Careers
I Finally Got The Call …
Hey Everyone, I hope you are doing well and that you had a good weekend. My weekend has been busy. That’s because here at Northwestern Law it’s the week before spring break. This means that we have a final paper due in our legal writing class in just about a week. And because the final paper is worth nearly half our grade, everyone is really spending a lot of time on it. Everyone also has lots of other smaller assignments to work on, which vary depending on the course. For example, I have two projects due in my Business Associations class this week: a group M&A timeline project and a country presentation project. I also have to make a personal trip out of town at the end of the week to a meeting in New York City. However, in the midst of all of this chaos, I also found some pretty good news. And this past Friday, I finally got the call.
This Friday I finally got a call from an organization I’ve been pretty interested in all year. And it was good news. Although all of you must be wondering where I’m referring to exactly, I won’t spill the details just yet. But I will at some point after I officially accept on Monday. Considering that this has been such a tough year for legal recruiting and considering first years rarely get such positions anyways, I’m especially excited and grateful that things worked out. Given the good news, I decided to take Friday off, and I went to a Kellogg mixer on Friday evening and then out for a bit with a couple of JD-MBAs afterward. But unfortunately, I don’t have a whole lot of time to celebrate tonight. So back to work it is.
But stay tuned for more details and for a few posts about recruiting at Northwestern Law. Also, best of luck to everyone still finishing up their search.
Good Articles: Recruiting In Today’s Economy
People have been talking a lot more about careers lately. Many business and law school admits are comparing school recruiting stats to make final decisions; many current students are wrapping up the interview process now in hopes for their dream opportunities; and the lucky students have already received offers and are making final decisions for the summer. Given the topic is on everyone’s mind, I thought I’d post a few quick articles that discuss the issue.
See below for the articles. Two come from the WSJ and one is from Forbes.
1) Wall-Street Journal: One from the Wall Street Journal that talks a little about b-school recruiting. While the article focuses more on business school than law school, the theme of recruiting in our new economy and of getting creative in the recruiting process (both students and recruiters) is applicable to us all. The article also gives a quote from Kellogg’s own Sunil Chopra. Click here to read the article.
2) Forbes: Forbes has a interesting article which relates recruiting to dating and talks about themes “like playing hard to get.” Not everyone may agree with all the tactics/advice, but everyone should find it a pretty interesting. Click here to read the article.
3) Wall-Street Journal Blog Post: “Laid Off and Looking” —a WSJ blog — has a good post from someone who had been looking for a job for seven months before landing something. He uses his post to share tips for those who are currently looking. Click here to read his post.
1L Job Search Continues
Last August, most students came to Northwestern Law ready to study hard, perform well, and make their way to a top tier law firm. But for some, that plan got thrown out of the window a long time ago. By November, before recruiting ever began for 1Ls, the economic environment was the nation’s center of attention. So students began making appointments with advisers. And the career center quickly took charge and did a good job of loudly communicating the message to keep our options open. And in December, students started pumping out applications. To law firms, government agencies and non profits. Both big and small. You name it, somebody sent it. All in hopes of an interview.
But things have definitely shifted a bit over the past few months. After a rocky and unpredictable start, students are now balancing school with their job searches. Some students seem to look a bit more stressed, and some seem in more of a hurry. But most of the group seems to be staying cool and collected–the older Northwestern Law students seem to hand pressure well. And as for the rest, you really just don’t see them at the school very often. Only in class, the career office, or dressed in their best suit on their way to an interview. In fact, on any given day you’ll spot someone cruising the atrium in their best suits and newly shined shoes. It’s so common that nobody usually takes a second look.
Also more students are increasingly becoming interested in non-profits and in public service organizations, which is a great by-product of the economy. And this isn’t just happening here at Northwestern, students are feeling the urgency at most of the top schools. I recently spoke with a friends at Penn, Harvard, and Chicago, and the climate is similar.
In general, the first year law student job search can be a bit chaotic. In some sense, it’s a bit of an unstructured process, where companies post jobs periodically, others come in one by one to OCI (on campus recruiting process), and others come drop by for career fairs or employers mixers. Unlike second year summer recruiting where all the employers come during the same period, interview dozens of students, and hand out offers, most 1Ls rely on an individual search.
The up side to this less formal process is that you can do a lot of it at your own pace and on your own time. For some, this means getting done very quickly or being able to spread the search out over time, which may help you with balance. The down side is that for most it will end up taking longer, given there are less jobs to go around. For some, this might mean making a trade-off between grades and the job search, if students don’t balance everything correctly. And that decision may depend on first semester grades or on work history. But it’s hard to say how things will turn out this year, here or elsewhere, because we’re still right in the middle of the process.
So at this point, a lot of 1Ls here are still looking and deciding what to do for the summer, which is typical, even during the best recruiting years. For one, some students don’t want to get tied down without going for their top job choice first. Others will sometimes work a few different angles at the same time, which may lengthen the process. Although I suspect less of that will happen this year. Also, the 1L schedule usually lasts through the spring, given the majority of first year students don’t even begin until January.
The hard part though, in writing a more detailed post, is that recruiting, just like most of law school has a big element of secrecy.  Just as most people don’t say much about grades, an ever smaller number talk about jobs, especially early in the process and especially now when things so uncertain. I think a lot of the 1Ls followed the lead of the 2Ls, who recently went through the worst recruiting cycle ever and thus were quieter than normal.
But personally, I’ve been asking around, and I’ve got a bit of information on a small number of first years, and some have already locked down jobs. Some will be working for government agencies, like the FTC, others at non-profits and legal aid organizations, and others clerking for judges here in Chicago and elsewhere in the U.S. But I suspect that many students will be working on recruiting for a good chunk of the semester, and some for the full semester. For those hoping to work in GC offices or at firms, the large majority of hiring decisions have not been made yet. In fact, some firms haven’t even begun their interview process.
As for the JD-MBAs, most of the group is not going through the 1L recruiting process. Instead, they’ll be taking classes full-time this summer. A few are looking at short-term assignments before classes begin, and a smaller few are going through the recruiting process. But the good news for JD-MBAs here at Northwestern is that part of our program includes the opportunity to work at either the Small Business Opportunity Clinic or at in a local company General Counsel’s office during the first summer. Both experiences are supposed to be a lot of fun and a good chance to learn a lot. I suspect that a majority of my classmates will end up working in either of the two roles. We’ll see how the numbers turn out.
Good Article: Law Firm Diversity
Diversity has become a bit of a buzzword over the past few years. People use it about as much as business people throw around the word “leadership,” as frequently as admissions teams talk about “fit,” and as habitually as law school professors use the word “reasonable.” But thankfully, many institutions today are taking it more seriously. Chief among those institutions are law firms, especially California law firms according to a recent article I found. Among other things, they are promoting diversity on their websites, starting diversity scholarship programs, increasing target “interview” numbers, and giving diverse employees a seat at the executive table.
I recently found an article that discusses this very issue. The article focuses more on the diversity of new hires than of executives and diversity scholarship, but it raises a few interesting points about ensuring that diversity continues to improve–talking a little about some of the tactics firms are using to recruit and also about the way firms are collaborating to tackle the issue. Ultimately, the end goal for firms is to use the best tools they can to work effectively and more systematically on the issue and to finally bring change to the legal industry. It sounds like some firms may finally be on their way. And not only is this true in California but it’s definitely true for firms based here in Chicago too, firms like Vedder Price, Foley & Lardner, Kirkland & Ellis, and Perkins Coie (HQ Seattle but big Chicago program)
This could be a really big moment in law firm history. Is your law firm staying on pace with the new diversity standard? What about your business? Or your school? If not, then how will you and your organization fit in going forward? Will you resist change or will you finally adjust and help push this new standard forward? Why … because sometimes the best leaders aren’t always the entrepreneurs or those who come up with the bright ideas. Instead they’re often the ones with the intuition to quickly recognize another good idea, adapt, and then work in diverse teams and broker complex networks to influence others to do the same. Business and law firms have the current opportunity to lead in the push for diversity.
Please see below for a link to the article.
Title: Study: California Law Firms Lead In Diversity — But It’s Not Easy
Source: Fenwick & West LLP
Article Link: Click here to read the article