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Multiple friends reporting Paul Hastings no-offering in droves. Something to ask about in your interviews.

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Point taken. I asked probing questions during my interviews but I did use some tact. I'd probably phrase it as "in light of the economy, tell me about how your summer program fits in with your hiring plan generally. Do you anticipate making offers for full-time employment for a majority of your summer class or has your firm's model changed?"

I think both are legitimate questions. I asked all sorts of "how are you dealing with the downturn? Do you think you will stop utilizing junior lawyers for billable work?" questions at screening / callback interviews and firms were pretty straight up for the most part.

It's too bad the NALP offer numbers won't be back before people have to make decisions. I think no-offering a large percentage of your class is shameful if the firm is not upfront about it.

Anonymous User wrote:Point taken. I asked probing questions during my interviews but I did use some tact. I'd probably phrase it as "in light of the economy, tell me about how your summer program fits in with your hiring plan generally. Do you anticipate making offers for full-time employment for a majority of your summer class or has your firm's model changed?"

I think both are legitimate questions. I asked all sorts of "how are you dealing with the downturn? Do you think you will stop utilizing junior lawyers for billable work?" questions at screening / callback interviews and firms were pretty straight up for the most part.

Are you talking about asking these sorts of questions right now, during Fall 2009 OCI? Or do you mean you did this last year or in 2007?

I don't like it when people post anonymously trying to sabotage other people's interviews....

Agree with underdawg and neskerdoo.

However, if you think the rumor is true, it is worth asking about after (and if) you get an offer.

Yeah, I don't really know, but I think that's a callback question.

No, it's not a callback question. It's a question you can ask when you know you don't need the offer, or when you know you have the offer. It might have been a question to ask in a callback in past years, when you might have had 15 callbacks and messing one up didn't matter, but assuming that that is not the situation now, don't ask this until you have an offer in hand, at which point you can actually use the answer to decide between two or more employers.