{"id":129444,"date":"2025-08-04T13:41:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T21:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/08\/04\/biglaw-may-soon-see-more-associate-deferrals\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T13:41:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T21:41:16","slug":"biglaw-may-soon-see-more-associate-deferrals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/08\/04\/biglaw-may-soon-see-more-associate-deferrals\/","title":{"rendered":"Biglaw May Soon See More Associate Deferrals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

[I\u2019m] not shocked that there are deferrals happening [and] not sure this is going to be the last firm that\u2019s going to decide to defer. [The slowness in VC work is] an unhealthy canary in the coal mine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 <\/i>Kate Reder Sheikh, a partner in the associate practice group at recruiting firm Major Lindsey & Africa, in comments given to Law.com<\/a>, concerning A&O Shearman\u2019s recent deferral of associates<\/a>. Sheikh went on to say that M&A had recently made fewer than 500 associate hires compared to more than 2,000 litigation associate hires, and that she\u2019d \u201cnever seen such an imbalance.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"Staci
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Biglaw May Soon See More Associate Deferrals<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

[I\u2019m] not shocked that there are deferrals happening [and] not sure this is going to be the last firm that\u2019s going to decide to defer. [The slowness in VC work is] an unhealthy canary in the coal mine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 <\/i>Kate Reder Sheikh, a partner in the associate practice group at recruiting firm Major Lindsey & Africa, in comments given to Law.com<\/a>, concerning A&O Shearman\u2019s recent deferral of associates<\/a>. Sheikh went on to say that M&A had recently made fewer than 500 associate hires compared to more than 2,000 litigation associate hires, and that she\u2019d \u201cnever seen such an imbalance.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"Staci
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Biglaw May Soon See More Associate Deferrals<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. [I\u2019m] not shocked that there are deferrals happening [and] not sure this is going to be the last firm that\u2019s going to decide to defer. [The slowness in VC work is] an unhealthy canary in the coal mine. \u2014 Kate Reder Sheikh, a partner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":129445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Staci-Zaretsky-FbCClh.jpg?fit=150%2C100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}