Top Law Schools

Unemployed wrote:

UnTouChablE wrote:It is not about being a douche fellas. The thread started out, "Am top %% at xx and I dont have a job", it allowed ppl to see whether it was a trend that more and more CCN grads were not getting jobs or outliers. Just one data point to judge how the overall legal job market is doing, but bitching as made the thread completely useless.

Am sorry it came out that way but if 60% of those who came out EIP/OCI did so with a job then its not the school its you. Cmonson, work yo ass off and get good grades (easy), if not do the research required to get a job (easy), if you did both and still ended without a job, its something you did wrong.

The traditional path in law in not "have a job waiting when you graduate", shit. But maybe the thread is about "CCN students without offers" talking an shit, just the first couple of pages put me under the wrong impression of what to expect. My fault then, its still a good topic tho, and I'll join in.

You may not be a douche, but you are still a clueless 1L.

UnTouChablE wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

UnTouChablE wrote:It is not about being a douche fellas. The thread started out, "Am top %% at xx and I dont have a job", it allowed ppl to see whether it was a trend that more and more CCN grads were not getting jobs or outliers. Just one data point to judge how the overall legal job market is doing, but bitching as made the thread completely useless.

Am sorry it came out that way but if 60% of those who came out EIP/OCI did so with a job then its not the school its you. Cmonson, work yo ass off and get good grades (easy), if not do the research required to get a job (easy), if you did both and still ended without a job, its something you did wrong.

The traditional path in law in not "have a job waiting when you graduate", shit. But maybe the thread is about "CCN students without offers" talking an shit, just the first couple of pages put me under the wrong impression of what to expect. My fault then, its still a good topic tho, and I'll join in.

Yes, the traditional path for CCN grads was to have a job waiting after graduation. Pre-ITE, almost all CCN grads who wanted one snagged a job out of OCI. Now, there will be a significant portion of the class who work hard (do not try to tell me and other classmates that we didn't work our asses off 1L year) and do not get a job because there is a curve and someone has to be at the bottom. Firms dramatically cut summer classes- how do you spend time on a law forum and not know this?

Yes, plenty of people at my grade range (around median) have jobs. Plenty don't. Sometimes it may be because you have a toxic personality, that's fine and even before ITE there were CCN people without offers because they were just that socially inept. But there are people who don't have jobs, like has been said many many times in this thread, because they bid incorrectly. And when you are paying 50K a year to go to law school, you are owed a career services department that will tell you when you are wasting your time bidding on a firm or market. You are owed an OCS that will explain to you the ins and out of the process. You are owed an OCS that will tell you-"look, your grades and resume may not cut it this year and we know this because we have crunched the data. Here is a list of firms not coming to OCI. Get your applications out now to increase your chances." Had this been done, I would have no complaints.

Other folks, and stop bashing the transfers. The fact we took 20 extra transfers probably translated into less than 1 extra screening interview at EIP on average.

I would agree with you except for the fact that I think you could have gotten the necessary information to succeed at OCI/EIP if you really put in the leg work. There was a guy that on UChicago job thread that would just keep asking for any information until he got some, that is the kind of persistence that I cannot see fail to payoff.

Maybe career services should do more (they have been nice to me!) but for someone to miss a 60-70% chance at a job, you need to take ownership. I dont see how you can blame it all on an office made up of administrative kats that dont know/ care to know you.

I might be a 1L but I am a grown-ass man. I have worked hard and long and I have never heard of sum shit were jobs come to you! Thats crazy, but maybe the education is not worth the 150k to some if they missed it at EIP/OCI. If that is what you expected out of law school, there is an argument to be made that you had the wrong motivation. Motivations are personal and cannot really be wrong, but having a good shot at a job is sum crazy shit. I would be mad if I missed out too tho.

UnTouChablE wrote:I would agree with you except for the fact that I think you could have gotten the necessary information to succeed at OCI/EIP if you really put in the leg work. There was a guy that on UChicago job thread that would just keep asking for any information until he got some, that is the kind of persistence that I cannot see fail to payoff.

UnTouChablE wrote: and I'll join in.

Anonymous User wrote:Other folks, and stop bashing the transfers. The fact we took 20 extra transfers probably translated into less than 1 extra screening interview at EIP on average.

booboo wrote:Is Columbia the only CCN school suffering from this? Following the Columbia OCI threads, it seems like that their student group has been the most vocal, if not because they are getting screwed over the most. This could and should certainly be a strong dissuader for people when they are considering which school between the three they are more apt to attend...

booboo wrote:Is Columbia the only CCN school suffering from this? Following the Columbia OCI threads, it seems like that their student group has been the most vocal, if not because they are getting screwed over the most. This could and should certainly be a strong dissuader for people when they are considering which school between the three they are more apt to attend...

JG Hall wrote:

booboo wrote:Is Columbia the only CCN school suffering from this? Following the Columbia OCI threads, it seems like that their student group has been the most vocal, if not because they are getting screwed over the most. This could and should certainly be a strong dissuader for people when they are considering which school between the three they are more apt to attend...

I can't say if Columbia is any better/worse than CN, but Columbia has a LOT more active posters on TLS than other CN. (For example, look how long our EIP/offer threads were compared to every other law school school, let alone CN. Our EIP thread was more comprehensive than the NYU spreadsheet, even.) And like you said, we're very vocal.

But unless a substantial percentage of CLSers bid poorly compared to their NYU counterparts, I can't imagine that CLS is doing demonstrably worse than NYU. (That being said, I'll repeat the sentiment that we should be doing better. Much better.)

Also, as mentioned earlier, the Shiz announced today that the class of 2010 has a 98% employment rate. So that's... something.

Kohinoor wrote:

booboo wrote:Is Columbia the only CCN school suffering from this? Following the Columbia OCI threads, it seems like that their student group has been the most vocal, if not because they are getting screwed over the most. This could and should certainly be a strong dissuader for people when they are considering which school between the three they are more apt to attend...

Suffering from what? A 60-70% offer rate is still over a hundred people striking out at OCI. They're simply much less vocal most of the time.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:FWIW, OCS is absolutely terrible/useless at Chicago, too. And it's even less justifiable here, considering the significantly smaller number of students.

Anonymous User wrote:

ToTransferOrNot wrote:FWIW, OCS is absolutely terrible/useless at Chicago, too. And it's even less justifiable here, considering the significantly smaller number of students.

Non-CCN, but Michigan's OCS isn't exactly fantastic either. Most "top" schools have rather weak career services offices, I suspect. I recall a friend of mine half-seriously remarking the other day that we should recruit OCS personnel from lower-ranked schools; they in theory have experience dealing with a tough job market. (Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if their relative hopelessness produces a similar ineptitude.) Come on, guys; it's time you adapted to the present situation and moved beyond boom-time advice like, "Don't make racist jokes in screening interviews" or "Do not get drunk at callbacks" or, perhaps the best of them all, advice of the "when you're deciding between your offers, take firm reps' claims with a grain of salt; they're fighting to get you and are probably sugarcoating the truth" variety.

booboo wrote:

JG Hall wrote:

booboo wrote:Is Columbia the only CCN school suffering from this? Following the Columbia OCI threads, it seems like that their student group has been the most vocal, if not because they are getting screwed over the most. This could and should certainly be a strong dissuader for people when they are considering which school between the three they are more apt to attend...

I can't say if Columbia is any better/worse than CN, but Columbia has a LOT more active posters on TLS than other CN. (For example, look how long our EIP/offer threads were compared to every other law school school, let alone CN. Our EIP thread was more comprehensive than the NYU spreadsheet, even.) And like you said, we're very vocal.

But unless a substantial percentage of CLSers bid poorly compared to their NYU counterparts, I can't imagine that CLS is doing demonstrably worse than NYU. (That being said, I'll repeat the sentiment that we should be doing better. Much better.)

Also, as mentioned earlier, the Shiz announced today that the class of 2010 has a 98% employment rate. So that's... something.

Many thanks for that response, it did help answer some questions. I guess I was wondering if the guidance provided by the OCS was of such bad quality that it significantly reduced how well Columbia is placing into these big law firms, which is something that you seem to imply in your parenthetical addition.

Kohinoor wrote:

booboo wrote:Is Columbia the only CCN school suffering from this? Following the Columbia OCI threads, it seems like that their student group has been the most vocal, if not because they are getting screwed over the most. This could and should certainly be a strong dissuader for people when they are considering which school between the three they are more apt to attend...

Suffering from what? A 60-70% offer rate is still over a hundred people striking out at OCI. They're simply much less vocal most of the time.

I guess I was concerned less with the offer rate, which is a bit expected ITE, and more interested with the apparently strong concerns current CLS students have with their OCS. Rampant dissastisfaction, whether it be just or not, leads to overall negativity from the student populace while also becoming a possible deterrent to future students. Investing 200k into an education only to have horrible guidance in the most critical time of that education (as it pertains to future employment) would be just... awful.

But there was an excellent point made somewhere back in this thread about what the 60-70% meant. Now does that include going through the hierarchy of grades and that it is therefore possible probable to get a job being in the upper portion of the bottom third of the class, or that it could be that, for example, only the top 40% are relatively safe, and the latter 60% have random chances of offer based upon work experience, minority status, or some other relevant but non-tangential law school grade component of their profile...?

Another thing is researching midlaw firms. It is just much more efficient for them to compile a list of firms and tell people who may need it "send out applications to these." Again, the individual still has to send out the application, but a lot of time is saved on the research end.

Aqualibrium wrote:

Another thing is researching midlaw firms. It is just much more efficient for them to compile a list of firms and tell people who may need it "send out applications to these." Again, the individual still has to send out the application, but a lot of time is saved on the research end.

I still think the above is just not fair to the students that actually put in the work and compile a list themselves. I also think it is not in the best interest of the school or the student to have every student mindlessly "spam the list." It dilutes the pool.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:

Aqualibrium wrote:

Another thing is researching midlaw firms. It is just much more efficient for them to compile a list of firms and tell people who may need it "send out applications to these." Again, the individual still has to send out the application, but a lot of time is saved on the research end.

I still think the above is just not fair to the students that actually put in the work and compile a list themselves. I also think it is not in the best interest of the school or the student to have every student mindlessly "spam the list." It dilutes the pool.

Your first point is irrelevant, because that's the point - students wouldn't need to do the work themselves if OCS did it.

Your second point holds more water, but it's not persuasive. There's really no difference between getting spammed with 200 or 400 resumes - you're going to be scanning them all in 10 seconds for school/gpa/journals anyway. On the balance, having an OCS that actually provides its students with useful information outweighs any concerns about dilution, in my view, but that's open to honest disagreement.

Anonymous User wrote:

booboo wrote:

JG Hall wrote:

booboo wrote:Is Columbia the only CCN school suffering from this? Following the Columbia OCI threads, it seems like that their student group has been the most vocal, if not because they are getting screwed over the most. This could and should certainly be a strong dissuader for people when they are considering which school between the three they are more apt to attend...

I can't say if Columbia is any better/worse than CN, but Columbia has a LOT more active posters on TLS than other CN. (For example, look how long our EIP/offer threads were compared to every other law school school, let alone CN. Our EIP thread was more comprehensive than the NYU spreadsheet, even.) And like you said, we're very vocal.

But unless a substantial percentage of CLSers bid poorly compared to their NYU counterparts, I can't imagine that CLS is doing demonstrably worse than NYU. (That being said, I'll repeat the sentiment that we should be doing better. Much better.)

Also, as mentioned earlier, the Shiz announced today that the class of 2010 has a 98% employment rate. So that's... something.

Many thanks for that response, it did help answer some questions. I guess I was wondering if the guidance provided by the OCS was of such bad quality that it significantly reduced how well Columbia is placing into these big law firms, which is something that you seem to imply in your parenthetical addition.

Kohinoor wrote:

booboo wrote:Is Columbia the only CCN school suffering from this? Following the Columbia OCI threads, it seems like that their student group has been the most vocal, if not because they are getting screwed over the most. This could and should certainly be a strong dissuader for people when they are considering which school between the three they are more apt to attend...

Suffering from what? A 60-70% offer rate is still over a hundred people striking out at OCI. They're simply much less vocal most of the time.

I guess I was concerned less with the offer rate, which is a bit expected ITE, and more interested with the apparently strong concerns current CLS students have with their OCS. Rampant dissastisfaction, whether it be just or not, leads to overall negativity from the student populace while also becoming a possible deterrent to future students. Investing 200k into an education only to have horrible guidance in the most critical time of that education (as it pertains to future employment) would be just... awful.

But there was an excellent point made somewhere back in this thread about what the 60-70% meant. Now does that include going through the hierarchy of grades and that it is therefore possible probable to get a job being in the upper portion of the bottom third of the class, or that it could be that, for example, only the top 40% are relatively safe, and the latter 60% have random chances of offer based upon work experience, minority status, or some other relevant but non-tangential law school grade component of their profile...?

For people in the top 1/3, they are pretty safe ITE as long as they don't bid all on DC, the V15, or another horrific market. That's a lot of people in the class. They're not as concentrated in V10 as they once were, but most have jobs at V25 right now. Most people with really high grades (say top 20%) cruised to offers 2007 style.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:What, precisely, do you think OCS is being paid to do? I didn't notice that you conceded the information point earlier though - some common ground there.

Look, I understand the "you should pound the pavement yourself" argument. But I have a problem paying people to sit around in an office, and organize one job fair a year.

Also, the impressive amount of networking you did would not really be dilluted by people having a mail-merge-ready list of firms. You met with attorneys, looked broadly for advice, etc. etc. These are things OCS can't do for people. But the issues with OCS go beyond mere "lack of information" to "incorrect information," and it again falls to the "what in God's name are these people being paid for?" issue.

Edit: And a well-crafted app is going to stand out over a poorly-crafted one, regardless of how many poorly-crafted ones they receive. Will you lose the advantage of being the only student at your school that applied to Firm X? Probably. But so it goes. OCS has a job to do.

Aqualibrium wrote: Perhaps it's because I don't go to a school where I felt being top 25% entitled me to a job?
...
I don't want an employer to have to wade through 140 sloppy resumes and cover letters from my school to get to the 10-15 well crafted ones.

Aqualibrium wrote:

ToTransferOrNot wrote:

Aqualibrium wrote:

Another thing is researching midlaw firms. It is just much more efficient for them to compile a list of firms and tell people who may need it "send out applications to these." Again, the individual still has to send out the application, but a lot of time is saved on the research end.

I still think the above is just not fair to the students that actually put in the work and compile a list themselves. I also think it is not in the best interest of the school or the student to have every student mindlessly "spam the list." It dilutes the pool.

Your first point is irrelevant, because that's the point - students wouldn't need to do the work themselves if OCS did it.

Your second point holds more water, but it's not persuasive. There's really no difference between getting spammed with 200 or 400 resumes - you're going to be scanning them all in 10 seconds for school/gpa/journals anyway. On the balance, having an OCS that actually provides its students with useful information outweighs any concerns about dilution, in my view, but that's open to honest disagreement.

My first point is underscored by my earlier point that students should be doing some of the work themselves. People are screaming that OCS didn't hook them up with a 3L mentor, or give them a list of firms to apply to (I conceded the earlier number crunching thing, if the numbers are at their disposal, they should use them more efficiently). I'm telling you that these are things no on should have had to give to you.

Perhaps it's because I don't go to a school where I felt being top 25% entitled me to a job? I can't tell you how many partners I had lunch with, how many 2L's and 3L's I asked for advice, how many attorneys I contacted out of the blue and said "hey I know this person, and you know them too, would love to pick your brain." I compiled my own list. If I had a question about a practice area or anything, I tapped into the network of attorneys that I had met. I put my self into situations to succeed. Again, my perspective may be off because of the school I go to, but if you gave all the people here screaming about OCS a list of all the firms in a market, I can't imagine the number of mindless, typo riddled, bland apps that would go out.

When you have to do it yourself you put more care into it. You start to look for things that differentiate firms and target specific ones instead of just mass mailing. It weeds the lazy people out. IMO, the lazy people devalue my degree, and make me look bad. I don't want an employer to have to wade through 140 sloppy resumes and cover letters from my school to get to the 10-15 well crafted ones.


I just can't fathom someone saying "I shouldn't have to pound the pavement, you should do it for me." When you say OCS should be hooking you up with people to talk to and giving you lists of firms to apply to, that is waht I feel you are saying. If you don't grind, you don't eat.

Anonymous User wrote:

Aqualibrium wrote: I don't want an employer to have to wade through 140 sloppy resumes and cover letters from my school to get to the 10-15 well crafted ones.

All of your posts indicate you think very poorly of CCN students. As for this dig, why would you assume that just because people are mass-mailing off of a list that they wouldn't put effort into their resumes? The only thing our OCS can do is edit resumes and cover letters.

Also, why even bother with this thread if you're clearly not a CCN jobless student, and don't really have any vested interest in them? Is this some kind of mass-mail protectionism?

UnTouChablE wrote:It is not about being a douche fellas. The thread started out, "Am top %% at xx and I dont have a job", it allowed ppl to see whether it was a trend that more and more CCN grads were not getting jobs or outliers. Just one data point to judge how the overall legal job market is doing, but bitching as made the thread completely useless.

Am sorry it came out that way but if 60% of those who came out EIP/OCI did so with a job then its not the school its you. Cmonson, work yo ass off and get good grades (easy), if not do the research required to get a job (easy), if you did both and still ended without a job, its something you did wrong.

The traditional path in law in not "have a job waiting when you graduate", shit. But maybe the thread is about "CCN students without offers" talking an shit, just the first couple of pages put me under the wrong impression of what to expect. My fault then, its still a good topic tho, and I'll join in.

Kohinoor wrote:

Unemployed wrote:

UnTouChablE wrote:It is not about being a douche fellas. The thread started out, "Am top %% at xx and I dont have a job", it allowed ppl to see whether it was a trend that more and more CCN grads were not getting jobs or outliers. Just one data point to judge how the overall legal job market is doing, but bitching as made the thread completely useless.

Am sorry it came out that way but if 60% of those who came out EIP/OCI did so with a job then its not the school its you. Cmonson, work yo ass off and get good grades (easy), if not do the research required to get a job (easy), if you did both and still ended without a job, its something you did wrong.

The traditional path in law in not "have a job waiting when you graduate", shit. But maybe the thread is about "CCN students without offers" talking an shit, just the first couple of pages put me under the wrong impression of what to expect. My fault then, its still a good topic tho, and I'll join in.

You may not be a douche, but you are still a clueless 1L.