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<p>Though NU is, indeed, a T14 school, I somehow doubt the job-hunting strategies of the particular student mentioned in the article. Since when are 50 resumes to big firms considered sufficiently exhaustive after getting no-offered? </p>
<p>There are students at most top law schools, even at Harvard and Stanford (though i do not know about Yale), who do not have jobs (or, correspondingly, don’t have anything lined up for 2L summer). The statistics have actually been quite generous, however. I have on good word that roughly 70% of our class (Columbia/NYU) received a job offer from the summer through the on-campus interview program. Considering the economy, that isn’t bad at all. However, unless one has non-big-law plans coming into law school (and is firm in their convictions), it would suck terribly if they ended up in that 30% that didn’t get an offer.</p>
<p>And there’s no assurance that things will necessarily pick up by the time you come around to interview. There’s a great deal of uncertainty regarding the economy; though things are picking up (and, firm-wise, work is definitely picking up), the Eurozone debt crisis has created significant uncertainty with respect to how things will be impacted here; further, when our local municipalities and cities start having debt crises of their own, we could be in for great deal of hurt. On top of that, there’s significant regulatory uncertainty with respect to curbing speculative derivative use and pursuing civil (or criminal cases) against those who had shady derivatives practices. In essence, if the actions against Goldman prove successful, there is a veritable mountain of shareholder suits that could be launched against them (and some have already started). Moreover, there are 18 other banks the SEC could put in their crosshairs next (and they all, from what I know, engaged in similarly shady derivatives practices); correspondingly, there’s a veritable Mt. Everest of shareholder claims that could be launched by shareholders of those banks.</p>
<p>So yes, significant uncertainty, though that last stuff about banks and regulations and lawsuits might provide a lot of bread and butter to NYC and Chicago attorneys, and may well sustain the notion of a “bulge bracket” law firm for at least a few more years (though, frankly, I think their days are numbered… at least their days of being aggressively expansionary–I think there’s a definite power-shift toward top litigation practices (Quinn, Kirkland, W&C, Boies, Paul Weiss), though I’m sure some of the professionals here could shed more credible light on my view (and tell me whether I’m completely wrong)).</p>