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A post from DoubleX writer K.J. Dell'Antonia:
Last fall, law firm graduates with offers to start work at
high-profile firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore (where I worked after my
own law school graduation) were offered the option of accepting
$80,000, with benefits, to defer their start date at the firm by a
year. Why? The most obvious reason is that law firms make their offers
in the fall of the preceding year, which means that these students were
made offers in the fall of 2008, well before the full impact of the
recession was felt. In casual conversation, Cravath people will tell
you that they simply had—again, thanks to the recession—far more
acceptances than they'd expected. A number of other firms found
themselves in the same position, and made similar offers, all meant to
prevent the arrival of far too many young associates at a moment when
there was less work to be done than anyone had anticipated. At first
blush, how tempting does that sound? $80,000 for, as Elizabeth Wurtzel
put it in the WSJ, "bubkes."
Except that it's not bubkes. For a student who expects to make a
career in the law, that year off could easily have an eventual cost far
greater than $80,000. The only student that $80,000 offer makes sense
for is one who (like Wurtzel, who remains primarily a writer and has a
part-time job in the law) doesn't really want the job—and that's
exactly why it's not safe to take it, and why anyone looking at a
career opportunity that seems too good to be true should look twice.
It's very difficult to succeed in a top law firm for many reasons.
Statistically, it seems to be even more difficult for women, as, even
in recent years when more women partners might have been expected since
classes with increasingly large numbers of women have competed for the
title, the percentage of female partners hovers at around 19 percent.
In a law firm culture where the ability to withstand long hours is
paramount, where Saturday night phone calls are run-of-the-mill and the
best first-year associates are on a first-name basis with the all-night
cleaning crew, taking an optional year off could brand you permanently
as a dilettante, uncommited, or worse ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
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We are, it seems, the only species who has this protracted
adolescence—even apes get to dodge it. Is this the excuse we've all
been looking for to justify our collective obsession with teen culture? ... (Read more in DoubleX.)
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