Legal Education
As recruiting season moves up, BYU Law switches immersive programs to fall
As BigLaw speeds up its hiring timeline, the Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School in Utah is moving up its immersive simulation-based programs from spring to fall, allowing its first-year students to gain hands-on experience ahead of recruiting. (Photo illustration by Sara Wadford/ABA Journal)
As BigLaw speeds up its hiring timeline, the Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School in Utah is moving up its immersive simulation-based programs from spring to fall, allowing its first-year students to gain hands-on experience ahead of recruiting, the law school announced Tuesday.
In recent years, recruitment season for 1L and 2L summer opportunities have crept forward, often before students have had hands-on legal experience. In fact, students increasingly recieve offers for 2L summer positions before spring arrives during their 1L year, and outreach by law firms sometimes starts just after students receive their acceptance into law school.
The law school’s Academies Program includes several program options in the United States and overseas, including one in New York centered on a simulated mergers and acquisitions transaction; one in Dallas that immerses students intensive trial advocacy and mock‑trial exercises, and another in Palo Alto, California, focused on venture formation and emerging company representation.
The law school will run the program April 24 to May 2 for the current academic year but will host it again in October, allowing that class of first-year students to gain hands-on experience and insight into career paths before recruiting starts.
“As legal recruiting continues to move earlier, offering our Academies [Program] in the fall ensures our 1L students are better prepared to make informed career decisions and to compete successfully in an accelerated hiring environment,” said David Moore, the dean of the law school, in a press release.
The move follows the Jan. 1 letter from leaders of 18 law student organizations to the council of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar protesting the high-speed timelines for employment recruiting at law schools.
The accelerated recruitment timelines increase the stresses of the first year of law school, as they must juggle applications “before their professional and academic interests can meaningfully develop,” according to the letter.
Those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are especially harmed, and law school staff and employer recruitment teams are negatively affected, according to the letter.
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
