NALP Changes Forum

[usa1492]

Found this post on Reddit's law school subreddit. What do you make of it? Here's the post:

So you guys probably don't know this, but the NALP guidelines changed this year and interesting things have happened/will continue to happen so be carefule about applying conventional knowledge going forward.

What is the major change? Major law firms used to be required to leave offers open until 28 days after the start of OCI, now they don't have to do which has had major implications. Law schools and firms are approaching the changes in different ways.

Important note, Biglaw stats of major schools may change in the coming years.

Law school policy changes: some law schools (mostly t14/20 schools, lesser schools aren't all that impacted) are freaking out about the change and have put policies in place prohibiting students from doing pre-OCI interviews. Other schools have done nothing or are working with OCI firms to guarantee firms are required to keep old rules or are not allowed at that school's OCI.

Law firm changes: Firms also seem to be doing 1 of 2 things. 1. Hiring early, offering short deadlines (especially to those from schools they don't go to for OCI). Some firms are going as far as offering bonuses (I have heard as high as 8k) for pre-OCI offer acceptance so that they aren't competing with other firms to win you over. 2. Some firms are refusing to do interviews before mid-August so that they have a chance to interview t14 OCI pool before giving offers.

Note that this may all lead to major changes. Law firms actually hate OCI and summer application process. A lot of them want to do things like go on vacation so they may make decisions sooner as a whole. Why wait for UCB's students at OCI when Cornell allows pre-OCI interviews and UCB doesn't for instance. This may lead to shift in Biglaw rates among t14s with and without pre-OCI interview allowance. If t14s are harsher prestige concern may decline and they may higher more people at the top of T1 schools and mass mailing will become more important. I anticipate summer hiring will become earlier and earlier over time and the importance of OCI will decline or schools will have to move it to the beginning of the summer to be competitive.
A key deciding factor will be the dynamic shift in SA classes next year. Will the less enticing lower V100 firms leech talent from more prestige conscious firms waiting until mid-August to force everyone to hire earlier next year or is there enough talent to go around? A key point is that while there may be enough overall talent to go around specific backgrounds are rare and getting rarer (like EECS background IP). Changes in job placement for these rarer backgrounds may lead to an avalanche effect and cause entire firms to move faster as a whole.

If law firms begin to depend on pre-OCI as they have, going to a t14 will be less important. t14s will still place the best in all likeliness, but things will likely more evenly spread. The days of relying on lottery based OCI interviews for job placement will be a thing of the past unless law firms as a whole move OCI to the beginning of the summer. Law schools forcing employers to keep offers open until after OCI will not change the overall trend. Non OCI firms will still recruit early and have little incentive to work with the schools so they will still shift timelines earlier (although more slowly). As top OCI candidate pools shrink due to pre-OCI interviews firm attendance at OCI will also dwindle and firms will stop following OCI guidelines. Law schools that do not prevent pre-OCI interviews will do much better than schools that do in keeping employment numbers high.

[cavalier1138]

1. I'd love to see a source for the base claims about firm policies.

2. Assuming that the policy description is factually accurate, it's still not going to have the effect that Reddit poster is hoping for. T13 schools don't have a monopoly on biglaw positions because of OCI. If there's a move to abandon the OCI process, there's no reason that it would be accompanied by firms lowering school tier/GPA expectations.

[Npret]

The NALP changes were last year.
https://www.nalp.org/principles - announcement

https://www.nalp.org/fair_ethical_recruitment - principles

I’m sure each firm will create its own policies.
I agree with your second point. The T14 are always going to be the best pathway to biglaw jobs because firms aren’t going to change their cutoffs.

[QContinuum]

2. Assuming that the policy description is factually accurate, it's still not going to have the effect that Reddit poster is hoping for. T13 schools don't have a monopoly on biglaw positions because of OCI. If there's a move to abandon the OCI process, there's no reason that it would be accompanied by firms lowering school tier/GPA expectations.

Right. At most, it would lead to T13 schools/students adapting to pre-OCI as the new norm. Many T13 students already do pre-OCI, so going further down that road wouldn't really be such a sea change in practice. The V100 aren't going to suddenly start hiring down to median from Seton Hall. No one should attend a lower-ranked law school banking on the poster's wishful thinking.

[64Fl]

I know the offers that my firm gave out were far in excess of the 28 days required. I also have heard that pretty much nobody is going to shorten the 28 day window, because then, while they won't violate NALP policy, they will violate school OCI policies, and no biglaw firm wants to be barred from OCI at Harvard, Chicago, Duke, etc.