Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Many students entering their final year at top law schools, including Harvard and New York University, haven’t landed the full-time jobs they would normally have claimed by now, firms and school officials said, a reflection of the shrinking demand for legal services.

The stark reality of the legal marketplace was illustrated by yesterday’s 2010 job offers by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, the highest-grossing U.S. law firm. It projected a 50 percent cut in summer hiring, said Howard Ellin, the recruiting partner for Skadden. The firm hired 225 students this summer and plans to hire less than half that for summer 2010.

The number of first-round interviews for second- and third- year Harvard Law School students fell 20 percent this year, Mark Weber, assistant dean for career services, wrote in an e-mail, adding that it’s too early to predict how many will get second interviews. At NYU, interviews plunged this school year compared with last, with callbacks for second interviews dropping “dramatically,” said Irene Dorzback, dean of career services.

“When I was at NYU 10 years ago, top-performing students got an average of 25 callbacks,” Jonathan Cole, a senior associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, said in an interview last week on the Greenwich Village campus. “Today, they’re lucky if they get 10.” When it comes to getting a job, he said, “no one is taking anything for granted.”

Traditionally Hire

A law degree typically takes three years to obtain. Law firms traditionally hire students for summer internships after their second year of school, then offer them jobs beginning after graduation the following year. Large U.S. firms are delaying start dates for 2009 and 2010 graduates, and hiring fewer students for next summer and beyond.

The job crunch is likely to affect the class of 2011 as well, said James Leipold, executive director of the Association for Legal Career Professionals.

“We expect to see more students taking non-legal jobs in industry,” Leipold said in an interview. “We expect to see more students taking jobs at small and medium-sized law firms or launching solo practices right out of law school.”

The collapse last year of San Francisco-based Thelen and Heller Ehrman LLP, as well as New York-based Thacher Proffitt & Wood, is contributing to the drop in recruiting, Dorzback said.

In July, San Francisco-based Orrick, a law firm with more than 1,100 attorneys worldwide, and Philadelphia-based Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, which employs more than 1,400 attorneys, canceled plans to hire law students next summer, citing diminished demand for legal services.

Law Firms

Orrick was the 27th-highest grossing U.S. law firm in 2008, with $835 million in revenue, according to the American Lawyer, a trade magazine. Morgan Lewis was the 12th-highest, with $1.12 billion in revenue, the magazine said.

DLA Piper LLP, the 11th-highest-grossing U.S. law firm, is deferring full-time start dates of first-year associates, originally scheduled for this fall, until January.

This summer’s interns who are offered jobs won’t start for at least a year, in January 2011 or January 2012, according to an internal memo at the firm.

Harvard and NYU are not the only schools where students are scrambling for jobs -- the crunch is affecting law-school students and graduates nationwide, according to Leipold.

“As the national economy recovers, the legal economy will also grow,” Leipold said. “But for right now, there are a lot of candidates competing for what seems to be a smaller number of jobs in almost every sector of the legal job market.”

Job Help

When Dorzback learned about the canceled summer programs, she invited Orrick and others to offer job-seeking help to the school’s 500 potential 2010 graduates.

Orrick’s Cole said last week that he was busy all day conducting one-on-one mock interviews and career sessions.

“These are top students at a top school,” said Cole, of Orrick’s project finance group in New York. “They all have callbacks, but no one is swimming in offers.”

While bigger firms are cutting back, some smaller firms haven’t reined in their recruiting. Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman LLP, a New York firm with more than 300 attorneys, made offers to all 16 student associates this summer and asked them to start full-time next September, said Aaron Marks, a partner.

Kasowitz Benson, which specializes in complex litigation, reached its highest revenue ever in 2008 and expects 2009 revenue to be the same, managing partner and founder Marc Kasowitz said in an interview.

‘Feels Wonderful’

“It feels wonderful” to have a job lined up, Lucienne Pierre, a Kasowitz hire in her third and last year at Cornell University Law School, wrote in an e-mail.

At Cornell, in Ithaca, New York, many third-year students’ plans remain up in the air, according to Pierre. They either didn’t receive job offers from the firms where they worked over the summer, the firms haven’t made offers or the offers came with deferred start dates. As a result, she said, many are looking for clerkships and public- interest jobs.

Leo Rakitin, a second-year law student at NYU, is still looking for a summer job for next year.

“I’m keeping an open mind,” Rakitin said last week when he showed up for a practice interview with Cole.

Rakitin worked this summer at Davis & Gilbert LLP, a 110- attorney New York firm that represents clients in marketing, advertising and media. The firm’s summer class consists of about two-thirds first-year law students and one-third second-year students. It makes full-time job offers to the latter at the end of the summer, and asks its first-year students to work elsewhere after their second year, said Michael Lasky, litigation co-chairman at Davis & Gilbert.

“We have not had to cut back on our summer program or our on-campus interviews,” Lasky said in an interview. “If you are strategically focused, you can do a lot of good things and prove yourself to be recession-immune.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Cynthia Cotts in New York at ccotts@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 23, 2009 15:09 EDT