In the summer of 2008, with the country jittery over the spreading financial crisis, Sarah Martinez found herself among the unlucky crop of bright law school graduates whose big-firm job offers were deferred.

Now she’s suing San Francisco’s Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin, the firm that her lawyer says strung her along until past the point when she could have signed on with another big law firm.