Companies recruit law graduates straight out of law school

Here is an interesting article about the growing trend for large companies to hire graduates directly from law school campuses in order to avoid paying large fees for inexperienced law-firm associates. Junior associates are a major revenue source for large law firms. First year associates are billed out at an average of $283 per hour, according to data from Peer Monitor, a unit of Thomson Reuters. One firm that is taking up graduate lawyers directly from law school is Pfizer. The pharmaceutical company, which employs around 300 lawyers in its in-house legal department, recently recruited three third-year law students from Harvard Law School and Yale Law School, as part of a pilot program that it plans to repeat this Autumn. Another company recruiting at law schools is H-P, which will take approximately six third-year law students for full-time in-house positions this Autumn. The tech company has a program of ‘cross-training’ these graduates in cooperation with a number of its law firms such as Morgan, Lewis & Bockius and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Companies recruit law graduates straight out of law school online.wsj.com Tue, Aug 16, 2011