Big Law hiring never made any sense to me. As a law student, I learned that firms hired first-year associates exclusively through lavish summer associate programs that basically guaranteed full-time employment at the end.
On-campus interviews for these plum positions, often called OCIs, occur right before the second year in law school. This means that firms do hiring for entry-level positions two years in advance based on your performance on just two semesters’ worth of law school exams.
Things are apparently moving even earlier these days—some firms have opened applications for summer associate positions before OCI, and as early as mid-April. This shift to pre-OCI recruiting, known as “pre-cruiting,” means some firms will now evaluate students based on grades from a single semester.
I’m tempted to say this is completely ridiculous.
But at the same time, I understand. Hiring the cream of the crop is so important to Big Law firms. It helps them justify their high hourly rates to clients.
This is why firms continue to emphasize filling their summer associate ranks with law students from top-ranked schools with the best 1L grades. These early achievers typically have limited practical experience or knowledge about law. But their performance against their peers suggests they’re the best of the best.
And that perception turns out to be pretty important, because many Big Law firms struggle to differentiate themselves from one another.
Hiring early-achiever associates enables firms to distinguish themselves by making them seem elite—which makes sense. I hate to admit it, but I often make snap judgments about the quality of a law firm based on which of my classmates worked there, and what I thought of them. Clients probably do the same thing, right?
Convincing an early achiever to join your firm is no small feat because they are highly sought by all employers. Big Law firms try to get in front of them before they’ve had a chance to talk to other firms to gain a recruiting advantage—before OCI officially takes place.
Interviewing early isn’t a strategy unique to Big Law. Federal judges do something similar when hiring law clerks. Getting in front of top recruits before everyone else lets you “lock them in” before anyone else can.
Are Big Law firms hurting themselves by focusing on early achievers, though? In my experience, many early achievers ended up leaving their firms within a few years.
Firms might start weighing factors such as undergrad reputation and college GPA. Law school ranking will likely rise in importance—which may lead schools to emphasize LSAT even more for law school admissions. And of course, 1Ls will face even more pressure to perform on their first ever set of exams.
I’m curious to see what happens next. I wouldn’t be surprised if students from underrepresented groups, who don’t have lawyer parents or early connections to warn them about the importance of first-year exams, will be at a huge disadvantage.
First-years may experience even more mental health struggles, which is already a big challenge. And all this may lead to heavier emphasis on credentials that have little to do with future success as a practicing lawyer.
But I can’t see a world where Big Law firms can just opt out of the game. There’s too much riding on recruiting early achievers to your firm, especially in a world where clients are pushing back against Big Law’s hourly rates. Pre-cruitment is here to stay.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.
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Alex Su is chief revenue officer of Latitude Legal, a global flexible legal staffing company that serves law firms and legal deparments.
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