Law Student Summer Job Blues

The ABA Journal Weekly Newsletter has a group of stories that pull together to make a very bleak picture of summer jobs this year:

Skadden Arps cuts their summer jobs by more than half here. For the summer of 2010, they plan to hire 100 (down from 225 this summer). And they plan to offer permanent associate jobs to about 95% of their existing summer associates, but to begin those jobs 2011, not in 2010, the year they graduate. That is, they will have a year's deferment.

Lost Year for 2-Ls - Big Law Cuts Summer Hiring in Half. This report is based on the New York Times article that Marie posted recently, and looks at a variety of large firms scaling back summer hiring. They also report on firms canceling or reducing interviewing at elite schools. The result is students who would be working in the big law firms scrambling into jobs at mid-size and smaller firms, government and public interest jobs. The dark cloud of debt is looming over students as they think about summer employment.

A recommendation from Northwestern University assistant dean William Chamberlain that students receiving a summer job offer accept it immediately. The brief article has a link to the National Law Journal column written by Chamberlain so you can read it in full.

A really depressing article about four Ohio firms that cut their summer associate programs in favor of the option of hiring experienced, laid-off attorneys. They didn't want to give the students false hopes when the firm isn't likely to ask them to stay. At least, they're taking the students' feelings into account. I think.