Cooley has offered some of its incoming first-year associates the option to defer their start dates for another year, just two months after the firm announced in April it would delay its entire incoming class to January 2024.

The firm offered some incoming corporate associates to push their start dates by a year in exchange for a $100,000 stipend. The deferred associates will start with the class of 2024, for which a start date will be determined in the spring of 2024 per standard procedure. Meanwhile other corporate associates will be reassigned to other practices with more client demand and start in January as planned, a firm spokesperson said.