Legal News

Back to School Means Thinking Ahead to 2011

By Brian Harris

By Jaime Bochet
Of the Legal Staff

It?s hard to believe that ?Back to School? days are now upon us, but the summer is indeed drawing to a close. But there seems to be good news for law students heading back to campuses, especially those hoping to land a summer associate gig for 2011.

The Legal?s sister publication, the New York Law Journal, has an article today called ?Law Schools See Signs of Better Job Opportunities for Students.? According to the piece, ?The annual ritual of on-campus interviews for positions as summer associates kicks off Thursday at Columbia Law School with its early interview program, which runs until Aug. 17. And in an encouraging sign for the legal job market, Columbia Law reports that the number of interviews law firms have agreed to conduct with second-year students has increased by 8 percent to 8,780.?

This seems to be the trend across many law schools, brought on by increased optimism from law firms looking to get their summer classes back to normal levels. As I blogged previously, in response to our own ?New Associates? survey conducted earlier in the summer, ?Of the 20 firms that responded to the survey, 15 plan to have summers next year ? including Ballard Spahr. The remaining five responded that they?re unsure ? but nobody said, ?No, definitely not.??

Several of those firms had cut their classes ? or, in Ballard Spahr?s case, their entire summer program ? in order to stay afloat during the down economy, but the interview rates are yet another signal that optimism might be coming back into fashion this fall. 

But you may want to hold off on popping the champagne corks just yet. The NYLJ article also reports, ?That recruiting has not returned to the highs of a few years ago is a reflection of business conditions. A recent report by consulting firm Hildebrandt Baker Robbins found that demand for law firm services nationwide was flat in the second quarter compared to a year earlier and was down 1 percent in New York City. Firms for the third straight quarter also reduced attorney head count, with a 1.6 percent drop nationally, the report said.

??We?re definitely seeing more optimistic outlooks from firms, and I think people have a fairly good handle on a recovery going forward,? said Sharon Weinberg, managing director of J.P. Morgan?s law firm group. ?But I don't think anyone thinks we're going back to the glory days.??

To the law students out there, the best advice seems to be this: polish off your interview skills and spread out your bids. There?s no autumn chill in the air just yet, but at the end of interview season, you don?t want to be left out in the cold.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on August 10, 2010 (boomark / email).