Like many law schools, UVA Law has watched law firm recruiting evolve rapidly over the past several years. As direct applications became increasingly common, the school made a strategic decision to move away from a traditional OCI structure and embrace a more flexible recruiting model.
While the transition created new opportunities for students and employers, it also introduced a new challenge: re-creating visibility. Without bidding systems and centralized interview schedules, counselors emphasized individualized communication with students to continue to understand where students were applying, how engaged they were, and where they might need support.
We recently sat down with Emma Glancy, Senior Assistant Director of the Office of Private Practice at UVA Law, to discuss how UVA is navigating today’s evolving recruiting landscape and why greater visibility has become increasingly important as recruiting continues to shift toward direct applications.
Q: UVA made the decision to move away from OCI. What drove that change?
Emma: We were seeing more and more students apply directly to firms rather than through traditional recruiting programs, with many firms expressing their preference for this model. Flo shared data with us showing how much recruiting activity was already happening through direct applications, and it reinforced what we were seeing ourselves.
Flo: As more schools experience similar shifts, many are evaluating how to support students in an increasingly direct application environment while reducing administrative complexity. For UVA, embracing that trend also created an opportunity to rethink how student recruiting activity could be monitored outside of a traditional OCI structure.
Q: What was the biggest challenge after stepping away from OCI?
Emma: We did lose some of the visibility that we would have otherwise had through hosting an OCI program.
With OCI, you naturally have access to bidding information and interview schedules. You know who’s participating and where students are engaging. Once recruiting becomes more decentralized, you lose some of that built-in insight.
We’re grateful that our students do such a wonderful job working closely with us every step of the process, but having a way to better understand where students are in the process at a glance would be incredibly beneficial for counselors and students alike.
That’s where Flo Forward will help bridge the gap in visibility.
Q: How has Flo Forward helped recreate that visibility?
Emma: The application tracking and reporting tools are incredibly helpful.
Being able to quickly see where students are applying, how many applications they have submitted, and whether interviews are progressing will help us have more efficient, productive counseling sessions focused on strategy and guidance.
That visibility will help us identify where students may need support while also giving students time back that they may have been spending tracking their applications. Just having that snapshot is a win-win for all of us.
Flo: As more students use Flo Forward to organize their job searches, that visibility continues to become even more valuable. Students can now track opportunities beyond those posted directly on Flo Forward, which will help schools better understand the full scope of their recruiting activity and have more informed advising conversations.
We’re also excited to include Public Interest opportunities to the platform. Many students pursue a variety of career paths, and having more of those opportunities represented in one place will make it easier for students to stay organized while giving your office a more complete picture of how they’re navigating the recruiting process.
This combination of student-driven tracking and advisor visibility helps create a more connected recruiting experience for both students and career services.
Q: How has the Recruiting Tracker impacted your office?
Emma: For several years, our team has spent countless hours creating our own internal resource that mirrors Flo’s recruiting tracker. Now, Flo’s recruiting tracker has taken the laboring oar of updating available opportunities, mitigating our need to maintain spreadsheets and search each firm’s website for current information.
Q: How will you use the Event Board as part of your recruiting strategy?
Emma: Recently, we updated our recruiting guidelines to allow firms more flexibility in hosting off-Grounds events with our students.
We love working with law firms to help them plan out and schedule their events with our students, but are more limited in our ability to market each firm’s individual events, and don’t provide employers with class-wide student contact lists. The Event Dashboard helps firms promote opportunities directly to UVA Law students, while also providing us with visibility into student participation.
Flo: Beyond employer-hosted events, schools can also add their own programming, creating a more centralized destination for students to discover recruiting opportunities. As students register through the Event Board, participation is shared back with the career services office, providing additional insight into student engagement and helping schools better understand which programming resonates most with their students.
It’s beneficial for employers, students, and schools.
Q: Recruiting timelines continue to move earlier. How does Flo Forward help students navigate that environment?
Emma: Law schools operate on different timelines, and we constantly tell our students, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
If our students hear that their peers at other law schools are progressing in the recruiting cycle, being aware of those schools’ exam periods and grade release dates helps to contextualize their timing and encourage them to focus on running their own race.
By bringing that information together in one place, the reporting ecosystem makes that context readily accessible.
Q: What role does Flo Forward play in the overall student experience?
Emma: One of the biggest benefits is centralization.
Students are juggling applications, interviews, networking events, callbacks, and research across multiple employers and timelines.
Flo Forward brings much of that activity into one place.
Students can research employers, track applications, manage interviews, register for events, and stay organized throughout the process.
Having a one-stop shop for students to send out their applications rather than navigating to every single law firm portal saves valuable time, and time is a limited resource in this accelerated cycle.
Anything we can do to simplify the recruiting experience for students is a win.
Q: As you look ahead, what are you most excited about?
Emma: Overall, we’re just really excited to have a cohesive space for our 1Ls to conduct their job search, submit applications, and participate in interviews, that also gives us as CSOs real-time visibility into where they’re at in the process.
Conclusion
As law schools like UVA navigate the changing recruiting landscape, Flo Forward offers new ways to improve visibility into student recruiting activity while reducing administrative effort. Features like application tracking, the Recruiting Tracker, the Event Board, and enhanced reporting are designed to help career services teams spend less time managing processes and more time supporting students.
To learn more about becoming a Flo Forward Partner School, contact the Flo team.