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JaredBaumgart-SecondPaper 9 - 23 May 2008 - Main.JaredBaumgart
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| | | I didn't put much stock in the actual words he spoke; I doubt they were conveying what he actually meant. I was listening beyond the facial value of the words, and what I heard was a man who had sat around thinking about the message he needed to send, calculating what someone in my position would want to hear. I noticed that he was too comfortable in his delivery, speaking with an easy rhythm telling me he'd given this speech before. He was also confident in his delivery. He must’ve thought it was working. | |
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< | The partner needed to deny me for this job but keep me interested should his needs change for next year. To accomplish his goal (and not mine), he rehashed a story where it wasn’t my fault nor was it the firm’s fault that I wasn’t being hired. Numbers were to blame, which was convenient for him because it shifted blame to an intangible object. He acted as though his firm was the hero, trying everything they could to bring me aboard. There was just “nothing he could do”. The message fit well with what I had heard during the round of interviewing. One partner had told me that getting a job first year depended on luck, and I shouldn’t worry if it doesn’t work out this year. Another had told me that his firm was one of the few that took a real interest in 1L hiring. Again, they were telling me it wasn’t anyone’s fault if I wasn’t hired, and that their firm was doing everything it could to help me out. It was the classic it's not you, it's me;, with the only difference being that the firm wouldn’t accept the “it’s me” part. | >
> | The partner needed to deny me for this job but keep me interested should his needs change for next year. To accomplish his goal (and not mine), he rehashed a story where it wasn’t my fault nor was it the firm’s fault that I wasn’t being hired. Numbers were to blame, which was convenient for him because it shifted blame to an intangible object. He acted as though his firm was the hero, trying everything they could to bring me aboard. There was just “nothing he could do”. The message fit well with what I had heard during the round of interviewing. One partner had told me that getting a job first year depended on luck, and I shouldn’t worry if it doesn’t work out this year. Another had told me that his firm was one of the few that took a real interest in 1L hiring. Again, they were telling me it wasn’t anyone’s fault if I wasn’t hired, and that their firm was doing everything it could to help me out. It was the classic it's not you, it's me. Except I was pretty sure that I wasn't getting this job because of some flaw they found in me. | | | | |
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< | Ordinarily I’d take this message at face value. I’d feel good about myself since it wasn’t my fault, and I’d trust that he wouldn’t lie to me because that’s not the right thing to do. I admit that I can be too naïve and too trusting. But having talked to a few lawyers I’ve decided to approach firms with skepticism, and by now I should know better than to think they’d care about my interests unless it suited them. I didn’t believe this story, and I was curious to find out what was really going on, so I turned to the Facebook and found that the firm’s 2008 summer associate class had a group of 28 students. All of these students were in their second year. I checked back periodically because I remained curious, and as of writing this the group has grown to 31 members. Still only second year students. | >
> | Ordinarily I’d take this message at face value. I’d feel good about myself since it wasn’t my fault, and I’d trust that he wouldn’t lie to me because that’s not the right thing to do. I admit that I can be too naïve and too trusting. But having talked to a few friends who have worked for such firms, I’ve decided to approach firms with skepticism. I didn’t believe this story, and I was curious to find out what was really going on, so I turned to the Facebook and found that the firm’s 2008 summer associate class had a group of 28 students. All of these students were in their second year. I checked back periodically because I remained curious, and as of writing this the group has grown to 31 members. Still only second year students. | | | Of course, it’s entirely possible that the 1Ls they’ve hired haven’t joined the Facebook group. I went to the NALP’s directory to compare my unscientific data with their more accurate numbers, and found they had hired 27 summer associates last year. It’s unlikely they’ve significantly increased their class from 2007 to 2008, especially since the economy has worsened. I would expect to find few summer associates beyond the 31 listed on the Facebook, if there are any at all. |
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