is-it-time-to-say-bye-bye-to-oci?

Is It Time To Say Bye-Bye To OCI?

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.

What we’re seeing in the market is this fear of missing out, if a lot of other firms are going after the top candidates early, your firm has to do that as well.

OCI likely still has a valuable role in the legal industry. The data suggests it’s going to have a valuable place. There’s a shift. Rather than being the primary source where firms are finding candidates, it’s becoming a secondary source.

— Nikia Gray, executive director of the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), in comments given to the American Lawyer on the group’s latest report on the recruitment of summer associates, which for the first time measured recruiting that took place outside of on-campus interviews. The report indicated that “firms are increasingly viewing [OCI] as a vehicle to ‘round out’ their summer programs after engaging in a vigorous round of pre-OCI recruiting to secure their ideal candidates.”


Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.