Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Law Firm Recruiting Snafus

With the fall job placement season in full swing at most law schools, Above the Law links some funny recruiting stories. My favorite comes from a student at my alma mater:

We got a rejection letter in the mail yesterday.  Nothing unusual about that.  Except we NEVER INTERVIEWED WITH THE FIRM!!! 

Which prompts me to repost a couple of true stories from my own job interviewing days:

1. A week or so after an on campus interview with the Washington DC office of Howrey & Simon, I got two letters. One invited me up to the DC office for a call back. The other was a rejection letter. I called up the hiring partner, who had signed both letters, to ask which one was the right one. After a lengthy and rather pregnant pause, I was informed that the rejection letter was the real one. If I had it to do over again, I should have just shown up at their doorstep with the former in hand to see what happened.
2. I had an on campus interview in Charlottesville with the Washington DC office of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft on a Monday. On Tuesday, I received a rejection letter – whose postmark indicated it had been mailed Monday evening ...wait for it ... from Charlottesville. They didn’t even wait to leave town before rejecting me! That one really hurt. It also earned the firm a nasty note from the placemnet office. Not that they probably paid any attention.