EIP (Early Interview Program)

So today, Career Services held their EIP "orientation," which was a meeting to introduce us to the logistics of the several-day interviewing "extravaganza" (their words, not mine) coming up in August, in which we run around in fancy suits meeting with potential employers in 20-minute segments in a process that I can best describe as speed-dating, except with law firms.

It's no secret that Columbia has a reputation as a "corporate" school, and as such, the school stakes much of its reputation on its ability to place students into jobs at top law firms. Ideally, this begins at EIP, continues in a 2L summer position, and then ulminates in an offer to return to the firm to work full-time after graduation. It's a time-honored tradition, and one that's being threatened due to the state of the economy and the severe slow-down in corporate legal work.

From the outset, it was clear that Career Services' approach was going to be more on the set-expectations-low-so-you-won't-be-disappointed-later side. The presentation included lengthy segments (I suspect this wasn't the case in years past) dedicated to urging us to consider public interest positions, to look for options outside of EIP, and to apply to small and-mid sized law firms. The phrase "cast a wide net" and "do your due diligence" came up on more than a few occasions.

The hard data they had wasn't encouraging, either. Fewer law firms are scheduled to come this year than next, and more are expected to drop out over the summer. Major metropolitan areas--New York, SF, LA, DC--will be hit the hardest. Fewer offers will be made across the board, and they'll come more slowly than usual.

All in all, it was a bit depressing, even for those not set on doing law firm work (after all, less firm jobs means more people looking for other lines of legal work.) Of course, no one really knows how it'll all shake out until it actually happens, and there's still some hope that things will turn around in the next few months. To her credit, the Career Services speaker did end her speech with a weak "It's not going to be that bad guys!" although I don't know that that assured anyone.

Moot Court

And just like that, oral arguments are done. The two months of moot court researching, writing, editing ad nauseum all came to a head in one 15-minute span last night. I didn't do spectacularly well. I didn't bomb. The arguments were mostly, well, unremarkable. Anticlimatic.

Two of the "judges" were CLS alumni -- one recent, one not so much -- and the third judge was a 3L. I barely got past the "May it please the court, I will be counsel for the appellant on the issue of..." before I was interrupted by a judge asking his first question. The rest of the session was a back and forth that touched on most of the major contentions in my brief. Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with any witty rejoinders to their pointed questions, but I managed to eke out coherent sentences, at least most of the time.

As a side note: I know I've neglected this blog. Why? The short answer is I've been busy, but that's unsatisfying, because that also means there are a lot of potential things I could be blogging about. But there's been so much going on -- board elections for student organizations, hosting admitted students, applications for secondary journals, moot court, clinic and externship applications, not to mention all our regular school work on top of that -- that I've just been trying to wade through it all without forgetting something I need to turn in, or a place I need to be. There just hasn't been that much for intelligent reflection. Unfortunately, with finals a month away, it's only going to get busier.

Done! with the brief...

After 3 drafts, my moot court partner and I have finally finished our brief. Needless to say, it's a huge weight off my back, especially with spring break just around the corner. After break, we'll actually argue our briefs in front of a panel of fake judges, who are composed of Columbia Law alumni.

I don't have any concrete plans for spring break yet--I'll probably relax for a few days, then begin outlining in earnest.

The Great Pass/Fail Debate

So it's been a while since my last post. I've been busy, but it hasn't really been the exciting kind of busy--it's the routine, same-thing-every-day type of busy. My weeks have become a predictable mix of classes, reading, various extracurriculars, and maybe a night or two out with some friends. It's getting to the middle of the semester, and with the job search over, there's not a tremendous amount on the horizon until the looming specter of finals and all that they entail--hornbooks, frantic outlining, practice exams, review sessions.

Anyway, a hot topic around the law school lately has been our grading system. Earlier this week, the dean of our law school held what was billed as a town hall meeting, to discuss "grading policies." For background, other law schools like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Berkeley all have some form of a pass/fail system, while Columbia is still stuck with traditional letter grades. There has been some amount of clamoring (mostly from students, although some professors have also joined in) for our school to switch to such a system as well.

The administration, while openly inviting debate on the issue, seems fairly set on keeping things the way they are. Our Dean, David Schizer, sent out an e-mail to the school earlier this semester that seemed to defend the current system. It read, in part:

"I've also heard from some of you regarding the changes in the grading
system at Harvard and Stanford. We've been following those changes
with interest. In fact, for a period prior to 1994, Columbia actually
had a system much like the one that Harvard and Stanford have just
adopted. At the time, Columbia had five grades: Excellent, Very Good,
Good, Pass, and Unsatisfactory. Students were concerned at the time
that a system of this sort did not provide enough information, and in
response to those student concerns Columbia adopted a system of letter
grades. This letter grade system is supplemented by a credit-fail
standard in some offerings. Most notably, unlike at Harvard and
Stanford, the first class that you, our students take, Legal Methods, is
graded on a credit/fail standard.

In combination, these elements of our system allow students to acclimate
when they arrive without the pressure of letter grades, and then to
receive detailed and nuanced feedback from faculty in subsequent
classes. We view these as important strengths of our current approach.
...
Our preliminary sense is that there is broad support
within our student body for our current system over the systems recently
adopted at Harvard and Stanford, but our process of deliberation on the
issue is on-going and we are continuing to solicit student input."

I don't feel particularly strongly one way or the other about the issue, but I think it would be nice to have such a system in place for my second and third year, since those grades are less consequential anyway. Thoughts?

More Signs of the Times

PILF (short for Public Interest Law Foundation) helps fund the stipend guaranteed to students who spend their summers pursuing public interest work. That money has to come from somewhere, and one of the sources is through an annual donation-supported auction. Students can donate items or services (tutoring sessions, babysitting hours, etc) and the money raised from the auction is then donated to PILF.

This year's auction apparently isn't shaping up to be as robust as in years past, as evidenced by this e-mail we got in our Columbia inboxes today:

"Subject: Financial Forecast: PILF STUDENT DONATIONS DOWN BY HALF

As we all know, these are tough economic times. For an organization like PILF, which
relies on fundraising to support summer funding and community grants, that means it
will be even harder to continue these activities. So we need your help! Tomorrow
(Monday, 2/23) is the LAST DAY TO DONATE items for the auction. Stop by our table
in JGH and fill out a form, or email the attached one to jk2868@columbia.edu. Everyone has something to offer, and every donation is appreciated.

Firm donations are down - don't let student participation go the same way!"

Law School and the Economy, Revisited

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.

Procrastination.

Here are how the deadlines for our moot court competition look:

Week 1: Statement of the Case (basically, a summary of the facts and the major arguments for each side)
Week 2: Outline of brief
Week 3: Rough draft 1 of brief
Week 4: Rough draft 2 of brief
Week 6: Final draft of brief

At the outset, our moot court editor advised us to front-load the work: "the more you do now, the less work it will be later, so make sure to do a good job on your outline."

Of course, having a general tendency to procrastinate, I always punt on the earlier assignments, vaguely promising myself that I will make up for my shoddy work later. So I basically blew off my statement of the case...and then my outline...and now the rough draft that was due this past Monday. I always handed something in, of course, but to say that I put in an honest effort would be a stretch.

The problem is this: I never really get around to making up for my initial, shoddy work. This doesn't go over too well in a long-term endeavor like moot court, where each week's assignment builds off of the previous week's. My thinking process goes something like this:

Week 1: Statement of the case? Whatever, I have to write the outline next week anyway. Let me just BS something for now and I'll straighten things out later.
Week 2: Outline, huh? Well, my statement of the case is supposed to help me write this thing, but I guess I didn't do that great of a job last week. But look--it's just the rough draft that's due next week! And this is just an outline. And the class is pass/fail! Who cares!
Week 3: Uh oh, time to write the rough draft. Okay, so I'm supposed to write it based off of my outline. Hmm, my outline looks like it was written by an 8th grader. Well that's no good. But crap, this draft is due tomorrow! I guess I'll have to make do. It's just the first rough draft, after all--I still have 2 more chances to get it right!
Week 4: (hasn't happened yet, but I assume something similar to Weeks 1, 2, and 3)
Week 6: See week 4.

So that's the problem. It's like trying to build a house: I'm too lazy to lay a solid foundation, and instead of shoring it up later, I just continue to stack bricks haphazardly on top of an already-shaky foundation. However, the optimist in me always seems to have faith that one of these weeks, I will magically find the time to go back and make everything right. Well, maybe next week...right?

Anyway, some happy news: I have a job for the summer!