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2010 Already Looking Chilly for Summer Associates
The Recorder
May 13, 2009
Image: Don Farrall / Photodisc
For younger law students, the recession won't really start until 2010.
Recent accounts from firm partners and school career counselors sketch a sobering portrait of the job outlook. With no sign of a lasting rebound in the wider economy, some law firm leaders are playing it safe by reducing their 2010 summer programs or skipping them altogether. Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold, for example, is planning to sit one year out. Gordon & Rees is doing some deeper soul searching. Still others don't yet know what, if any, changes they might make.
"Whether or not the economy comes back, I do think that corporate America has forced law firms to re-examine their model," Gordon & Rees managing partner Dion Cominos said. "Having well-compensated attorneys fresh out of law school that are charging several hundred dollars an hour for what the clients perceive as training -- I think there's a rebellion against that." He said that no decision has been made, but that all options are on the table: "We may retain a more limited program or go without it for a year and see how it goes."
The latest predictions of adjustments come on the heels of dramatic cuts firms have already made to 2009 summer stints, when some reduced the number of associates by 30 percent to 50 percent, according to NALP figures. While no statistics are available yet for summer 2010, anecdotal evidence abounds.
Paul Glad, the San Francisco office managing partner at Am Law 100 firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, said that students will be facing a very different year. "It is my sense from talking to my peers [at other firms] that they are dramatically scaling back the number of people they're looking for in their fall on-campus interviews," he said. Firmwide, Sonnenschein reduced its summer class from about 38 in 2008 to about 17 in 2009, Glad said. "We will be scaling back interviewing for fall, but we haven't put numbers on it."
Sari Zimmerman, the career office director at Hastings College of the Law, said a smaller number of law firms have so far signed up for on-campus interviews at her school and, she's heard, at other law schools in the area. She declined to specify numbers, saying only that the drop was significant.
"To a certain extent -- not that it's up to them -- but there will definitely be a lot of people who have different jobs from what they expected to have," Zimmerman said. "The pipeline to larger firm practice will be narrower."
With registration open through July and even later at many schools, the number of employers interviewing could still change, law school officials noted.
The University of San Francisco School of Law, where most students don't rely on on-campus interviews, doesn't have the data to compare registration so far with the same time last spring. Still, Bryan Hinkle, the director of the career planning office, said in an e-mail, "While the data is premature, I think that most schools are bracing for reduced participation overall, a shift to resume collection instead of on-campus interviews, and decreases in interview schedules, callbacks and offers." Eight percent of employers who took part in OCI last year have moved to resume collection this year, he added.
For those who do rely on fall recruiting, OCI may be the new callback.
When 240-lawyer Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis, known for its California-wide real estate practice, hits campuses this autumn, its recruiters will be paying closer attention to why students signed up for interviews with the firm.
"Students in the past just would ride on their grades and the school and their interviewing skills. But do they really want to be at our firm, or are they just filling their schedules because they can?" Lorraine Connally, a non-lawyer in charge of summer programs, said. "It will be more important for students to know a bit more about the firm going into OCI interviews, as opposed to waiting for the callback to make their case."
The firm has always had a modest-sized program. In 2007, Allen Matkins' summer class was 10, in 2008 it was seven, and this summer, it's three.
The plan is to hire four to six for 2010, but the firm is still curbing its visits to 10 schools this fall, down from 11 last year, and scaling back the number of callbacks. In the past two years, the firm invited about 70 for in-person callbacks. This year, the plan is to call back 30 to 40, Connally said.
"In the past, we've interviewed so many great qualified people and then we're caught with the dilemma of not being able to make an offer," she said. "I think the number of [interview] schedules is much more aligned with the number of students we want in our class."
A SUMMER OFF, MORE TAILORING
Uncertainty motivated Sedgwick Detert's plan to suspend its summer program next year in most, if not all, of its offices. Steven Di Saia, a Los Angeles partner who started at the firm as a summer associate 20 years ago, now chairs the recruiting committee and heads the summer associate program. "What I remember very distinctly is students rely on these jobs," he said. "If they're going to be a summer clerk, there has to be a reasonable expectation that they can be hired as associates."
Di Saia said that office managing partners have not been able to assure him that they would need new associates come fall 2011. Planning for that is based on more guesswork about future growth than regular hiring, he said. "A lot of times a group might have needs but they may need specific experience, like a lateral hire," hesaid. But for freshly graduated lawyers, "you're going to be training, which is a different need," one that takes a bigger investment. Sedgwick won't be discontinuing the summer program indefinitely, he said. "We're going to let the economy improve. We're letting campuses know that this is a year off. We'll be back."
The San Francisco office of Sonnenschein has not only shrunk its summer program by size, it's also tailored it. This year, the office is having only one student, down from four in 2008. Jessica Laughlin, a Washington University School of Law student and American Indian tribal member, was chosen at a diversity fair in San Francisco because of, among other things, her heritage, said Glad, the office managing partner. She will primarily work with the office's nine partners who handle environmental, litigation and tribal governance matters for Indian law clients, he said.
Glad said it's too early to say how many summers the San Francisco office will bring in for next year. "We're thinking of one or none," he said, adding that future summer associates will be matched with growing practice areas.
At 350-lawyer Gordon & Rees, Cominos said partners are weighing whether developing attorneys through a summer program -- rather than through lateral hires -- still makes sense.
Contract lawyers play a bigger role these days and loyalty to the firm a smaller one, he said. "The game has changed, and we're just looking at how this program fits into that."
Summer programs, of course, have advantages. Cominos said it's often better than the lateral market for channeling diverse candidates into the firm. It keeps the firm's name alive on law school campuses, and it even serves a social function, giving lawyers from different practice groups a chance to mingle who normally don't. The only downside, Cominos says, is the cost. "In this day and age, it's a major consideration," he said. "It's an investment that takes time to get a return on, and you never see it if people don't stick around."
