 100% offer firms. I haven't looked at the data once I graduated law school.

[Arad]

Kind of crazy that people are so risk averse that they won’t go to a firm because they had a 98% offer rate instead of 100%.

[QContinuum]

Kind of crazy that people are so risk averse that they won’t go to a firm because they had a 98% offer rate instead of 100%.

Is it, though? If you're considering two (or more) competing offers, from similarly-prestigious firms, and one has a 100% offer rate while the other has a <100% offer rate, it absolutely makes sense to consider the offer rate difference as one factor in choosing between those firms. If all else is equal, then it's not unreasonable to use the offer rate difference as a tiebreaker.

No one is (seriously) arguing that a 98% offer rate firm should be categorically ruled out, or that folks should never choose a 98% offer rate firm over a 100% offer rate firm. But to the extent that you're advocating that candidates completely ignore that difference, I don't think that advice makes sense.

[Arad]

Kind of crazy that people are so risk averse that they won’t go to a firm because they had a 98% offer rate instead of 100%.

Is it, though? If you're considering two (or more) competing offers, from similarly-prestigious firms, and one has a 100% offer rate while the other has a <100% offer rate, it absolutely makes sense to consider the offer rate difference as one factor in choosing between those firms. If all else is equal, then it's not unreasonable to use the offer rate difference as a tiebreaker.

No one is (seriously) arguing that a 98% offer rate firm should be categorically ruled out, or that folks should never choose a 98% offer rate firm over a 100% offer rate firm. But to the extent that you're advocating that candidates completely ignore that difference, I don't think that advice makes sense.

That’s fair. I felt like the culture and business models at the firms I interviewed at were so different that I didn’t really consider anything other than those two factors. Definitely agree that it should be considered (especially if no other differentiators)

[rahulg91]

I’ve never personally worked with this summer, but he seems to be a normal human being. I have friends who worked directly with the summer, and they agree that he is a nice person. The summer didn’t jump into the hudson river or made any discriminatory comments or did anything like that. I’m not sure if he is the only summer who didn’t get an offer, but I’ve started to worry about my job. Is my firm in some kind of financial trouble?

Some background, my firm is a v10 big law, the summer is a T6 rising 3L.

Skadden NY. And I hear it was to one of their verrrry few POC summers, as well. Yikes.

Any Skadnerds know if this is true? Did y’all no offer a summer?

[Anonymous User]

You can rarely be sure that a firm really had a 100% offer rate. Cold offers happen. I know my firm has done it during normal economic times, albeit rarely. I imagine most of our competitors are similar. With that in mind, unless a firm has some serious reputation for doing this every summer, I'd just assume that a 95% offer rate firm and a 100% offer rate firm are probably about the same in actuality.

[QContinuum]

That’s fair. I felt like the culture and business models at the firms I interviewed at were so different that I didn’t really consider anything other than those two factors. Definitely agree that it should be considered (especially if no other differentiators)

Agreed - "fit" should definitely be prioritized over small differences in offer rate. Thanks for following up!

You can rarely be sure that a firm really had a 100% offer rate. Cold offers happen. I know my firm has done it during normal economic times, albeit rarely. I imagine most of our competitors are similar. With that in mind, unless a firm has some serious reputation for doing this every summer, I'd just assume that a 95% offer rate firm and a 100% offer rate firm are probably about the same in actuality.

Cold offers are still way better for 3L job-searching than actual, formal no-offers. Cold offers are still officially offers, and in extremis, there are (possibly apocryphal) tales of folks with no other options actually accepting cold offers and ending up doing fine.

[Anonymous User]

I’ve never personally worked with this summer, but he seems to be a normal human being. I have friends who worked directly with the summer, and they agree that he is a nice person. The summer didn’t jump into the hudson river or made any discriminatory comments or did anything like that. I’m not sure if he is the only summer who didn’t get an offer, but I’ve started to worry about my job. Is my firm in some kind of financial trouble?

Some background, my firm is a v10 big law, the summer is a T6 rising 3L.

Skadden NY. And I hear it was to one of their verrrry few POC summers, as well. Yikes.

I also hear it's Skadden NY. But to describe their class as having "verrrry few POC" seems wrong. A stupid amount of POC from my school go to Skadden each year.

[Anonymous User]

I’ve never personally worked with this summer, but he seems to be a normal human being. I have friends who worked directly with the summer, and they agree that he is a nice person. The summer didn’t jump into the hudson river or made any discriminatory comments or did anything like that. I’m not sure if he is the only summer who didn’t get an offer, but I’ve started to worry about my job. Is my firm in some kind of financial trouble?

Some background, my firm is a v10 big law, the summer is a T6 rising 3L.

Skadden NY. And I hear it was to one of their verrrry few POC summers, as well. Yikes.

I also hear it's Skadden NY. But to describe their class as having "verrrry few POC" seems wrong. A stupid amount of POC from my school go to Skadden each year.

Can confirm summers have been no-offered at Skadden and Cadwalader this year.

[Anonymous User]

I heard that the Cadwalader no offer was for something really bad. Some kid lounged around his office in his boxers a bunch of times over the course of the summer, with a female office mate. Any word on if this is true and why the Skadden no offers?

[Anonymous User]

I heard that the Cadwalader no offer was for something really bad. Some kid lounged around his office in his boxers a bunch of times over the course of the summer, with a female office mate. Any word on if this is true and why the Skadden no offers?

The above is a bit of an exaggeration but yes it was for bad behavior / poor judgment in things that were said and sexist. Don't know details about skadden yet (heard bad work product).

[Anonymous User]

I heard that the Cadwalader no offer was for something really bad. Some kid lounged around his office in his boxers a bunch of times over the course of the summer, with a female office mate. Any word on if this is true and why the Skadden no offers?

Can confirm as a Cadwalader summer this summer that this is essentially what occurred amongst other things. I don't want to get into details but also don't want others to assume that we’re prone to giving less than 100% offers. Believe me he would have been fired at any other firm for the things he did.