Your School Sucks – Why Should We Hire You?

Despite the fact that we’re just 1Ls, a lot of the folks in our program are concerned with job prospects after school. A friend of mine recently interviewed for a non-legal position at one of the top law firms in town here, and while I’m not surprised at what he found during the interview, it does make me question some of the facts of life in our profession.

Early on in the interview, the associate who was interviewing my friend made the comment, “You know, this firm would never recruit out of your school. What do you think about that? How do you distinguish yourself from your education?”

Now, one of the unspoken things at our law school is the fact that we’re not top-tier. Everyone knows it, but no one talks about it. So my buddy was taken aback by the fact that the associate came right out and said it, but he kept his composure. He replied that while he wasn’t happy hearing that, his experience outside of law school made him qualified for the current position etc. Anyone who knows my friend would be impressed with his credentials.

Later, the associate went on about how the firm parades 23 year-old top-tier law school students through the summer program and throws obscene amounts of money at them to produce drivel (if they do anything at all). He also said that someone in the job my friend was interviewing for would need to get used to being paid modestly for doing real work while seeing kids get paid a lot for doing nothing and bossing him around at times.

Fortunately, this wasn’t me interviewing for the job, because I would have been hard pressed to maintain civility. My friend, having less of a temper than I do, said all the right things. I probably would have gotten my dander up defending our school, pointing out the number of graduates in the judiciary or in elected positions, as well as those who have successful practices. In fact, I was just at a reception at another top firm in town that has twenty associates and partners from our school. We’re not top-tier, but we’re not the University of Bridgeport, either.

As I was talking to my buddy, it kind of hit me what the associate was saying between the lines – his firm wastes client money. He never came right out and said it, but that’s exactly what they’re doing. Hiring a dozen top-tier inexperienced kids for three months at $10k a month to do slipshod research that will end up being redone by someone else is a waste. You might as well spend the money on hookers – at least there’d be some stress relief for the staff there. I don’t understand why senior level folks don’t view it that way. Is this a “how it’s always been done” kind of problem? Systemic? Or just at the biggest of the big firms?

I guess I wouldn’t be as annoyed if this were the first time I’ve heard about crap like this. It isn’t. It seems that unless you go to a top-14 school, you’re going to have to be the reincarnation of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to get a job with a top firm. And even then, you’ll probably get looked down on by the other associates. It stands to reason that a profession like law, that prides itself on professionalism, would reward the smart, hard working law students based on their merits, not where their degree came from.

Oddly enough, that’s what politics does. It doesn’t matter where your degree came from – if you work hard and are smart, you’ll get the job in politics. The most brilliant mind in politics today was a college dropout. This is all the more amusing considering that one of the biggest losing strategists in politics today went to Georgetown and Harvard Law. Go figure.

Now, if you asked me (and no one ever does), if I were canvassing for summer associates, I’d be all about students from second-tier schools and giving them a shot. A kid from a top-tier school isn’t going to work as hard as a kid from a second-tier school. They know they don’t have to. There will be jobs for them when they graduate, even if they’re dead last. Whereas, those of us from schools that aren’t in the top 25 are going to recognize that we need to add value to the firm or we’re toast. That means we’ll work harder and smarter, because we won’t have our degree to fall back on. Not only do you get a good lawyer (or law student), you get someone who will be loyal, because they know you took a chance on them when you didn’t have to. And given the current rate of associate turnover, that should be something big firms should look at.

But what do I know? I’m just a law student at a second-tier school.

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