Law Students

Banning Firms from OCI for Lack of Professionalism?

By Casebook Sherpa

Fordham’s law school has banned Reed Smith from participating in On Campus Interviewing for 5 years. Read more at Above the Law and ABA Journal. (Update: Above the Law covers Reed Smith’s excellent, straight-forward response.)

A memo from Fordham Law’s Dean reads, in part:

Ethics and professionalism are at the heart of the legal profession. At Fordham Law, we strive to impart to our students the importance of these principles through our curriculum, clinics, and activities–and during the job search process. The importance of law schools instilling the tenets of professionalism in students is a theme we continually hear from legal employers.

I am disappointed, therefore, to advise you that, after the release of EIW interview schedules, Reed Smith contacted us to withdraw from this year’s EIW program. While the firm intends to have a 2010 Summer Associate Program and to keep its commitment to interview at other schools, Reed Smith decided to no longer interview at some schools, including Fordham. Despite our attempts to engage the firm in discussion, its decision remains.

While disappointing, Reed Smith’s action is more disheartening because of the lack of professionalism it conveys. The firm could have made its decision earlier; in fact, it received its interview schedule prior to canceling its participation. In my seven years as Dean, no other firm has canceled its interviews after the schedule was released. Thus, we have informed the firm that it will not be invited to participate in our OCI program for the next 5 years. I have never imposed such a sanction on an employer, and I was saddened to do so.

Harsh words. I wonder how they really affected Reed Smith. Do they even care? If they pulled out because they are severely cutting costs, then it may not matter. Or does this, as one commenter at Above the Law put, hurt Fordham students more than Reed Smith?

Or perhaps Dean Treanor was just making an example of Reed Smith. The firm only appears to employ two Fordham graduates. Maybe by slapping a firm that doesn’t hire many Fordham grads anyway, you send a message to those firms that do. If a firm had 20 grads and regularly hired 5-7 Summers, it might be a bit tougher to ruffle feathers (and, vice versa, probably less likely they’d pull out of OCI in the first place).

Either way, I say, Bravo, Dean Treanor for sending the message that your OCI program and your students should be treated more professionally. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision. But you’ve got to do something, it seems.

Reed Smith canceled at our school too after setting an interview date and receiving resumes, but before making selections. Instead, the firm invited a few students to interview at their DC office, instead of on campus. Whether our career office sought to “engage the firm in discussion” is unknown.

So, when are more schools going to push back on this issue? Law schools demand that students approach this process professionally. They should demand the same from firms. If you’re in, you’re in – no canceling once you commit to a date.

How far do we want to go here? Can this be applied more broadly?

Can and should law schools take a more aggressive stance when it comes to how firms make personnel decisions generally? Obviously, law firms–all companies really–should be free to decide on their own how to meet staffing needs. But it’s the “how” that concerns me here. If a law firm appears to engage in what a law school might deem egregious behavior when laying off associates, should that school take a stand to protect its students by limiting that firm’s access to on campus recruiting?

What would the standard be – poor severance, no communication, manufactured poor performance reviews?

How would you police it?

What’s clear is that law schools have an interest in connecting their students with good jobs. What’s less clear is whether law schools can muster the will to protect their students from bad jobs. Would advancing the latter necessarily come at the expense of the former? The answer would likely depend, in part, on what school we’re talking about, how strict the “penalty,” how many alums the firm employs, and what resources a school would still devote to helping connect students with jobs at sanctioned firms who want them.

I guess you could also take “sunlight is the best disinfectant” approach, by providing more and better information to students about a firm. A career office could develop dossiers on employers that contain inside information assembled by the career office. While much of this information is scattered about already, a career office could perform an invaluable service by assembling and explaining it to students. Can you do so without appearing to be the enemy of firms that you think behave poorly? What if the firm is just more secretive than others? Obviously it needs to be more than rumor and inuendo.

The whole point is that law schools have some muscle to flex and they should be willing to flex it where they see legal employers–be they large or small, private or public–abusing the process and their students and alumni. Assuming they can do so without firms viewing them as the enemy.

It could also be a good opportunity to develop more resources for reaching smaller firms and helping develop skills that solo practitioners require. This would give students the confidence to chart their own course and connect them with firms that, while not a flashly large firm, nonetheless do great work for great clients.

Full post as published by Fight The Hypo on August 13, 2009 (boomark / email).