Big Law Recruiting And Its Impact On All Of Us

Big Law recruiting sets the tone for the majority of law student recruiting, and there have been enough changes in recent years that an update is warranted. For the Big Law employers this will be helpful to the extent it provides you a law school perspective on how we see the industry. For our small and mid-size firms, government, and other employers, this will give you some insight into the legal recruiting market and how you can either compete with Big Law or avoid it altogether!

WHAT IS BIG LAW?

First, it is important to define Big Law. While NALP and others may have a specific definition based upon firm size, we believe that is too limiting. In our office, and for the purposes of this article, Big Law includes any firm that pays at or near the current Big Law rate for first year associates (currently $190,000), recruits only the top academic students (Top 25%), and either 1) builds a recruiting pipeline beginning with a summer clerk program almost certain to come with a full-time offer, or 2) recruits directly out of federal judicial clerkships.

HOW DOES BIG LAW RECRUIT?

Now that we’ve established what a Big Law firm is, how are they recruiting and what has changed?

1. Big Law firms begin recruiting students during their 1L year. Holiday receptions in firm offices are common, and interviews for 1L summer clerk positions take place in January. Firms often request to visit campus in the spring to get in front of students before the summer and On-Campus Interviews in August. The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) recently rescinded its guidelines preventing contact between firms and 1Ls before December 1st. Beginning in Fall 2019, each law school will determine its own timeline for 1L recruitment, allowing for the possibility that firms could begin recruiting earlier in the 1L year.
2. Big Law On-Campus Interviews for 2L positions now take place in early August (our Big Law OCI dates are August 7th – 9th). Now, firms attempt to conduct second-round (i.e. callback) interviews soon after the initial screening interview to get offers out before the end of August. In the past, NALP guidelines encouraged law firms to leave offers open for 28 days. That guideline was also recently rescinded, and it is unclear what, if any, offer-holding period will exist, though this policy could vary school to school.
3. Summer clerkships are now eight to twelve weeks. It wasn’t that long ago that, at least in Texas, firms offered “split summers” of six weeks each. Those days are gone. It is now almost impossible for a student to combine a Big Law clerkship with another experience in the same summer (although Baylor’s longer summer can provide more of these opportunities than other schools).

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR NON-BIG LAW EMPLOYERS?

The Big Law recruitment model of committing full-time positions two years ahead is one that most other employers simply can’t replicate. However, a benefit of this recruitment model is that the Big Law class is established by fall of the second year and everyone else is up for grabs! Firms who prioritize recruiting can and should begin targeting non-Big Law students early to build a relationship and begin identifying possible candidates. Below are just a few suggestions:

1. Visit campus to present on a topic, judge a competition, or otherwise engage with students in a non-interview environment.
2. Host students at your firm for a reception, CLE, or other event to continue the relationship.
3. Interview second-year students on-campus in late August or early November for a 2L summer clerkship with no promise of a job, which students welcome if expectations are properly set up front.

Any student engagement is better than none, and the earlier the better. While many of the non-Big Law students are still available from early in their 2L year to early in their 3L year, the pool begins to shrink soon after that. If a firm calls us in the spring or summer needing a Top 50% 3L or recent graduate, we rarely can help.

As always, the Baylor Law Career Development Office wants to be a resource for all our employer partners, so please reach out to us if we can offer guidance on these or any other topics you have questions about. Thank you!

Employer Quarterly is an e-newsletter created by Baylor Law School's Career Development Office. Designed for the benefit of you, the employer, we welcome story ideas and comments. Please contact Daniel Hare to submit suggestions or for any hiring questions or needs.