Law.com has another story about law firm recruiting and how firms are stretching themselves thin to fill out their ranks. The main consequence of this is that more schools are being targeted for on-campus recruiting, which is interesting. Firms apparently prefer to expand the number of schools they visit (which, I assume, means moving further down the U.S. News rankings) rather than relax their academic requirements within the schools they already target.*
The article also quotes the shocking 78% senior associate attrition rate, and discusses how law firms are clamoring to find the law students who are clearly interested in staying with the firm forever. If you're too "passionate" about your outside interests, apparently, that's a red flag for the firms. The lesson is: Don't come across as well-rounded. When asked, "What do you like to do in your spare time?", the correct answer is, "Think about work."
It seems to me that the firms could also solve the problem of reducing the number of short-timers by making the big-firm lifestyle more appealling (as opposed to appalling, hurr!) to a broader swath of law students, but that's just me.
* Which reminds me of a joke my dad likes to tell, which doesn't work for lawyers:
Q: What do you call the person who finishes at the bottom of his class in medical school?
A: "Doctor."
EDIT: Switched to non-self-destructing article link. Registration required indeed!
That joke does so still work for lawyers! I still call myself "esquire." Er, I mean, I bet whoever it was that graduated last in my class still calls himself esquire. Yeah.