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With the stealth layoffs, slow/no work, low hours... what's the outlook for junior levels?

How slow has it been at Cooley? I'm a junior at WSGR doing mostly ecvc and m&a and have been very slow this month. Sub 100.

Given that Cooley no offered summers this year, I'd say anything is possible at this point

Source for the no offers?

Anonymous for obvious reasons. I don’t work at Cooley but I can confirm that Cooley no offered this summer.

[Source: a friend of mine works at Cooley and said he/she saw a TLS post that there have been no offers at Cooley]

Cooley no offered quite a few actually, much more than your avg 1-2 "just an anomoly" no offers. This has been discussed extensively over on fishbowl.

Heard secondhand that there were at least 4 no-offers this summer in the Bay Area. No obviously egregious behavior to warrant them either.

Anyone have the fishbowl link?

Also, is it odd that Cooley no-offered at the first sign of trouble? Does it anticipate a long-term downturn, or are they planning on hiring laterals once the market recovers? Seems very anti-Cooley "culture" either way.

I can confirm that more law students accepted SA offers at Cooley than expected last summer (acceptance rate jumped from like 40-70%) so the extra large summer classes coupled with the market slowdown may have driven them to give more no-offers than usual.They also hired like crazy in corporate the last couple of years so it’s not totally surprising they’re starting to layoff some of the low performers.

Source - I’m at Cooley and the one summer we no-offered in our office was actually pretty egregious but probably would’ve skated by in a boom year. Also the few layoffs I know of were all people that were well known throughout the group for being poor performers so they weren’t surprising.

Basically not worried yet, but TBD on how long this lasts…

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 27, 2022 10:37 pm

I can confirm that more law students accepted SA offers at Cooley than expected last summer (acceptance rate jumped from like 40-70%) so the extra large summer classes coupled with the market slowdown may have driven them to give more no-offers than usual.They also hired like crazy in corporate the last couple of years so it’s not totally surprising they’re starting to layoff some of the low performers.

Source - I’m at Cooley and the one summer we no-offered in our office was actually pretty egregious but probably would’ve skated by in a boom year. Also the few layoffs I know of were all people that were well known throughout the group for being poor performers so they weren’t surprising.

Basically not worried yet, but TBD on how long this lasts…

Smells like cope. You bring on SAs with the expectation that all will accept. 40% acceptance is just a weird number that makes no sense. Sure, sometimes ppl go elsewhere in 3L, or clerk, or whatever. But you also usually have people coming in (eg I interviewed with Cooley as 3L). The norm in reputable firms is that unless you're a creep you at least get a cold offer.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 27, 2022 11:49 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 27, 2022 10:37 pm

I can confirm that more law students accepted SA offers at Cooley than expected last summer (acceptance rate jumped from like 40-70%) so the extra large summer classes coupled with the market slowdown may have driven them to give more no-offers than usual.They also hired like crazy in corporate the last couple of years so it’s not totally surprising they’re starting to layoff some of the low performers.

Source - I’m at Cooley and the one summer we no-offered in our office was actually pretty egregious but probably would’ve skated by in a boom year. Also the few layoffs I know of were all people that were well known throughout the group for being poor performers so they weren’t surprising.

Basically not worried yet, but TBD on how long this lasts…

Smells like cope. You bring on SAs with the expectation that all will accept. 40% acceptance is just a weird number that makes no sense. Sure, sometimes ppl go elsewhere in 3L, or clerk, or whatever. But you also usually have people coming in (eg I interviewed with Cooley as 3L). The norm in reputable firms is that unless you're a creep you at least get a cold offer.

I feel like in a firm with big classes, no-offering like one person can be chalked up to the frequency of creeps.

Also, I don't think it's quite fair to say "you bring on SAs with the expectation that all will accept," because the issue isn't "we expected only X number to accept at the end of the 2L summer," it's that many more people accepted the summer offer to begin with. Firms definitely don't expect everyone who gets an offer through OCI to accept, and if more people accept an OCI offer than anticipated, then you get an unexpectedly large class. I'm definitely not saying you no-offer 40% - there's a lot to be said for sucking up the extra bodies and adjusting the next year - and maybe I'm just rationalizing, it just seems too dogmatic to dismiss the Cooley explanation entirely (at least on the information so far. Maybe Cooley getting more acceptances than usual is like the canary in the coal mine for an economic downturn or something, I have no idea, but I'd imagine some of it us up to chance).

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 26, 2022 12:05 am

Anonymous for obvious reasons. I don’t work at Cooley but I can confirm that Cooley no offered this summer.

[Source: a friend of mine works at Cooley and said he/she saw a TLS post that there have been no offers at Cooley]

Underappreciated post.

OK gonna own up that my reading comprehension sucks and I misunderstood the 40% point. I still stand by saying that any reputable firm would just bring on a bigger class and if indeed Cooley no offered (I'm not convinced that it happened) it's a bad look. I also don't but that larger class size was because ppl accepted more. All firms expanded their class size because they were severely understaffed at the time.

Yeah, that's all fair, especially the point that firms were bringing on bigger classes because of understaffing at the time - I should have thought of that. I do think you can get oversubscription in the same way that a given law school might overadmit and then have to deal with a larger class, but it's less likely to account for that big an increase. Not saying it's a great look for Cooley if they did no-offer, but hiring an incoming class essentially 2 years before they'll come work for you is also not a great system and a firm's perspective on it is not going to align with the 2L SA's perspective.

That said, don't want to focus exclusively on the no-offers since the OP was talking about other red flags as well, which obviously puts no-offers in a different light. (Not that I have any info to confirm/deny any of this.)

I sort of agree that the hiring process is silly but what are you going to do about it. Firms should really be thinking about the long term. They were understaffed in 2021 because in 2015 they underhired. If you start firing (and no offering is firing) because of two months slowdown you're gonna be short staffed again in 4 years. And you suffer long term reputational damage for good measure.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 1:28 am

I sort of agree that the hiring process is silly but what are you going to do about it. Firms should really be thinking about the long term. They were understaffed in 2021 because in 2015 they underhired. If you start firing (and no offering is firing) because of two months slowdown you're gonna be short staffed again in 4 years. And you suffer long term reputational damage for good measure.

I agree that firms need to think long term to some extent, but no one can hire in 2015 based on what they think will happen in 2021. That's just not realistic. It's not underhiring in 2015 if 6 years later conditions have changed such that they need more staff. Sure, don't knee jerk overreact to two months, but you absolutely don't know they'll be short staffed again in 4 years. And I'm not convinced by the reputational damage argument ("Latham" has become a shorthand, but there are also a ton of people in another thread saying Latham has the best culture in the V10. Not sure what long term damage the firm has suffered, or even really short term damage).

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 26, 2022 12:05 am

Anonymous for obvious reasons. I don’t work at Cooley but I can confirm that Cooley no offered this summer.

[Source: a friend of mine works at Cooley and said he/she saw a TLS post that there have been no offers at Cooley]

lmao

There’s a lot of cope happening in this thread by the one Cooley attorney. No offering a bunch of summers is a sign of a firm that is struggling and the partnership is being reactive. Period.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:57 pm

Heard secondhand that there were at least 4 no-offers this summer in the Bay Area. No obviously egregious behavior to warrant them either.

Can confirm that they no offered 3 summers in Palo Alto. Out of 4 Chinese summers, 3 got no offered, and only them 3. And they have green cards so it's not a visa sponsorship issue.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:02 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:57 pm

Heard secondhand that there were at least 4 no-offers this summer in the Bay Area. No obviously egregious behavior to warrant them either.

Can confirm that they no offered 3 summers in Palo Alto. Out of 4 Chinese summers, 3 got no offered, and only them 3. And they have green cards so it's not a visa sponsorship issue.

Beautiful. The Cooley concern thread has fully merged with the "Is there discrimination against Asians in biglaw" thread.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 12:44 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:02 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:57 pm

Heard secondhand that there were at least 4 no-offers this summer in the Bay Area. No obviously egregious behavior to warrant them either.

Can confirm that they no offered 3 summers in Palo Alto. Out of 4 Chinese summers, 3 got no offered, and only them 3. And they have green cards so it's not a visa sponsorship issue.

Beautiful. The Cooley concern thread has fully merged with the "Is there discrimination against Asians in biglaw" thread.

I didn't say it's explicit discrimination, but it's still not a great look.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:02 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:57 pm

Heard secondhand that there were at least 4 no-offers this summer in the Bay Area. No obviously egregious behavior to warrant them either.

Can confirm that they no offered 3 summers in Palo Alto. Out of 4 Chinese summers, 3 got no offered, and only them 3. And they have green cards so it's not a visa sponsorship issue.

Yikes.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:02 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:57 pm

Heard secondhand that there were at least 4 no-offers this summer in the Bay Area. No obviously egregious behavior to warrant them either.

Can confirm that they no offered 3 summers in Palo Alto. Out of 4 Chinese summers, 3 got no offered, and only them 3. And they have green cards so it's not a visa sponsorship issue.

How many total summers were there in Palo Alto?

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:21 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:02 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:57 pm

Heard secondhand that there were at least 4 no-offers this summer in the Bay Area. No obviously egregious behavior to warrant them either.

Can confirm that they no offered 3 summers in Palo Alto. Out of 4 Chinese summers, 3 got no offered, and only them 3. And they have green cards so it's not a visa sponsorship issue.

How many total summers were there in Palo Alto?

20-ish so a substantial proportion

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:16 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:21 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:02 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:57 pm

Heard secondhand that there were at least 4 no-offers this summer in the Bay Area. No obviously egregious behavior to warrant them either.

Can confirm that they no offered 3 summers in Palo Alto. Out of 4 Chinese summers, 3 got no offered, and only them 3. And they have green cards so it's not a visa sponsorship issue.

How many total summers were there in Palo Alto?

20-ish so a substantial proportion

Around 30 2Ls actually. Still a significant proportion though. And yes this did happen. Source: summered there

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 28, 2022 8:27 am

There’s a lot of cope happening in this thread by the one Cooley attorney. No offering a bunch of summers is a sign of a firm that is struggling and the partnership is being reactive. Period.

Yeah maybe I am just coping. But what else am I supposed to do? I love my job, I enjoy the people I work with, I like most of my clients and after the hot crazy mess that was the last two years, I’m honestly just enjoying the breather. I’m sure things will pick up again eventually and if they don’t, I’ll figure it out then.

Tbh Cooley’s a pretty cheap firm and they usually err on the side of understaffing and underhiring so it’s not surprising to me they’re taking steps to course correct (not that I necessarily agree with those steps), but I don’t think it’s a sign that there’s a huge issue or that mass layoffs are coming. The NY office literally doubled in size over the last two years and there were definitely a couple of people hired during that time who didn’t fit the culture (and a few juniors quit because they were so awful) - I can’t say I’m sorry they were laid off, and they were given a few months website time. Those are the only people I know who have been laid off.

The PA summers who were no-offered though is news to me and that’s pretty concerning for many reasons.