The legal industry has an unusually synchronized and suffocatingly compressed hiring schedule. Most big law firms do not have rolling applications for their summer slots. Instead, they interview students during the same two-week period right as their second year of law school begins. At that point students have received only two semesters of grades, but those grades will determine where they work the next summer — and often, for the rest of their lives. That is because firms offer permanent, postgraduation jobs to just about every summer associate, for fear of looking like their business has suddenly dropped off if they do not.

With Dewey’s announcement, these students’ careful, fastidiously risk-averse career planning collapsed under them, and they fell off the job track not just for Dewey but for its peer firms. Of the dozens of major firms contacted for this article, only one had picked up one of these stranded summer associates, and that was because one of its partners had a personal connection to the student.

The others all declined to comment, with the exception of one firm spokeswoman who said her firm did not have any openings, but even if it did, it would hire someone from its own shortlist rather than extend an offer to one of the Dewey students.

“We all got into multiple places but just picked the wrong one,” said Mr. Aitchison, the only one of several associates interviewed for this article who was willing to be identified. “Now every other program is full, and it’s not like they’re going to all adjust their plans to accommodate the failure of this one.”

The financial problems at Dewey & LeBoeuf emerged around January, when partners started leaving the firm. Still, students thought their jobs were safe.