It's a tough interview season with fewer jobs for law students.  Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer talks about how insights from this season could change the process for the future.   Q: What were your expectations coming into this...

Most of the information out about this year’s 2L on-campus interviewing still seems to be in the form of anecdotes combined with wild speculation on the part of students. Some of the frustration at the top schools seems to be focused on the fact that...

Approaching pro bono in an on-campus interview with any firm can be a tricky affair. While law firm websites lead you to believe their pro bono programs flow like a mighty stream of justice, this isn’t necessarily the case. Strong pro bono...

In the past year, a declining economy has led to a steady stream of associate layoffs in large law firms. Dechert, Thacher Proffitt, Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, O’Melveny & Myers, and Clifford Chance are...

During on-campus interviews, students may find it surprisingly difficult to come up with good questions for the partner or associate sitting across the table from them. There are a host of sites out there with suggestions as to what type of questions...

Traditionally, law students at the top schools have had to face the dilemma of deciding whether to follow the big money to the big firms or follow their hearts to a public interest organization. The recent financial crisis, however, has shaken things...

This past winter I had the pleasure of sitting in on a diversity recruitment lunch put on by a national law firm at the Stanford Law School. This firm is among the most elite and largest law firms in the United States, with international offices across...

Given the difficulty of obtaining (and keeping) a firm offer this year, particularly the elusive 1L firm offer, government jobs are an even more attractive option than usual. With this in mind, you should consider early and careful action.   ...

Using firm reported data very similar to that used by Building a Better Legal Profession , the release of The American Lawyer’s study of Women in Law Firms shows nearly identical results. While the findings across the 210 firms that responded...

For months now, the impact of the recession has been wreaking havoc on upper echelons of the legal profession. Look no further for evidence than the layoff tracker at lawshucks.com for the firm-by-firm comparison of attorney and staff firings—“layoffs”...

In the past year, a declining economy has led to a steady stream of associate layoffs in large law firms. Dechert, Thacher Proffitt, Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, O’Melveny & Myers, and Clifford Chance are...

In 1987, a study commissioned by the University of California reported on the state of diversity in San Francisco’s law firms, and found “profound disadvantages within the city’s legal workplaces.” In the aftermath of these findings,...

            Last summer, the organization we run, Building a Better Legal Profession , began collecting data about large law firms. We understood that there was plenty of publicly available data about...

It is conventional wisdom (or perhaps for some an unwelcome realization midway through first semester of the 1L year) that you don’t come to law school with the primary aim of instantaneous monetary enrichment. For those anxious to “make it big,...

Law students think big firms are indistinguishable. Long hours, dull work, ungrateful partners, big paychecks. But real differences exist amongst these firms and, starting last year, students are finding out just how distinguishable they are. ...

This fall, with generous support from LexisNexis, Building a Better Legal Profession (BBLP, http://betterlegalprofession.org/index.php) launched its first National Tour. In three short months, we traveled coast to coast, and presented BBLP’s message...

The Dow gyrates, law associates panic and law students toil away wondering if there is a light at the end of the tunnel.   Elie Mystal, the editor of Above the Law , took a break from the news to share his insights about law firms, law school...

Ari Kaplan, writer of The Opportunity Maker, Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development and former attorney at McDermott, Will & Emery, took time to speak with me about his book and techniques that...

The legal market is cyclical. You have probably heard that, but some of us have lived it. I served as the Asst. Dean for Career Services at the University of Florida, College of Law during the recession of the early 1990’s, and later worked...

Ask anyone, the last few months have shaken the legal profession from top to bottom.  Amidst the layoffs and firm wide closings resulting from the financial crisis, significant changes in compensation and firm expenditures have been widely reported. ...

In the last 12 months, a new wave a grading has swept the world of legal education. Last fall, Stanford Law students in the group Building a Better Legal Profession (BBLP) "graded" the nation’s largest firms on their commitment to issues...

When I arrived at Harvard in the fall of 2000 as a college freshman, I was presented with a bound cheat sheet designed to help me get to know my new classmates: the Freshman Facebook. For the first weeks of school my newfound friends and I pored over...

Think Globally, Act Locally.    This is probably the most important lesson I learned from observing the summers and attorneys at my firm and hearing anecdotes about the dress of my friends at different firms around the country. The...

This past May, I was pretty psyched. I had just completed my 1L year (closing my computer after my final exam—Property—is hands down the best thing that has ever happened to me), and in a few short days I was flying home to lovely, fast-paced,...

The great thing about hindsight is that it’s 20/20. The less-great thing about hindsight is that, by definition, it comes too late. But the really great thing about other people’s hindsight is that it can be just in the nick of time...

Let’s talk about Target. Did you know that Target Corporation gives 5% of its annual profits back to the community? Last year that amounted to over $156 million in grants to charitable groups.    But apparently donating money...

Franz Kafka wrote a very short story entitled “Before the Law” which I recommend you take a minute to read . It’s as abstract as any story I can think of: there’s no physical description of the setting, no timeframe. There...

A lot of ink has been spilled over women’s march into the legal profession that began in earnest in the early 1970s. Since the baby boomerettes made their initial foray into testosterone-dominated law offices about forty years ago, the number...