What does this mean?
San Francisco's Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin has requested three newbie associate hires to delay starting work at the firm for a year. The firm claims this is not an expense issue. It will be paying a stipend to the three and attempting to secure them a year's work in public interest legal services. It contends the action is taken so that all junior associates at the firm have enough to do. The amount of the stipend is not disclosed.
Petra Pasternak reports in THE RECORDER that other law firms have also delayed start dates until October. Do these delays signal a softening in the demand for legal services as well as magical thinking that demand will pick up by a certain date? If I were those on the delayed list, I would be worried, especially about paying off those student loans. There is no guarantee that they will be employed at all or long enough at a high-paying law firm to eliminate that debt - or build a career in law.
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