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I got an OCI slot with Ropes & Gray which I am excited about, it's a great firm in the market I want to be in. But looking at their NALP forms, it seems like they gutted their SA class size last year? Firmwide they went from 170/227 in '19/'20 to 79 in '21, which seems like a really crazy cut? I know a lot of firms reduced size this cycle but the other firms I've seen are on the order of a 10-20% decrease, not cutting it by two-thirds. Their Boston HQ went from 103 last year to 27 this year.

Am I reading this all right? If so, is there a financial issue with the firm? Is it a red flag? Anyone know if they're planning to keep a reduced class size going forward?

Former R&G summer associate & former associate there. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

My summer class had over 150 people, and everyone got offers. In my years as an associate, I never heard of a summer who didn't get an offer. The firm, which will match the market salary, is very conservatively run from a financial standpoint (and this is a good thing).

If you get an offer from there, I'd definitely take it! Enjoyed my time there as much as one can enjoy BigLaw, and learned quite a bit from the partners and fellow associates there.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 24, 2021 9:31 am

Former R&G summer associate & former associate there. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

My summer class had over 150 people, and everyone got offers. In my years as an associate, I never heard of a summer who didn't get an offer. The firm, which will match the market salary, is very conservatively run from a financial standpoint (and this is a good thing).

If you get an offer from there, I'd definitely take it! Enjoyed my time there as much as one can enjoy BigLaw, and learned quite a bit from the partners and fellow associates there.

None of this speaks to OP’s question though.

Current R&G associate. As the above poster said, R&G is conservatively run from a financial standpoint. The firm does right by its current associates, and didn't do layoffs, open or stealth, during the pandemic (although it did have a nice "here's a chunk of cash to go do public interest work for a year" program). In this spirit, when economic circumstances were as uncertain as they were in the early pandemic the firm didn't make as many summer offers but stood behind every offer it made (compare with Latham in '08-'09). R&G is busier than it has ever been, and in hindsight we wish we had more associates starting in a few months because we need the extra hands, but if things had gone differently we would have been well positioned to survive a slowdown without reducing existing headcount. Don't worry about it this year though - hiring for summers is back up to normal (although maybe not to 19/20 levels - that class was huuuuge, I think they may have overshot slightly...).

I have no knowledge of Rope’s summer class, but no, they’re not having trouble financially. They’re really fricking busy - I’d be more concerned that the hours there are particularly brutal due to client demands (which is true industry wide right now, but I know some numbers out Ropes that are really high).

That said, god knows what this market looks like in two years. This doesn’t seem sustainable on so many fronts

Current Ropes associate here. It sounds like we are aggressively hiring this summer—which is great because we are extremely busy.

Accidental double post