The Recession and Law School

The On Campus Interview (OCI) program for the fall semester is almost complete. Large firms from across the country have come and gone from Florida State to interview the best and the brightest students from our 2nd year class.

As I have explained in previous entries, OCI is for those going after the higher pressure, more financially rewarding jobs in the legal field. Law school is three years long, but most of these firms do their hiring during a student's second year of school. The idea is to bring the student on as a summer associate during the break in between the second and third year of law school. If everything works out during the summer, then the firm makes an offer for regular employment upon the student's graduation.

As a student participating in the OCI process, you submit your resume, transcript, references, and a writing sample electronically to the firm. From the submissions, the firm selects a number of students to be interviewed in person when the firm visits the campus. If the student makes the cut after the on campus interview , he or she then receives a "call back." The firm flies the student to its corporate office to undergo a full day of questions and answers from various attorneys with the firm. After that, the firm may or may not make an offer to the student to be hired as a summer associate.

From my electronic submissions, I was invited to just one on campus interview with a large firm, and that one interview is as far as I got in the process. Perhaps I should feel worried or anxious about this, but I am not. I am gaining confidence and skills as my legal education continues, and I am not afraid to go door to door after graduation until I find a job. It was my best effort during the first year of law school. I held nothing back.

The students for whom I do have some sympathy are the ones at the top of the class. These are the "superhumans" I wrote about in a previous entry. They did their best too, and the economy has made the OCI process almost ridiculously competitive for them this year. Fewer firms came to the school for one thing, and those that did were not handing out many slots. There are about 240 people in my class. Only a handful of these students were consistently invited to OCI interviews this fall. Of these handful, I know of only 2 who have received offers to be a summer associate. I know of multiple students who went to over 15 OCI interviews, then received two or three call backs, but no offers. The process is very time consuming and stressful for them, and it comes when they are as busy as they will ever be with their classes and in organizations such as Law Review, Moot Court and Mock Trial. To see what they are going through and to look at my own chances in competing for 2 out of 240 -- well, I know now that I had pretty much no shot landing a job with OCI this fall. As one friend of mine who did quite a few interviews with OCI said, "Optimism- that's so 2007."

This is not the law school's fault by any means. The Career Placement Office does a great job in reaching out to employers and getting them to come to campus to network with the students. I landed my own terrific legal job this past summer through the Mach Speed Interviews, which the school hosted in February. Money is tight everywhere right now, and the school is doing the best it can with employers who have scaled way back.

This is a great law school. We'll all find jobs eventually, though they may not be as high paying as some of us would have hoped.

Universal Health Care Now,

Nathan Marshburn