So I think some anxiety—over the economy, the future—is there.
It’s subtle, to be sure, and nobody talks about it much, but it’s definitely lurking somewhere in the background. It’s lurking in the whispered rumors of a few unlucky 2Ls who don’t have yet have jobs for the summer, a predicament unheard of in better times. It’s lurking in a 1L job search that might be more prolonged, or pained, than what last year’s class went though. It’s lurking in the spectacle of firms holding recruiting “receptions” promising only good conversation, rather than full-blown luncheons promising good food, too.
So there’s some anxiety, but it doesn’t feel particularly real yet. As 1L’s, we’re still somewhat shielded. We’re not on the front lines of the economic quagmire, as many recently graduated law students, or 3Ls and even 2Ls, are. We have debt to pay, but so do many of those people—and they’ve lost their jobs. We don’t yet have jobs to lose, and we can still enjoy the luxury of pretending our student loans don’t exist (at least until six months after graduation.) We still have a shot, and to some extent, that’s comforting.
Along with that, the 1L job search is starting to fall into place for most people that I know, and it seems like quite a few of my classmates have recently found positions they’re comfortable with. A handful have offers from large firms. A good amount of government-types got their wishes—U.S. Attorney’s Offices, various Department of Justice divisions, district attorneys. And of course, many are heading the nonprofit route—saving the world, domestically or abroad.
I fall into that last category. I haven’t been flooded with offers, to be sure, but I have a couple of options with domestic non-profits to mull over. I’m grateful for that, even if I won’t be making an extraordinary amount of money (or any, actually, besides what I’ll get from Columbia’s Guaranteed Summer Funding Program.) So sure, the 1L job search is stressful. But it’s a different kind of stress—it’s stressful because it’s so unguided, so uncertain, so wide open. There aren’t hundreds of employers lined up, laid out in a neat schedule, all waiting to speak to you. Everything’s up to you—to find them, to tell them you’re interested, to hope they’re interested back (a good percentage of the public interest jobs I applied to never bothered to reply.) But just about everyone finds something, eventually, and what you do 1L summer really doesn’t have to have much bearing on the rest of your life.
With 2L OCI, much of the uncertainty of the search goes away. The employers come to you. You know who you can speak to—heck, you can even choose who you want to speak to, since it’s run on a bid system. 2L OCI is stressful for an entirely different reason: it’s it. Barring a judicial clerkship, or certain specialized government and public interest jobs, your 2L summer determines your career. If your plan is to work in a firm, your summer firm is likely where you’re going to end up after graduation, because firms extend full-time offers to just about every member of their summer class...at least, that’s how the script used to read. Now, nobody knows. It seems like summer associate positions don’t mean what they used to, and for those who want to work in a firm, there are precious few fall-back options if things don’t work out.
Anyway, here’s my proposal: firms should just cut starting salaries. I don’t know what it seems like such a taboo thing to do, but it is. Firms have already broken every other taboo—not offering their entire summer class, laying people off, even withholding bonuses and annual raises—but they haven’t yet lowered their starting salaries. Every major firm in every major market stubbornly pays the same starting rate: $160,000. It’s illogical, because as much as they try to project otherwise, law firms aren’t uniform. Some do better than others. The corner McDonald’s isn’t going to pay their fry-cooks as much as the gourmet restaurant next door pays their chefs—why should law firms? The truth is, there are some firms that can afford to pay $160K to a first-year associate. There are many more that can't, and they’re hurting.
Also, I don’t know about you, but $160,000 seems like a disgustingly large amount of money to me. You might not live like a king on that salary if you’re in New York, but there are many, many people that get by just fine on much less. It’s certainly more than I ever imagined myself making in my mid-twenties. And when it comes down to it, I'd rather have a job making less than be laid off and not make anything.
But like I said, that’s all still an undercurrent. Those worries are lurking in the background. For the most part, it’s business as usual. Firms are still trying to woo 1L’s, even if the receptions weren’t as lavish as they once were. There’s still free food to go around. But there are signs. I applied for a job about a month ago, and got an e-mail back the other day. It wasn’t a rejection. Rather, the e-mail said that the internship I had applied for had been canceled, due to “changing business needs.”
Something tells me they won't be the only firm with “changing business needs” in the coming months.
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