We received the following info from an anonymous Norton Rose spy last week:
It’s clerkship season, and many law students around the country have been wading through the Hades river of clerkship applications since July. Many firms in New South Wales sign up to the NSW Law Society guidelines which include standardised dates for the major milestones in the process (application cut-off dates, commencement of first round interviews and offer dates). These guidelines aren’t strict but it’s a fair and conscientious way to go through a process that for many law students is seemingly very opaque. However, Norton Rose Sydney (Deacons in a new dress) never got back to students who had submitted applications but were unsuccessful in gaining a first round interview.
Well cry me a river, sunshine. Doesn’t that hurt the frail law student ego! But the spy confirms the inbox is definitely empty – read on if you care:
I was one of many students … who just never heard back. Nothing. Not a word. It was as though our applications had just vanished into a void. At a time when every single e-mail that buzzes our mobiles potentially means “huzzah” or “heartbreak” it’s incredibly rude, not to mention contrary to basic norms of civilised behaviour, to simply not send an email of rejection. If anything, it helps to close that door and move on. Most law students are rejected by most firms throughout this process, so it’s not as though we are unaccustomed to rejection. But leaving the door open like that?
Yes, we agree it would be fine to shut the door in the applicants’ faces, but to leave it ajar like that? Not happy Jan.
Incredibly, HR has dodged ALL of my calls and requests for a call back no matter how many e-mails and voice-mails I leave. This kind of impropriety is further exacerbated by the fact that filling in these applications along with their asinine questions like “tell us about a time when you flew to the moon” actually takes quite a lot of time.I know that the legal industry in any city is typically very small, and in Sydney, a small city, it’s tiny. The people that they piss off now will undoubtedly be the people they have to work with in the future. I just find it positively jaw-dropping that a firm like this could be so…tacky. Yuk.
Well, we emailed Norton Rose to get the scoop on this outrage. We wrote:
We’ve had some feedback from readers suggesting that Norton Rose completely forgot to notify applicants who failed to secure an interview for a seasonal clerkship in your Sydney office. Is this true? If so, please explain.
A spokesperson from the firm responded:
Norton Rose Australia emailed all applicants for summer clerkship positions, advising them that if suitable they would be contacted to discuss the next stage of the recruitment process.
We took a quick voyage back to basic construction principles in Contract Law to extract some meaning from that comment, but drew a blank. So we persisted, sending the following email:
Just to clarify and for the avoidance of doubt, does your comment mean that those applicants who weren’t considered suitable were never contacted and advised their application was unsuccessful?
A spokesperson from the firm responded:
All candidates were advised they would only be contacted if they were suitable.
To all the Norton Rose clerkship applicants still waiting by the phone – better luck next year.
To everyone else: what’s the best rejection letter you’ve received?
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Why not mention the fact instead that NR told candidates that they’d be making offers from the 23rd of Sept and are in breach of Law Society rules by doing so?
To be expected from NRA HR
So NRA told candidates they would contact them if they were successful, they weren’t contacted so obviously they weren’t successful – if the outraged candidate couldn’t figure this out then that is probably why they didn’t even make the first cut! These kiddies need to develop thicker skin if they are going to last in this industry.
lol, “Deacons in a Dress”.
@Yawn – I don’t think anyone really cares about the law society cartel rules do they?
So I am gathering this whinger didn’t get interviews anywhere otherwise why would they even care that NR didn’t contact them. More time studying + less time whinging = a summer clerkship.
C’mon…
You really don’t think it’s harsh not to let them know? I agree that if it kills someone not to be told, then a thicker skin is in order. But it’s just plain rude not to at least send a generic email.
missing out at nortons is a blessing in disguise. get over it.
Why is this even newsworthy?
I suggest the person sending the emails eats some concrete and hardens the hell up. You would last 5 minutes working in any commercial law firm.
Could everyone who uses the phrase:
“Eat some concrete and harden up” etc. STOP IT ALREADY!
Not one day goes by when I read the comments section and someone rolls this one out. It’s not even clever any more. It’s the “that’s what she said” of the Firmspy comments.
Also to the poster above who has the username “Dawson’s Creek”. You are in absolutely no position to tell someone to harden up (unless you’re female)!
Don’t worry NR applicant, you are not missing out on much excitement…
This type of attitude is so typical of Norton Rose. High and mighty and no social responsibility. Its not just the people in HR but the Partners as well. The worst offender is the Brisbane office and Aaron Anderson is the worst offender in his treatment of staff. Long, long hours, constant corrections to everyone’s work (we can all be as bad as he so often suggests), no mentoring and he treats the professionals as if we should all feel privileged to work with him. Support staff’s existence isn’t even acknowledged, except if its to shout at someone. Apparently big fee earners are untouchable when it comes to HR
The best (read: most fucktarded) rejection letter that I got while grasping for a summer clerkship was from Gadens, which at the time was being run by that bore who projects himself as the Steve Jobs of the Sydney legal world.
The thing that pissed me off about it was that the whole drum was ‘yo, like thanks for thinking of us bro, but you missed out – next time try to be less formulaic and more free flow’ type try hard shit response. I.e., the self-absorbed fucktards sent me a pro forma letter advising me not to be pro forma.
Agree a thicker skin is required, but seriously…… what was Norton Rose thinking? How impolite to leave people hanging…… a generic email to advise they have not been shortlisted for an interview wouldn’t have been that hard.
To the gutless person who wrote this……….if you had an issue you could do the right thing and a talk with the person in question and discuss your issues instead of bad mouthing a man who does a great job and appreciates all his staffs work. Maybe you need to look at the work load aaron has…….
Grow up
Isn’t NRA running a ten week vacation clerk program over summer this year? Why would anyone commit to that?
What Norton Rose did to applicants who were unsuccessful happens in every other company – be it law or any other field. Companies aren’t going to waste their time and money stroking people’s fragile egos, they’re busy doing other things like working on a certain project, or watching old eps of 90210 on DVD.
I understand the whirlwind of rude comments to the law student in question here, the seemingly irritated tone in which the article was written, and the cold responses from people at law firms who have already established their own careers (all who have somehow forgotten the torture that is clerkship season).
HOWEVER, Norton Rose sent back rejection letters to SOME people and not to others. It makes no sense. It’s rude and classless.
To those of you telling law students to eat concrete and harden up, you’ve never had this kind of competition for a spot before. In the current economic climate, over 800 applications per firm for 15-25 positions. Give us a little bit of a break here, it’s stressful. I suggest you try hard to remember your own uni days and how tough it was for everyone.
Plus, how can you expect law students to be anything BUT disillusioned the way you “tipsters” bitch and moan on this site about how bad it is to be a lawyer at a big firm? Is the weather here too nice for you? Is your unemployment rate just too low?? Are your golden shoes too fucking tight??? I suggest YOU harden the fuck up.
Imagine those students who don’t even get that chance? You’re morons, the lot of you.
Norton Rose treats its grads like rubbish… so it seems they also treat those who miss out on clerkship with equal contempt. Let’s not forget that NR, before it got its shiny new red dress and was still called Deacons, canned a whole group of grads in late 2008. There is no unifying culture in the place and they expect people to feel privileged to be there as if its a top tier firm
This is inexcusable. It’s lazy and rude, and excusing it by saying “only shortlisted applicants will be contacted” doesn’t help.
It takes 10 seconds to send an standard form email with the usual gumph about the standard of applications this year being extremely high etc etc. Doing so at least acknowledges the work that has gone into an application and provides some certainty, rather than just wondering.
It’s the smallest of common courtesies, and a very poor show not to write back.
I got no rejection letter from Norton Rose, i also happened to hear nothing from Baker & McKenzie. I don’t really mind, but it is stressful.
Also, i will probably be in the industry in the future and i will remember the treatment i got. If i happen to be inhouse legal counsel at a major client there could be trouble…
I have to say, when I was looking for a first-year position I received an absolutely delightful and sincere letter from Norton Rose (Melbourne) signed by John Sharkey himself (which was pretty pants-wettingly exciting) stating that there were no suitable positions but to feel free to apply again in the future. I knew I was getting the brush-off, but the tone was a bit more spirit-lifting than the usual “You suck. Go and get a barista-certificate or something, ’cause you’ll never be a lawyer” letters of rejection.
That said, based on the comments on FirmSpy, perhaps it was a good thing they didn’t want me!
The most #winning rejection I saw was that received by a mate from Baker Johnson, an utterly notorious ambulance-chasing Brisbane practice. (see eg http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2002/s662264.htm)
My guy’s CV was pretty solid: very good grades, top tier clerking experience, etc. Baker Johnson simply posted it back to him. No covering letter, no with comps slip, no nothing. Except for some gigantic letters in thick red felt pen on the front page: “NO”.
Epic.
I went to NR (as an in house counsel) earlier this year and they boasted about their state-of-the-art technology. Apparently now the clients can not only share emails, documents and billing / WIP information with NR, the brand new cloud computing system now even allows the client to see if anyone’s online to prescribe advice / working on due diligence in the wee hours. Poor grads.
Five minutes later, it became pretty blatant that the Tech manager didn’t bother altering the slides which were originally designed for NR in house purposes because the subsequent slides boasted an online time sheet which allows lawyers do drag and drop tasks and lawyers will never miss any billing time again, ever! You should see how many jaws dropped on the audience seats. Well done NR.
@pissybessy – get over it. i went through the clerkship process last year. i got a few offers, got some rejections and some didnt bother responding at all. good luck lasting in the workforce if you kick up a stink over something this minor.
A few years ago, I accessed an online application for the Clayton Utz graduate program by supplying only my name and email address. I was in my penultimate year of study and was simply curious. I did not upload a cv, cover letter etc. Stupidly, I must have clicked ‘submit application’. A few weeks later I received a computer generated rejection telling me that I was a high calibre applicant who only just missed out on getting an interview. I appreciate the ease of the computer generated rejection email, however I thought this was quite ridiculous. There is a difference between ‘softening the blow’ in a rejection letter and over-inflating the egos of graduates who were in fact nowhere near close to getting an interview.
At the end of the day HR are busy people – the automated replies were sent and those who were shortlisted were contacted. It can be frustrating, but then think of the HR reps who have to sit through and look at 800+ applications… Grad recruitment isn’t the only matter that HR looks after either. Cut them some slack!