Market for Returning Clerks? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have any insight into the market for clerks returning to their law firms, particularly Big Law in NYC? Have any firms been declining to give return offers/rescinding return offers? TIA

[moxcoal]

Can confirm this happened to several mid levels who I would’ve considered in it for the long run

[Anonymous User]

Was NYC particularly bad this year? I had a rough time getting bites there and accepted in DC.

[Anonymous User]

Had no problem with K&E New York letting me defer my start date to do District+COA clerkship.

[Wild Card]

Had no problem with K&E New York letting me defer my start date to do District+COA clerkship.

The problem really concerns those who worked at a firm for 2-4 years, left to do a district court clerkship, and hope to return. It's not always guaranteed. This makes little sense to me as firms should be making enough money to throw around.

[Anonymous User]

Sidley DC declined to take back at least two COA clerks that I know of.

[Anonymous User]

When people are being "declined" to be taken back is there like an outstanding return offer that is revoked or is it that htey left with a wink expectation that they could reach out and get re-hired. Because I know summer associates get "deferred" offers after clerkships so a revocaiton of that feels fairly extreme, but maybe when current associates leave they lack such explicit deferred offers.

[Anonymous User]

When people are being "declined" to be taken back is there like an outstanding return offer that is revoked or is it that htey left with a wink expectation that they could reach out and get re-hired. Because I know summer associates get "deferred" offers after clerkships so a revocaiton of that feels fairly extreme, but maybe when current associates leave they lack such explicit deferred offers.

Correct, it's the latter. I was "declined" after working as an associate and leaving to clerk. This was after multiple partners in my practice group had said things like "looking forward to your return," meeting/exceeding hours, and receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews. The firm supposedly just made the decision not to take back clerks.

[Anonymous User]

I sort of experienced the former situation with a NYC firm this year. I had an explicit return offer for after my clerkships. I asked the firm if I could transfer the offer to another office. I expected the worst possible response would be, "No, but we'd like you to come back to NYC."

Instead, they completely ignored me. It's not that they didn't receive my message. A recruiter sent me multiple emails about a recruiting event and promised to get back to me about the transfer request. Then they never did.

I'm interpreting that as a rescission of the offer.