Turns out 1Ls can make a lot of money doing public interest work. Not at the place they’re working, of course — several Biglaw firms have taken to offering 1Ls money to bribe encourage them to work for the firm next year rather than for their competitors. To make sure that their talent doesn’t get sniped by other firms, it usually comes with the caveat that the 1L will work at a public interest provider. Which is the only way a person could feasibly make $50k working a summer at the local legal aid clinic. Law.com has coverage:
As recruitment for 2L summer programs encroaches earlier into the first year of law school, at least 15 Am Law 100 firms have offered sums of $25,000 to $50,000 to 1L law students accepted into the firms’ 2L summer associate programs.
…
While Am Law 25 firms have led the trend—Davis Polk & Wardwell, Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Sidley Austin, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Cooley, and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan all offered stipends contingent on public interest work[.]
This is a slap in the face to students who actually give a damn about public interest work. The interests of the firms (securing talent) and the interests of the Biglaw-bent 1Ls (securing the bag) would be served just as well if the firms had students doing their internships at the local bodega. Instead, they’re incentivizing Biglaw-focused students to compete with public interest students for internships that are already hard enough to come by. Even if the 1L on a Biglaw stipend is just doing public service work for the check, gunners exist. The tendency will be for students to prestige max each line of their resume — they’d still be incentivized to go for high prestige public service positions even if they never plan on helping anyone else once they walk through the front door of Kirkland & Ellis. Not all firms require stipend receivers to do public service; Cooley allows for work in academia, government agencies, and some in-house positions, but the argument still stands. Why should the small pool of law students who go to law school intending to become legal academics face more competition because some future Quinn Emanuel 2L needs to find a place to kill time?
Things were a lot simpler when you just got a gig at OCI or were hired to work your 1L summer at the firm that was giving you money. Now public service is paying the costs for Biglaw firms racing to grab the talent they can’t replace with AI.
Public Interest Stipends Open Latest Front in Law Firms’ Competition for Summer Associates [Law.com]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn’t hurt either. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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