Economic Downturns Might Mean Less Summer Hires

By: Law is Cool Contributors · October 23, 2008 · Filed Under Law Career, Law School ·  

Here’s a tip today for OCIs (on campus interviews) from Dan Slater of WSJ Law Blog. If a firm offers you a position, take it up ASAP. There might not be many to go around.

Susan Guindi, assistant dean for career services at Michigan law, said,

When firms came out here to recruit, most of them predicted similar size summer programs as last year. No one was looking at really reducing by any big number. But then of course the bottom dropped several weeks after, so to some extent there’s a wait-and-see going on. We won’t see the full effects until later in the fall.

Career services at Michigan have sent letters to their students, strongly advising them to accept offers immediately. Few people have had had offers rescinded, but it can happen.

There’s no reason to expect that similar economic fears in Canada could have Canadian law firms downsizing too, even if we are doing better than the U.S.

Ontario students might have it the worst. Most current 2Ls graduated from the double-cohort in high school, which doubled the number of university applicants. Presumably this affected law school admissions, and competitiveness within law schools, but no figures on this have been provided.

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Comments

6 Responses to “Economic Downturns Might Mean Less Summer Hires”

  1. Jacob Kaufman on October 23rd, 2008 8:35 pm

    With respect, I disagree strongly with this. The “Procedures Governing the Recruitment of Students for Summer 2009 Positions in the City of Toronto” B(7) states:

    Any offers made after 5:00p.m on Wednesday, November 5, 2008 shall be left open until 5:00 p.m., Thursday, November 6, 2008.

    It’s always best to wait, at least a little bit, just to make sure you made the right choice. This goes double if your #1 choice hasn’t given an offer yet.

    That advice may be good in Michigan, but not up here in Ontario.

  2. Omar Ha-Redeye on October 23rd, 2008 8:46 pm

    Thank goodness for LSUC.

    Any thoughts on them offering less positions though?

  3. Daniel Simard on October 23rd, 2008 9:40 pm

    From what I hear summer student positions aren’t being impacted, as of yet. Junior associates and articling students are the unfortunate souls that will bear the adverse effects.

  4. Jacob Kaufman on October 24th, 2008 8:19 am

    Any thoughts on them offering less positions though?

    I guess it depends on the type of firm…

  5. Daniel Simard on October 24th, 2008 9:26 am

    Speaking with two partners at different Bay Street firms, just after the fall of the Stock Exchange, I was told that the number of summer positions will not be decreased as a result of the economic crisis.

  6. Maria on October 24th, 2008 11:40 am

    Thank goodness for LSUC.

    Yeah, but what about other provinces?
    Does anyone have any information outside of Ontario?

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