Wall Street Journal, Law Schools Push Recruiters:

Thousands of interviews for jobs at law firms are taking place now as top law schools, under mounting pressure to help indebted students snag jobs, increasingly push major law firms to recruit in August, months earlier than in previous years.

Only about one-quarter of last year’s graduating law-school classes, down from 33% in 2009, landed positions with big law firms, according to the National Association for Law Placement, an organization that collects employment data. Graduates from the top 25 law schools likely fared better, although NALP doesn’t provide data specifically for that group. …

By forcing the big firms to recruit in August, rather than as late as the end of October, as in previous years, law schools are hoping to give their students an edge in the competition. … In 2000, for instance, seven law schools held their interviewing weeks in August. By 2009, the number had increased to more than 70, and this year, the figure will top 100, according to Mark Weber, assistant dean for career services at Harvard Law School.