{"id":162471,"date":"2026-09-09T14:35:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T22:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/09\/biglaws-money-can-follow-its-recruits-right-into-a-judges-chambers-ethics-panel-says\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T14:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T22:35:19","slug":"biglaws-money-can-follow-its-recruits-right-into-a-judges-chambers-ethics-panel-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/09\/biglaws-money-can-follow-its-recruits-right-into-a-judges-chambers-ethics-panel-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Biglaw\u2019s Money Can Follow Its Recruits Right Into A Judge\u2019s Chambers, Ethics Panel Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A judicial ethics panel has looked at the increasingly common arrangement of a law student cashing a Biglaw check while working, unpaid, inside a judge\u2019s chambers and decided it is all perfectly fine.<\/p>\n

In the race to lock up talent earlier and earlier, Biglaw firms including Davis Polk, Milbank, Simpson Thacher, and Latham have taken to handing 1Ls $25,000 to $50,000 to commit to a 2L summer spot<\/a>. This allows the student to pursue unpaid public interest internships without having to take an economic hit. The ethical quandary comes in when the student goes to (unpaid) work for a judge.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Judicial Conference\u2019s Committee signed off on the practice in Opinion 119<\/a>. The panel\u2019s blessing rests on three conditions: the money can\u2019t be \u201ctied in any way\u201d to the intern\u2019s judicial service, the intern has to recuse from any case involving the firm cutting the checks, and the payment has to be disclosed.<\/p>\n

While all this is nice for the students who want to notch some public interest experience without having to live like it, it should still be seen within the context of a Biglaw recruitment system that is well and truly broken. Ever since 2018,\u00a0when NALP announced<\/a>\u00a0it was eliminating the\u00a0recruitment guardrails<\/a>, the\u00a0race to the bottom<\/a> was on. Eight years later,\u00a0it\u2019s awful out there<\/a>. Major law firms are\u00a0peacing out<\/a>\u00a0of on-campus recruitment while law students have taken up the recruitment mantle<\/a>. 1Ls are securing their 2L summer jobs *before*<\/a> their 1L summer jobs. Offers for summer associate jobs that explode before the first year of law school is even over have become a thing. It\u2019s madness and exactly no one knows how to pull the industry back from the brink.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Biglaw\u2019s Money Can Follow Its Recruits Right Into A Judge\u2019s Chambers, Ethics Panel Says<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A judicial ethics panel has looked at the increasingly common arrangement of a law student cashing a Biglaw check while working, unpaid, inside a judge\u2019s chambers and decided it is all perfectly fine.<\/p>\n

In the race to lock up talent earlier and earlier, Biglaw firms including Davis Polk, Milbank, Simpson Thacher, and Latham have taken to handing 1Ls $25,000 to $50,000 to commit to a 2L summer spot<\/a>. This allows the student to pursue unpaid public interest internships without having to take an economic hit. The ethical quandary comes in when the student goes to (unpaid) work for a judge.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Judicial Conference\u2019s Committee signed off on the practice in Opinion 119<\/a>. The panel\u2019s blessing rests on three conditions: the money can\u2019t be \u201ctied in any way\u201d to the intern\u2019s judicial service, the intern has to recuse from any case involving the firm cutting the checks, and the payment has to be disclosed.<\/p>\n

While all this is nice for the students who want to notch some public interest experience without having to live like it, it should still be seen within the context of a Biglaw recruitment system that is well and truly broken. Ever since 2018,\u00a0when NALP announced<\/a>\u00a0it was eliminating the\u00a0recruitment guardrails<\/a>, the\u00a0race to the bottom<\/a> was on. Eight years later,\u00a0it\u2019s awful out there<\/a>. Major law firms are\u00a0peacing out<\/a>\u00a0of on-campus recruitment while law students have taken up the recruitment mantle<\/a>. 1Ls are securing their 2L summer jobs *before*<\/a> their 1L summer jobs. Offers for summer associate jobs that explode before the first year of law school is even over have become a thing. It\u2019s madness and exactly no one knows how to pull the industry back from the brink.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Biglaw\u2019s Money Can Follow Its Recruits Right Into A Judge\u2019s Chambers, Ethics Panel Says<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A judicial ethics panel has looked at the increasingly common arrangement of a law student cashing a Biglaw check while working, unpaid, inside a judge\u2019s chambers and decided it is all perfectly fine. In the race to lock up talent earlier and earlier, Biglaw firms including Davis Polk, Milbank, Simpson Thacher, and Latham have taken […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162471","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=162471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}