Ok, just one comment. I love that the photo in the story is the very picture of diversity.
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by Dawn Summers on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 12:33 pm and is filed under News & Events.
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This is one of those “No duh” kind of stories. NYT discovers that affirmative action or “diversity” requirements for employers tends to result in lower performance since it decided on race and not achievement.
Grrrr, affirmative action.
Or its discovered that as soon as institutional requirements are abated no one wants to give anyone a chance that doesn’t look like them (ie, good associate recruitment when we looked at recruit #s but no ‘mentors’ or ‘good assignments’ so no partnership offers). The lawyers I’ve met (including myself) aren’t doing that much rocket science in my opinion and grades (or classes) don’t seem to matter much when your actually practicing. Now experience….
But when you’re looking at new hires grades is all you have. I’m thinking lawyers at those kinds of firms are much more likely to be thinking about their own chances at partner, so they’ll invest the most time in the people with the best grades. That’s certainly what I would do.
Sure, after a few assignments you’re gonna have a much better idea of what the newbies are capable of. But the ones with the best grades got the best assignments.
I don’t see how this is any different than being a CEO. CEO track doesn’t start when you get hired at Big Company. It starts in the first quarter of your freshman year in high school.
Why do big law firms hire people without experience? I know at Big Cellphone Company we always hire people with the experience we’re looking for. We only hire new grads when there’s no other choice. I would think prestigious law firms would always be in the position to hire experienced associates.
Big law firms like to have first pick and train up their own lawyers then just fire off the chaff. The first few years at a firm are really just more training and weeding. (Case in point: out of a summer class of 60 lawyers, 4 are left at the firm I started at 6 years ago.)
November 29th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
This is one of those “No duh” kind of stories. NYT discovers that affirmative action or “diversity” requirements for employers tends to result in lower performance since it decided on race and not achievement.
Grrrr, affirmative action.
November 29th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Or its discovered that as soon as institutional requirements are abated no one wants to give anyone a chance that doesn’t look like them (ie, good associate recruitment when we looked at recruit #s but no ‘mentors’ or ‘good assignments’ so no partnership offers). The lawyers I’ve met (including myself) aren’t doing that much rocket science in my opinion and grades (or classes) don’t seem to matter much when your actually practicing. Now experience….
November 30th, 2006 at 1:58 am
But when you’re looking at new hires grades is all you have. I’m thinking lawyers at those kinds of firms are much more likely to be thinking about their own chances at partner, so they’ll invest the most time in the people with the best grades. That’s certainly what I would do.
Sure, after a few assignments you’re gonna have a much better idea of what the newbies are capable of. But the ones with the best grades got the best assignments.
I don’t see how this is any different than being a CEO. CEO track doesn’t start when you get hired at Big Company. It starts in the first quarter of your freshman year in high school.
November 30th, 2006 at 2:00 am
By the way, I’ve always been curious.
Why do big law firms hire people without experience? I know at Big Cellphone Company we always hire people with the experience we’re looking for. We only hire new grads when there’s no other choice. I would think prestigious law firms would always be in the position to hire experienced associates.
November 30th, 2006 at 4:26 am
Big law firms like to have first pick and train up their own lawyers then just fire off the chaff. The first few years at a firm are really just more training and weeding. (Case in point: out of a summer class of 60 lawyers, 4 are left at the firm I started at 6 years ago.)