Stanford and Yale Law Schools Announce Plans for Earlier Virtual On-Campus Interviewing

Stanford and Yale Law Schools are making waves with their recent announcements to move virtual on-campus interviews up to June, which is ahead of the formal OCI processes.

Stanford Law School’s announcement explained that they want to better align with firms’ recent hiring practices. Many firms, they noted, are now doing significantly more hiring early in the process through direct applications and interviews. The schedule change will not only provide students with access to those open positions, it will also allow them to focus on their finals and/or their summer internships. 

Yale’s announcement also focused on its desire to align with firms’ hiring patterns. Kelly Voight, Yale Law School’s Assistant Dean for the Career Development Office, said that the school is making this decision to, “best serve our students by maximizing student choice, promoting informed decision-making, and leveling the playing field for law firm recruiting,” in an email to Law.com.

Prospective law students interested in big law should keep an eye on how other elite schools respond to Stanford and Yale’s announcements, and also how they plan to support their students amidst an evolving employment market. 

Class of 2022 Law Grads “Shatter” Employment and Salary Records

One year after the legal job market for the Class of 2021 was named “one of the strongest on record,” a report from the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) details record-breaking employment for 2022 law grads.

For the Class of 2022, the overall employment rate increased to 92.1 percent, the highest since the Class of 1987 (92.2 percent). The vast majority of graduates, 79.9 percent, obtained “bar passage required/anticipated” jobs, which is the highest since 2001, when the NALP started to use the current job classifications. Graduates also garnered higher pay. The national median salary ticked up to a record $85,000 from 2021 graduates’ median $80,000. And 2022 graduates reported feeling content with their jobs, with a record low of 7.8 percent currently looking for a new job.   

The number of graduates entering private practice increased by one percentage point from the Class of 2021 to 58.0 percent, the highest in the last 20 years. And their median salary in private practice increased to $150,000, a 14.1 percent increase from that received by 2021 graduates. At the biggest firms (more than 500 lawyers), the median salary rose to $215,000. 

The percentage of 2022 graduates entering into public service (30.7 percent) also increased slightly from the Class of 2021 (30.5 percent). This increase was driven by those entering jobs in government and public interest. Judicial clerkship positions declined slightly from 10.7 percent to 10.1 percent. 

The report also identified a trend away from law school graduates entering business, which has historically employed the second highest number after private practice. In 2019, a shift in graduates away from business started to occur, and it continued among 2022 graduates. Just 9.8 percent of the Class of 2022 entered into business, making it the lowest since 1992. 

Almost Half of Young Lawyers Express Willingness to Leave Employers for Greater Flexibility

A divide between newer and more experienced lawyers is emerging in the wake of Covid. Earlier this week, the American Bar Association (ABA) released its 2022 Practice Forward report, which showed that almost half (44 percent) of lawyers with ten years of experience or less would be willing to leave their current employer for one that offers more remote work. Just 13 percent of those with 41+ years of experience said they would leave.

The report, published with the purpose of gaining an understanding of the “new normal” that legal professionals and employers face post-pandemic, includes survey responses from nearly 2,000 ABA members working in jobs requiring a law degree. 

Three-quarters of respondents expressed a willingness to work in the office any time their employer asks (81 percent of men and 68 percent of women), but the strong majority of all respondents—nine in ten—reported that remote work either improved, or did not adversely affect, their work’s quality. Women were more likely to report that their work metrics (work quality, productivity, billable hours) improved.

Almost half, 47 percent, of respondents said that remote work positively impacted their ability to balance work and family obligations. Among women, 56 percent felt that it improved their ability to find balance. Just over a quarter of respondents, 27 percent, reported that remote work increased the quality of their mental health while the majority noted that it had no impact (57 percent). Almost half of survey respondents noted that remote/hybrid work diminished the quality of their relationships with co-workers, and 61 percent said that it decreased their professional network. 

The report’s findings demonstrate that, in order to retain a younger generation of lawyers, firms and legal employers must create remote/hybrid work policies that are nuanced and cater to individuals’ needs rather than mandating one-size-fits-all policies.