Could you be a lawyer falling foul of the 23 categories that see law firms avoiding them?

According to leading US law recruiter Harrison Barnes, (pictured below) shunned law candidate include a range of areas including those who went to third- and fourth-tier law schools and government lawyers, among 21 others.

The article was written four years ago and sparked controversy and outrage at the time but Barnes’ online article, is still making the rounds on social media and received some prominence again recently in the US legal media, including the ABA Journal.

Merle Vaughn, a recruiter at Major, Lindsey & Africa, told the America Lawyer that law firms will always seek the best and the brightest.

But “how that is defined and who it includes has evolved to be more inclusive,” she said.

Still, Vaughn said, there will always be some law firms that will “cling to the status quo as long as they believe it doesn’t adversely affect profitability.”

Barnes said that the article is just a list of the types of attorneys prestigious law firms avoid hiring, and critics shouldn’t “kill the messenger.”

So who are included in Barnes' 'don't employ' list?

• Lawyers who aren’t motivated by money or prestige.

• Lawyers with anti-corporate values and lawyers who don’t think the work of the law firm is important.

• Lawyers with poor law school or college performance and lawyers from third- or fourth-tier law schools with below-average academic performance.

• Lawyers who failed the bar exam multiple times.

• Lawyers who are currently unemployed.

• Senior attorneys without business or a strong potential to develop business.

• Lawyers who don’t connect with interviewers.

• In-house or government lawyers and lawyers with no law firm experience.

• Lawyers with a sense of entitlement.

So there's some of the list. But while some might be more obvious than others as to what might turn off a law firm employer, the fact remains that there is no single determining factor as to what constitutes a top lawyer. Making the Barnes' list is not a definitive guide to anything other than a list that a recruiter thinks is relevant.