The Big Law Recruiting Timeline for Law Students

Applications for 1L and 2L summer associate positions open in the fall of your 1L year. Last cycle, the earliest firms opened in early October and the largest wave opened in the first days of November. We expect some applications may open in mid-September this year. Interviews run from October into January, with most offers arriving in late January or early February after first-semester grades. Here's how to plan around that schedule.

Before you enroll: the 0L window

Acceptance letters arrive between December and March. Once you know where you stand, start a firm list. The AmLaw 100 ranks firms by revenue; the Vault 100 ranks them by prestige, using associate surveys. Neither gives you the full picture, but together they're a useful starting point.

While you build that list, check which firms run 0L summer internships, paid programs for students the summer before law school starts. Firms used to route this through a centralized nonprofit program called SEO. That is being scaled back, and firms now run their own programs so they can pick their own candidates, which means you have to track openings firm by firm. Applications generally run January through April, and the programs run roughly ten weeks from May into July, at around fifty dollars an hour. Even if a firm is hiring three people and your odds are slim, apply anyway. Once you are in a firm's recruitment system, they track you, and you become a familiar name in the next cycle.

The spring and summer before 1L: networking starts now

By April, most students have decided where they're enrolling. Go to admitted students week, meet your future classmates, and start building relationships. Good grades alone won't make you a partner. You also need people skills and the practical knowledge you pick up from working with other attorneys.

Connect on LinkedIn with attorneys at your target firms, alumni of your law school, and students a year or two ahead of you. Ask for an occasional fifteen-minute call or coffee. As automation reduces entry-level hiring, those relationships will become even more useful.

1L fall: recruitment season opens

Classes start in August or September, and firms show up almost immediately: career fairs, practice group lectures, coffee chats organized through student groups. This is the official start of recruitment season. Go to these events, meet partners, and collect names you can reference in applications. Saying you spoke with a specific attorney at a specific event signals seriousness, and firms check.

Last cycle the earliest direct applications opened in early October, the biggest wave went live November 1 through 3, and a tail of firms opened in December and January. I anticipate the front edge may creep into mid-September this year. Have your resume polished and a flexible cover letter ready before the window opens. Apply wide: somewhere between 40 and 100 firms if you have the patience. The old split between 1L and 2L recruiting has effectively collapsed, so when a firm opens a 1L summer associate posting, apply even if you have no intention of working that first summer. You need to be in their system, on their radar, and part of the conversation when the next wave opens.

1L winter: interviews and offers

Interviews start in October and November. If you have a STEM background and any interest in IP litigation or patent work, expect everything to run a month early, because firms compete hard for the small pool of technical candidates. And understand what an interview is: every coffee chat, every "meeting," every conversation with a 3L who summered at the firm is an interview. People report back. Treat each contact accordingly, and put the names on your application.

Hard offers mostly wait for grades. Schools release first-semester transcripts in early January, and offers concentrate in late January and the first half of February. Firms a tier below the top tend to wait a few extra weeks, because competing head-to-head with the most prestigious firms for the same candidate is a losing trade. A small number of stragglers interview into March, but by then most summer classes at top firms are full.

Know what a jumbo offer means: the firm offers you both your 1L and 2L summers at once. A common version pays you as a 1L summer associate while placing you in the judiciary, public interest, or an in-house role connected to the firm. A 1L summer spent in the firm's own office is now rare, concentrated in markets such as Houston and in IP practices.

A word about grades

Grades matter, and they matter more for clerkships, appellate work, and Supreme Court ambitions. For the standard Big Law path from a top school, they matter less than nearly everyone tells you. If you are at a T6 school hovering around median, you are in range for very strong offers, and topping the curve mostly changes which elite firm you choose between. Ninety percent of the Big Law job cannot be prepared for in law school. So do not backload your networking to protect your GPA. You need both, and the relationships are harder to rebuild late than the grades are.

2L and 3L: protect the offer

Your 2L year leaves more room for journals, moot court, clinics, and leadership because most of the recruiting is behind you. Keep getting to know people at your future firm, though. I'd aim for at least five good coffee chats before your 2L summer and include partners. They're more willing to take these calls than students expect, partly because so few people ask. It helps to arrive with people who already know you.

Those relationships also affect return offers. The historical return-offer rate is around 95 percent, and it may drift lower. Performance matters, but so does whether the people making the decision have seen your work. Once you have a return offer, enjoy 3L. It's likely to be your last relaxed year for a while.

Related: The Big Law Pyramid Is Turning Into a Cylinder, the OCI and Summer Associate entries in the Big Law Glossary, and answers to common questions in the FAQ. Browse all Mosaic Field Guides.