Fordham Law v. Reed Smith, Or, How To Scare Away Firms From OCI

Those of you who follow the associate recruiting game may be interested in this little story.  Apparently, Reed Smith - a law firm you never realized was so huge (1500 lawyers in 23 cities) - recently withdrew from On Campus Interviewing (OCI) at Fordham Law.  Fordham had already released its interviewing schedule (and apparently Reed Smith was only cancelling at certain law schools) so Dean William Treanor was pissed.  He promptly punished the firm by banning it from OCI for the next five years.  The grounds: the late cancellation constituted a breach of professionalism.  

This brings up two questions for me.  The first is practical.  Does Fordham really have that much market power that it can afford to punish Reed Smith in this fashion?  It strikes me that the sanction is awfully strong and will only hurt the students.  I imagine that Treanor is figuring that the ban will send shivers down the spines of other firms considering such pullouts.  He's counting on deterrence, and assuming that fear will outweigh the scorn this decision may generate among hiring partners.  In a market where firms are slashing staff, cutting wages, and deferring offers, cancellation of an interview slate seems like a minor event.  Fordham grads, while excellent, are also highly fungible.  Why interview at Fordham when you can go to, say, Wash U. in St. Louis, with no risk of cancellation sanctions?  Perhaps Fordham thinks this will impress students (and prospective students)...but I'm far from certain about that.

My second question is more substantive.  Was the firm's cancellation of its interview panel, even at a late date, really so unprofessional?  Law firms are professional businesses.  Which is to say, they are businesses.  It sounds like the firm doesn't intend to do a ton of hiring this year.  It makes sense that, if the firm wants to hire a small number of attorneys, it would reduce the overall number of people it interviews.  The cost of that reduction may fall disproportionately on Fordham (as opposed to, say, Columbia), but that doesn't strike me as unprofessional.  Indeed, if the firm really doesn't expect to hire many (if any) Fordham grads this year, wouldn't the interviewers and interviewees just be wasting their time?  Can it be that wasting time is required in the name of professionalism?

Reed Smith has responded with great restraint.  I wonder if other firms, unaffected by the ban, may now think twice about signing up with Fordham.  It's hard to imagine that the benefits of OCI outweight the risks of being subject to a public flogging like we've seen here. 

Dean Treanor's email is after the jump.

Dear Students,

Ethics and professionalism are at the heart of the legal profession. At Fordham Law, we strive to impart to our students the importance of these principles through our curriculum, clinics, and activities--and during the job search process. The importance of law schools instilling the tenets of professionalism in students is a theme we continually hear from legal employers.

I am disappointed, therefore, to advise you that, after the release of EIW interview schedules, Reed Smith contacted us to withdraw from this year's EIW program. While the firm intends to have a 2010 Summer Associate Program and to keep its commitment to interview at other schools, Reed Smith decided to no longer interview at some schools, including Fordham....

While disappointing, Reed Smith's action is more disheartening because of the lack of professionalism it conveys. The firm could have made its decision earlier; in fact, it received its interview schedule prior to canceling its participation. In my seven years as Dean, no other firm has canceled its interviews after the schedule was released. Thus, we have informed the firm that it will not be invited to participate in our OCI program for the next 5 years. I have never imposed such a sanction on an employer, and I was saddened to do so. At Fordham Law, we require our students to conduct themselves with the utmost professionalism, and we expect employers to demonstrate the same high standards.

Comments

[Jeff Yates]

Dan, I would agree that the move seems a bit heavy handed in response to a cancellation. I could be remembering things wrong, but I recall firms canceling all the time at my law school. This said, two things: first, I don't know all of the facts concerning this decision by Fordham - even if we have the boilerplate facts, there are sometimes aspects of tone and *how* things were handled (e.g. language used, context, etc.) that we can't appreciate fully as outsiders to the interactions - so, I will just say that my feeling that it's heavy handed is without full information. Second, I can imagine situations in which I would think that it is appropriate for a school to "ban" a firm from OCI for poor conduct, the market notwithstanding.

[Tim Zinnecker]

I'm guessing Dean Treanor got his nose bent out of joint because he viewed his law school as on par or better than the schools where the firm honored its recruitment commitments. Dean Treanor's response is small-minded and short-sighted. In the long run, he is only hurting the Fordham students who, in this market, need every possible opportunity at gainful employment. Very petty indeed.

If either party was "unprofessional" in these dealings, it wasn't the law firm.

[Don Anon]

It's pretty disheartening to read two law professors' cheering on the law firm's conduct (breaking its promise) because, you know, "this is a business." Actually, it's worse than disheartening. Law is also a profession, and I would have hoped that legal academics, of all people, would at least *try* to uphold some belief that professional values still matter in the law.

In any event, I can't imagine making a blanket statement about Dean Treanor's conduct without knowing what was communicated by the firm to Fordham. If Treanor's account is to be believed, this wasn't a knee-jerk reaction, but the product of justified outrage at the firm's course of conduct at Fordham. Given that there have been rumors of firms' playing fast and loose with the usual interview-season rules this year because they think they can get away with it (e.g., violating the NALP guidelines and giving exploding offers after callback interviews), I'm inclined to believe that the "petty" conduct was on the part of Reed Smith and not Fordham.

By the way, have Profs. Filler or Zinnecker considered how many Fordham students typically summer at Reed Smith? Perhaps Fordham's sanction has a negative impact limited to a small number of students who would have landed at Reed Smith over the next few years. But, if the Dean's action has the intended effect, it might have a significant positive overall impact on all students by discouraging similar conduct by other law firms.

[Tim Zinnecker]

Don Anon: thank you for your comment. I do not know all of the facts (and certainly not the tone) of the communications between Dean Treanor and Reed Smith. Upon reflection, I find my remarks were ill-phrased and rest on conjecture, and I apologize for them and for second-guessing Dean Treanor's actions.

Nevertheless, I didn't intend for my remarks to be deemed "cheering on the law firm's conduct." The point I wanted to make was that I hope what has transpired will not have a negative effect on the employment opportunities that Fordham students may otherwise have had with the firm in this or future years. Perhaps you're right and all of this "might have a significant positive overall impact."

[Dan Filler]

Don, I don't disagree that professional values matter in law. But I see a very big difference between, say, the responsibility to provide pro bono services and the decision of an LLP to cancel its interview slate. And let's be candid: law schools like Fordham have benefited greatly from the profession's move to a large business model. Not only has this move produced lots of jobs for recent grads. It has also created a world where the formerly close-minded top firms are now open to hiring from schools that are not super-elites.

[anon]

I'm not sure either Tim or Dan has much to apologize for. True, we don't know if Reed Smith has been pulling other tricks, but that is because Dean Treanor cited only one instance of supposedly unprofessional conduct: "The firm could have made its decision earlier." Canceling late doesn't speak very well of Reed Smith; but it seems less "unprofessional" than showing up when there are no jobs available. And compared to precisely the other rumored transgressions (e.g. exploding offers), it seems quite minor to spark such a reaction.

On the other side, this decision is almost certainly counter-productive for Fordham's students. The worst hiring environment in a generation is not the time for a middle tier school to ban a large firm. This is like a geek asking the prettiest cheerleader on a date, having her cancel at the last minute, and then sending her a nasty letter saying: "well, if you change your mind, I don't want to date you anyway!" Actually, it is worse than that, since Dean Treanor gets to nurse his wounded pride, when it is the students that suffer.

[Rick Bales]

Let's not forget that law schools frequently interview at AALS despite having no job openings. Sometimes the schools disclose this to candidates up front, but not always.

[Dan]

You can't tell me the firm couldn't figure out they were not coming two weeks or a month earlier. Lazy! Or indecisive! They screwed up, screwed the students, and now will pay the price. No pity for the self-inflicted.

[Chris]

It was not the pulling out; but rather the timing. By the way, the school's 30th place ranking in US News is misleading: Fordham is ranked 7th in placing students at the top 25 law firms, and the school has tons of alumni at all big NYC firms.

I am, however, biased as I am a Fordham Law alum (and think the world of Dean Treanor).

-Chris

[FLS Alum]

Kudos to Dean Treanor for taking a stand on behalf of his students, in the face of less than professional behavior by the firm. Given the current economic climate, the firm had to know the approximate size of its 2010 summer program long before it cancelled its EIW schedule. If it decided last minute not to have a summer program at all, different story, but that was not the case here. After Fordham’s Career Planning office went to the trouble of arranging a schedule of interviews for the firm - the students in those slots unable to have other interviews at the same time (opportunity cost) - at the last minute, Reed Smith basically said, “sorry Fordham Law, you’re no longer on our list of potential suitors.”

If Dean Treanor does nothing, what’s to keep other firms from doing the same? The work that goes into arranging the EIW schedules is not insignificant. If the firm had no intention of hiring any Fordham students, it was unfortunately its tough luck once the schedules were set. Reed Smith made a commitment, it should have kept it. So the students would have had practice interviewing (always useful), and the firm would have kept its word and saved face (also good.) Some folks find it easy to break commitments with those they think, for whatever reason, don’t matter. They don’t hold themselves accountable and are not worried anyone else will. Dean Treanor is holding Reed Smith accountable for its rudeness to his students and the Fordham Law community in general. Bravo!