Top law schools move up summer associate job interviews to May and June

By Karen Sloan

April 17 (Reuters) - Nearly all elite U.S. law schools have pushed up their formal law firm interviewing programs to May and June this year, as law firms increasingly hire summer associates earlier and outside of traditional recruiting schedules.

The shift – from July and August to May and June – means that some law firm interview programs, commonly referred to as on-campus recruiting or OCI, will take place before firms have a full year of a candidate’s grades to consider. Major law firms recruit law students to work as summer associates following their second year of law school, which is typically a three-year program.

Summer associate interviews, as of now held in May and June, also mean that law students will have less time to weigh long-term career decisions and may be interviewing with firms as they begin summer internships that follow their first year of law school. The majority of summer associates become full-time associates at those firms once they graduate.

This year, Stanford Law School will kick off the OCI season on May 5, with Duke Law School; the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School; and Georgetown University Law Center running their OCI programs later that month. The law schools at Yale, Harvard, the University of Chicago and Columbia are among those holding their OCI in June.

Just a handful of T-14 schools are still holding OCI in July this year, but most of them are also offering “preview” interview programs in May or June to give firms earlier access to students.

Erika Gardiner, director of talent acquisition for law students and associates at McDermott Will & Emery, predicted that the earlier timeline will encourage more firms to participate in OCI than last year.

Last year, all but two of U.S. News & World Report’s top 14-ranked law schools — which supply the bulk of summer associates to large law firms — held their primary law firm recruiting programs in July or August. Stanford and Yale’s law schools were the exception, shifting their programs up to June in 2024.

The summer associate interview schedule has steadily been moving to earlier in the year for law students. A decade ago, major law firms conducted almost all of their summer associate recruiting during the fall of students' second year.

OCI steadily inched into August and late July, partly to avoid overlap with fall classes but also in response to elite law firms hiring a growing number of summer associates ahead of formal recruiting programs — a phenomenon known as "precruiting."

In 2022, 23% of all law firms summer associate offers came outside of formal OCI programs, according to the National Association for Law Placement. By 2024, that figure was 56%.

Recruiting ahead of OCI "has proven necessary in order to continue to secure top talent," Gardiner said.

A “critical mass” of firms indicated that they would start recruiting in April and May, prior to the release of first-year grades, Stanford Law School’s career services office wrote in a March 24 email to employers explaining the change.

“Rather than leave our students to navigate this shifting landscape on their own through direct applications, we've made the strategic decision to move our OCI program earlier,” the letter reads.

In an October letter to law firms, Georgetown Law said it “reluctantly” moved OCI to May but that the shift was a “necessary move in light of recent market changes.” That change aims to restore balance and structure to the recruiting process, it added, while noting that firms’ spring recruiting has placed added pressures on first-year law students and prompted some to forgo opportunities such as trying out for law journals.

“We believe there is no perfect solution to the recruiting mess we all find ourselves in,” the Georgetown letter reads.

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