Employers issued a median of 40 and an average of 86 callback invitations to current second-year students for summer 2009 programs, according to the National Association of Law Placement. Nationwide, 74 percent of these callback invitations were accepted.
Overall, not quite 47 percent of callback interviews resulted in an offer, with a median of 10 offers per employer. About 33 percent of the offers made to Class of 2010 students for 2009 summer programs were accepted, a figure that rose by over 3 percentage points in 2008.
This figure had been trending down since reaching 35 percent in 2002, and is now at a level similar to that of the mid-1990s.
This level of callback activity is somewhat lower than in 2007, when the average and median number of callback invitations were 93 and 46, respectively. This downturn ended the generally upward trend seen between 2002 and 2007. For large firms of more than 500 lawyers, about half of callback interviews to second-year students resulted in offers, compared with about 31 percent in firms of 100 or fewer lawyers. However, acceptance rates were higher at firms of 100 or fewer lawyers, over half, compared with about 31 percent in firms of more than 500 lawyers.
About 25 percent of survey respondents, or 105 employers, reported recruiting of third-year students not previously employed by them. This level of activity is off from that of the previous four years, which in turn did not match that of 1999 and 2000, when almost two-thirds of respondents recruited third-years.
