Prestigious Firms Court Students

The season of mixed drinks and hots d'oeures began this week at the law School, us prestigious firm from across the counts descended on Cambridge looking for prospective employee with Harvard degrees.

Representatives of more than 850 firms will hold interviews and throw, cocktail nparties for second and third-year law students over the next month in what has long been the largest single stop for the lightly lucrative employment bandwagon.

With top starting salaries at 543,000, students are signing up tfor an average at 14 interviews each, June Thompson, director of placement at the school said this week. But for those graduating high in then class, the problem may be deciding between one dizzying offer and the next.

"Firms come here to court [students] explained Thompson. The students don't realize that what goes on here isn't normal."

John Weber, one of the many second year students already plotting plans for the future, argued that precise research yields sound employment decisions. "You can tell it's a good firm by running your fingernail along the embossment of the stationery and seeing how much noise it makes."

Almost all of the recruiters visiting this month represent private corporate firms, which naturally emphasize the financial rewards they offer to new lawyers said Harvey Giwnn an assistant in the placement office.

Reductions in funding for non profit services and other federal agencies have sharply reduced the number of positions available for Harvard students interested in government and in public interest law, Gwinn explained.

In addition to the discouraging competition for these jobs. Harvard's strength in teaching corporate law and the high pressure recruiting process itself tend to push people toward careers related to business, placement officers and students agreed.

"People blame the school for students not having an interest in public sector jobs," said Thompson, "but the school is not at fault completely, although it is a corporate minded school."

She said that students "who have the stamina and commitment" to work in less-lucrative areas will resist the tempting high-salary offers which abound this time of year at Harvard and other top-ranked schools such as Stanford and Yale.

Echoing a concern voiced by several law students, Ron Friedman said. "People say they take the path of least resistance and end up in corporate law. But the system is designed to direct you to corporate law. It as easy as joining the army.

The process is too easy you just sign up," said another student who like many of her classmates, asked not to be identified. "It's so huge you feel out of control and everything is reversed employers competing furrously for applicants rather than the other way around.

During the last two weeks of interviewing, students become so nervous that they often sign up indiscriminately for interviews, she added.

The tension is greater this year than in the past because Harvard condensed the recruiting period from eight weeks to a month. As many as 45 firms per day are conducting on campus interviews.

Older students and minorities said that they must consider whether they are willing to conform to traditional job conditions before deciding where to take their first legal position.

Earl MacLaren, a 34-year-old Black Jamaican who has already earned an MBA and worked for the Exson Corp. said that many corporate firms seek "bright-eyed types who have never worked before, in whom they can breed a certain loyalty with library work for three or four years."

Other minority students said that a firm's past willingness to hire non-whites makes it more attractive potential employer