18 Apr Big Law Firm Rescinds New Lawyer Offers

In a sign that we are still not out of the woods in either the US economy or the law business, BigLaw firm Brown Rudnick last week told 10 of 23 law students who were to join the firm in the fall that their offer of employment has been rescinded. The students were to join the firm’s New York and Boston offices, where business conditions apparently remain flat. The firm says it is doing well in other offices, but it was not practical to ask these students to take employment in another of the firm’s offices. The firm is giving the students a “transition payment” and reimbursing them for their costs in taking bar review classes.

Add this to Fed Chief Janet Yellin’s recent statements that interest rates need to remain low so that the struggling economic recovery can do better and we are all having to get used to the term “anemic growth.”

This is not every big law firm. I was with a BigLaw partner the other day who said they had a record year last year and are hiring more new lawyers for fall 2014 than they ever have in their history. And we haven’t heard  stories like this since Weil Gotshal laid off a bunch of lawyers and staff last summer. So things are improving for sure. But if you want to judge by the number of top graduating law students getting in touch with me and still struggling to find post-graduation employment and we start thinking more and more that Obama’s support of moving law school from 3 to 2 years makes quite a lot of sense.