The Tea: Tales from Student Recruitment
Welcome to the first edition of The Tea. Every other Friday we will share anonymous stories from members of the legal profession and legal support staff. Who is ready for some tea?
As noted in our initial post, we work with individuals who wish to tell their story to assist them in sharing anonymously. The Tea is only be available to subscribers. Why? We will share all new subscriber profits from each article with the individual whose story is shared. Consider it a way to give a small token of support towards people who have experienced trauma. The third party lawyer who shared this week’s Tea does not wish to receive any money and has requested we make a charitable donation instead. This week’s charitable donation will go to LEAF.
We have three stories to share this week. Two happen to be my personal stories. A third is from a random connection on social media. Who is ready for some student recruitment tea?
Decades of Recruitment (Gone Horribly Wrong)
The first step of Big Law recruitment is typically on campus interviews (OCIs). Typically for OCIs a small group of lawyers and a recruiter attend on campus to have very quick meetings with students interested in their firm. The firm’s top choices from those speed dating meetings are then invited to join the firm for a longer interview at the firm some time after.
During one OCI event at an Ontario law school, one of the large firms ended up sending only one individual to conduct the interview after the other interviewer (a woman) had to cancel last minute. The individual tasked with conducting the interview was a very senior partner who appeared to have been one of the key initial founders of the firm. I imagine students were generally quite eager to meet that particular individual given his interesting practice and significant stature within both the legal and business communities.
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