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recruiting
policies & guidelines
The following rules have been
established to protect the interests of both students and
employers. They will be enforced by the Committee on Placement and
sanctions may be imposed for failure to comply. By
recruiting at Harvard Law School, employers agree to abide by
these rules.
Harvard Law School does not discriminate against any person on the
basis of race, color, creed, national or ethnic origin, age,
gender, sexual orientation, marital or parental status, disability,
source of income, military status or status as a Vietnam era or
disabled veteran in admission to, access to, treatment in, or
employment in its programs and activities. All employers using the facilities
and services of the Office of Career Services must comply
with this policy.
Harvard Law School makes one exception to this policy. Under
threat of loss of funding to the University resulting from the Solomon
Amendment, the Law School has suspended the application of its
non-discrimination policy to military recruiters. This exception
to our policy does not in any way reflect acceptance of, or agreement
with, discriminatory hiring practices.
All employers participating in
On Campus Interviewing ("OCI") are required to hold open offers extended to
students until the dates set forth below. The
response dates are slightly later than those of NALP because
Harvard's interview season is later than most schools.
| Offer |
Deadline |
| 2L/3L student previously employed
and offer made before October 1 |
November 15 (Automatic
extension to December 15 if student formally requests) |
| 2L/3L student previously employed
and offer made on or after October 1 |
December 15 (Extension
can be negotiated individually) |
| 2L/3L student not
previously employed |
December 15 (Extension
can be negotiated indvidually) |
| Public Interest/Public Sector and
non-OCI Private Sector Extensions (Rule 3)
HLS allows students to hold open one OCI offer received prior
to December 15 in order to pursue public interest and public
sector opportunities as well as non-OCI private sector
opportunities.
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April 15 Student must
notify the employer in writing prior to December 15 and affirm
that the employer's offer is the only offer that the student
is holding. |
| 1L Offer |
Two weeks |
Employers with 35 or fewer attorneys firm wide are not subject to
these rules. Instead, we ask that you leave offers open for
at least 2 weeks.
Employers are free to ask
students for information about their grades and may request that
students provide transcripts.
Click here for more
information on Harvard's grading system.
No Prescreening
Employers are not permitted to prescreen candidates prior to
the on-campus interview. Employers who wish to arrange
separate interview schedules for LL.M.s, however, are permitted to
prescreen their resumes. Since students are instructed to
bring a transcript to the interview, employers should not ask for
transcripts in advance of the on-campus interview.
No Interviewing Outside
of Assigned Interview Schedule
The Office of Career Services assigns interview dates and
arranges second- and third-year on-campus interview schedules for employers.
An employer participating in OCI may not schedule or conduct any
initial or callback interviews of students who will be 2Ls in
the fall prior to the employer's assigned on-campus interview
date(s). This policy does not apply to (a) students who
will be 3Ls in the fall; (b) student-initiated requests for
informational interviews; or (c) interviews conducted in
accordance with the organized job fairs.
Callbacks
Employers and students who make use of the facilities and
services of the Office of Career Services must limit interviews to
fly out week, vacation periods, weekends, or other times that do
not conflict with scheduled classes.
The Law
School does not make the facilities of the Office of Career
Services available to first-year students prior to November 1. In
addition, we require that employers not communicate directly or
indirectly with
first-year students before December 1. This rule also prohibits
informally arranged meetings with 1Ls during the fall recruitment season,
even if the contact is student initiated.
Invitations to social functions scheduled before December 1
should be
directed only to second and third year students and, if first year
students appear at such functions, employers are expected to make
clear that their attendance is a violation of policy.
Employers using the Office of
Career Services may not organize, on their own, interview
schedules in the Cambridge area for first-year students before the
spring semester.
While most interviewers strive to maintain a
professional and sensitive attitude, each year we receive a number of complaints from
students about offensive or discriminatory behavior on the part of
the interviewers. For information about the the process in
the case of a student complaint, please see the section on
Procedures for Student Complaints.
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