When Hayley Goldman found out last spring that Proskauer Rose was pushing back her start date from this fall until January 2010, the University of Pennsylvania law grad didn’t panic. After all, Goldman reasoned, the deferral wan’t so long that she had to scramble to find a Plan B. Initially, she and a law school friend discussed the possibility of traveling to Peru for a month and taking Spanish courses there.
But then Proskauer called in August and told Goldman her start date was being pushed back until next April. That made finding a Plan B somewhat more urgent. Luckily, the Proskauer staffer who called Goldman happened to mention one possible backup option: T-Mobile, a longtime Proskauer client, was looking for a deferred associate to work in the litigation department at its Seattle headquarters. The unusual solution appealed to Goldman more than public interest work, and the stipend Proskauer was offering — $5,000 per month starting in November — was not contingent on landing a job at a nonprofit or public interest group, she says. She expressed interest and got the job.
