BigLaw Recruiting 2026: OCI Is Collapsing

What OCI was, and how it worked

On-campus interviewing was the BigLaw recruiting system that dominated for roughly four decades. Each August, law firms dispatched recruiters to law school campuses — primarily at elite schools — to conduct structured 20-minute interviews with second-year (2L) students for the following summer's associate class. Schools coordinated logistics through a shared calendar. Students submitted bids through a central portal; firms screened and selected who to interview on the few designated "OCI days" on each campus. Callbacks and offers followed in September and October.

The system had structural advantages for both sides. For firms, it provided access to a concentrated, pre-screened pool with predictable timing and uniform format. For students, it provided structured access to firms that would otherwise be opaque. The school's involvement also provided a modest equity floor: every enrolled student at a participating school had access to the same portal.

That system has not disappeared — it has lost structural primacy. NALP data for the 2025 recruiting cycle shows that only 20% of 2L summer associate offers came from school-sponsored programs (OCI and early interview programs). The majority — 80% — came from employer-sponsored channels: direct applications, resume collections and referrals. As NALP's executive director, Nikia Gray, put it in March 2025: "On-campus recruiting will become more of a primary tool for regional and local firms" while the largest national firms use it as a secondary or tertiary channel at best.

Latham & Watkins exits OCI — and what it signals

The clearest signal of the shift came on 25 March 2025, when Latham & Watkins — then the second-highest-grossing firm on the Am Law 100 — announced it would no longer participate in law school on-campus interview programs to recruit summer associates. Candidates are now directed to apply online through the firm's centralised portal.

Latham was not an outlier. The firm had been reducing on-campus interviews over three prior recruiting cycles before eliminating them entirely. Jones Day, Davis Polk, Milbank, Paul Hastings and Weil Gotshal had already opened their own direct application pipelines, some as early as mid-April of the 1L year. The Bloomberg Law headline described the trend well: the largest firms are "skipping ahead of on-campus recruiting in the race for talent."

For law students, the practical implication is direct: the school portal is no longer the primary gate. A student who waits for their law school's OCI season to begin researching firms risks missing application windows at many of the largest national practices.

The timeline has been front-loaded into the 1L year

For the 2025 recruiting cycle (for 2026 summer positions), NALP reports that 56% of all summer associate offers were made before June of the student's 1L year. Eighty-five percent were made before July. The modal offer came in May or earlier — from employers, through direct channels, before the student had completed their first full year of law school.

Firms including Jones Day, Davis Polk, Milbank, Paul Hastings and Weil Gotshal opened applications for 2L summer positions in April or May of the 1L year — before spring semester grades were issued. Some firms moved even earlier, opening 1L application windows in October and November 2025, within weeks of the start of the first semester.

The application volume data reflects how students have responded. Bloomberg Law reported that 1L applications to major firms jumped from 841 in November 2024 to 12,082 in November 2025 — an increase of nearly 1,300% in twelve months — with 6,700 firm-conducted interviews logged in November 2025 alone, five times the volume of November 2024. Firms conducted those interviews with first-semester students who had not yet sat a single law school exam.

The new recruiting playbook: timeline comparison

The structural difference between the traditional OCI calendar and the current reality is stark. The table below maps the key milestones.

The NALP 2018 antitrust settlement removed the binding engagement ban and mandatory 28-day offer window that previously slowed early recruiting. With no floor, the calendar has ratcheted earlier each cycle.

Public interest stipends: the early lock-in mechanism

The most visible feature of the accelerated system is the public interest stipend — a payment of $25,000 to $50,000 offered to 1L students who agree to spend their first summer in a qualifying nonprofit, government or judicial role and commit to the firm's 2L summer program. At least 15 Am Law 100 firms now offer these, according to LawFuel's 2025 analysis. The structure is essentially a signing bonus: the payment secures a 2L commitment from a student who has yet to receive first-semester grades, take bar prep, or decide what type of law they want to practice.

• Davis Polk & Wardwell: $50,000 stipend ($25K end of 1L summer + $25K start of 2L program), or both upfront.
• Milbank: $50,000 ($25K + $25K split) for students committing to the 2027 Summer Program after a 2026 public-interest 1L summer.
• Sidley Austin, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Cooley, Quinn Emanuel and others: varying structures in the $25,000–$50,000 range.

NALP data for the 2025 cycle shows that 10% of recruiting offices made "jumbo offers" — simultaneous 1L and 2L program offers — with 87% of those offers including a financial incentive. Whether a student views the stipend as an opportunity or a pressure, it changes the calculus of when to engage.

Smaller class sizes, tighter competition

The timeline acceleration is compounding a supply-side squeeze. For the 2025 summer program cycle, NALP reports the average 2L summer associate class per office fell to 8 students, down from 9 in 2024 and 10 in 2022–23 — the smallest average since the 2020 pandemic. The median number of offers per office reached an all-time low of 4. At the largest firms, summer classes shrank to their smallest since 2012.

Firms cite two structural forces: economic uncertainty and the anticipated productivity impact of AI on associate work. The implication is a market where the number of seats available each year is declining at the same time as the number of students applying — and applying earlier — is rising sharply. The all-time-low 4 median offers combined with all-time-high acceptance rates (89.4% in 2025) means the funnel is narrower than any previous cycle in living memory.

Who is hurt most by the shift

The equity dimension of the OCI collapse is well-documented. NALP Foundation research shows that first-generation law graduates are 30% less likely to be hired by firms with 500 or more attorneys and earn median starting salaries roughly $20,000 lower than their continuing-generation peers. The share of diversity fellows in 1L summer programs fell from 57% in 2023 to 48% in 2024.

The structural reason is straightforward. The traditional OCI system, for all its flaws, gave every student at a participating school access to the same portal on the same day. The direct-application model front-loads advantages that are unequally distributed: knowledge that the race begins in week one of law school, family connections to the legal profession, and the financial cushion to invest time in networking before any grades signal merit. Students without those advantages arrive at the right starting line too late.

Eighteen law student groups filed formal objections to accelerated recruiting timelines in 2025, and NALP's own leadership described the pressure on first-year curricula as one of the most significant sources of disruption to legal education — one driven by market competition, not pedagogy or accreditation.

What this means if you are a 1L right now

The practical playbook has changed on five dimensions:

• Start before your first exam. The majority of 1L-targeted opportunities now open in October–November of your first semester. If you are not ready — resume polished, target list built, why-this-firm answers prepared — when applications open, you are late.
• Apply directly to firm portals, not just through your school. Ninety-three percent of offices accept direct applications. The largest national firms have either left OCI or reduced their campus presence to a secondary channel. Know which firms are direct-only, which still run OCI, and which do both.
• Evaluate public interest stipends honestly. A $25,000–$50,000 payment for a 1L public-interest summer and a 2L commitment can be a genuine opportunity or a lock-in before you have enough information to know what you want. Read the conditions carefully — acceptance rates, whether you can defer, what counts as a qualifying position.
• Do not benchmark your class year against the old timeline. NALP data for the 2025 cycle shows that 56% of summer offers were made before June of the 1L year. A student calibrating their effort against an August OCI timeline would have missed most of the market.
• OCI still matters — for regional and mid-size firms. NALP and Latham's own announcement signal that OCI is becoming the primary channel for regional and local firms, not for the national BigLaw market. If your target list is concentrated in a single city's regional market, OCI remains relevant. If it includes national practices, direct applications are the core.

Sources

• NALP — "Perspectives on Law Student Recruiting" (January 26, 2026) — 80/20 employer-vs-school offer split; average 2L class 8; median offers 4; 56% of offers before June of 1L year; 85% before July; 94.2% 1L return rate; 10% jumbo offers / 87% with financial incentive: nalp.org/perspectivesonrecruiting.
• NALP — "Summer Associate Hiring Held Steady in 2024 as Law Student Recruiting Underwent Structural Shift" (March 11, 2025) — 56% employer-direct for 2024 summer cycle; OCI offers down 44%, EIP +26%, outside school +35%; 2L avg class 12 (lowest since 2021): nalp.org (PDF).
• Bloomberg Law — "Latham Scraps On-Campus Interviews to Recruit Summer Associates" (March 25, 2025) — Latham announcement; 24% from OCI/law-school programs; 78% of offers made before August 2024 vs 45% in 2023: news.bloomberglaw.com.
• Above the Law — "BigLaw Summer Associate Recruiting Leaves OCI In the Dust" (March 2025) — Nikia Gray NALP quote; 2L average class 12 for 2024 summer cycle: abovethelaw.com.
• Bloomberg Law — "Big Law's Accelerated Recruiting Is a Lose-Lose-Lose Situation"; application volume data: 841 1L applications November 2024 → 12,082 November 2025 (+1,300%); 6,700 interviews November 2025 = 5× YoY: news.bloomberglaw.com.
• ABA Journal — "Davis Polk will pay $25K stipend to 2027 summer associates 'giving back' in summer 2026" (2025); LawFuel — "BigLaw's $50K Public Interest Stipend War" (2025) — firm stipend amounts, conditions and list (~15 AmLaw 100 firms): abajournal.com; lawfuel.com.
• Above the Law — "Unintended Victim of New BigLaw Recruitment Process? Diversity" (2024); NALP Foundation (via ATL) — first-gen graduates 30% less likely to be hired by 500+ attorney firms, $20K lower median starting salary; diversity fellows 48% of 1L summer class 2024 vs 57% in 2023: abovethelaw.com.
• LSAC / NALP — "Accelerating Recruiting Trends Amidst Market Slowdown" (2025) — 93% of offices accept direct applications; 71% still run some OCI; timeline acceleration analysis: lsac.org.
• ABA Journal — "Summer program recruiting starts early, moves faster, stems from employer, new NALP study shows" (2025): abajournal.com.

Recruiting data reflects published NALP research and cited reporting as of June 2026. Individual firm practices change cycle to cycle; verify current application windows directly with target firms. This page is general career information, not legal or career advice.