HLS To Move Up Summer Job Hunt

Harvard Law School will move up its recruiting process in order to bring recruiters to campus earlier in the year after firm cutbacks due to last fall’s economic turbulence left many students with far fewer summer offers than in years past.

The Law School’s Office of Career Services announced that the school will invite firms to campus the last full week of August before classes begin, advancing the recruiting timeline by about a month. Traditionally, the Law School’s recruiting cycle began later than at comparable institutions, which hurt students last October when law firms reduced the number of spots reserved for Harvard recruits in light the impending recession.

Fly-out week—the time when students visit firms who have expressed interest in them—is now scheduled for the week of September 14, two weeks after the first day of classes. During that period, the school puts classes on hold for a week-long fall break.

In addition to the new recruiting schedule, the Law School will also offer prospective employers the option of using the same timeline as in years past.

Although most students interviewed said that they were in favor of the new calendar because it would improve job opportunities and allow students to better focus on their interviews, some logistical issues remain to be solved.

“This means you get all your interviews done without any of the other distractions like classes, extracurriculars, or journal-work,” said Law School student government president and third-year student David K. Kessler ’04. “But there are still some problems.”

Several student organizations, including the Legal Aid Bureau, conduct workshops in the week before classes begin to orient their new members. Under the new schedule, training will now conflict with firm interviews.

But student group leaders doubted that the changes will impose a significant burden on their plans next year.

“I imagine the training will either have to begin earlier or be incorporated throughout the first weeks of the semester,” Logan A. Steiner, a third-year student member of the Bureau, wrote in an e-mailed statement.

An earlier interview schedule also means that students will arrive for their second year of law school without much time to take advantage of the school’s advising services in the fall.

“Some students don’t know what they want to do at the beginning of their second year,” Kessler said. “With this schedule, decisions will have to be made over the summer.”

Much of last fall’s economic turmoil occurred in the gap between when most other top law school’s welcome recruiters and Harvard Law School conducts their interviews. As a result, rattled law firms changed their hiring goals and cut the number of Harvard summer associates they planned to hire.

Some students were therefore forced to find jobs using means other than on-campus recruiting.

One student—who requested to remain anonymous—was unable to secure a position through on-campus recruiting and said it seemed surreal that an economic crisis would affect an institution like Harvard Law School.

“As a Harvard student, you feel entitled to get a job, and you ignore these dire reports on CNN,” she said. “You think that things will work out like every other year.”

—Staff writer Elias J. Groll can be reached at egroll@fas.harvard.edu.