Earlier this year, I wrote a blog titled “Let’s Take a Step Back” addressing a new practice by BigLaw of recruiting first-year law students for summer associate positions — in some cases, even before the fall semester had started. I took issue with that practice from both my own experience as a 1L and from my experience teaching 1Ls at Georgetown Law. I encouraged law students who agreed with me to contact the ABA to protest the practice and to request a return to the “Hands Off 1Ls Until October 15” that law schools had agreed to in the past.
Results of a survey of more than 2,000 law students conducted last fall by the Law School Admission Council and the National Association for Law Placement were released recently. According to the survey, 56% of first year law students said that accelerated large firm recruiting timelines for summer associate positions had a negative impact on their first year of law school. And just 4% of students reported a positive impact.
The negative impacts reported in the survey included the inability to prioritize academic work and also focus on career planning. Even those students without aspirations to work at a large law firm said the new practice injected additional stress and pressure on campus. One student put it very bluntly, “Someone stop them from doing this again because it sucks, and nobody can actually focus on learning.”
Hopefully BigLaw has read the same survey results and will do the right thing and reverse the new recruiting practice. Keep your eyes on late summer and early fall to gauge whether they care more about young lawyers or about exercising their competitive edge.
Sometimes I hated it when I’m right. This is one of those times. This never should have happened in the first place and the geniuses at BigLaw should have known it would put students at risk.
And what about the law school placement officials? Shouldn’t they have known that this would be a problem?
Makes me wonder what other kinds of sweetheart deals are going on.
