LAWFUEL – The Law News Wire – A first-time dean and Harvard law graduate has got a bottom-listing law school into the top-ranking law firms through shrewd marketing and a place in the on-campus interview circuit with top law firms. What’s going on here? The Wall Street Journal reports.
Last fall, Mr. Marlowe applied for summer work at 110 U.S. firms and got no offers. But the Calgary, Alberta, native had an ace in the hole: private interviews, arranged by his law school, with some of the country’s biggest firms, including Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, which offered the 25-year-old a job paying about $3,000 a week.
In the stratified world of law, educational pedigree largely dictates where students will get a look. Firms want to signal to clients and colleagues that they only hire the best. As firms have grown and competition for junior lawyers has intensified, some firms have dipped below the Ivies and their equivalents. Nonetheless, a student from a school like Detroit Mercy — firmly in the cellar of U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of 184 accredited law schools — hasn’t stood a chance at the fancy firms.
