Hastings' Job Prospects Forum

[beaniew]

Hastings is a great school. Students in the top 10% have good options. Students in the top 10 overall have their pick at jobs. I'm sorry, but if you are in the top 10 overall and struck out at OCI, you need to do some reflection because you are doing something wrong.

[Anonymous User]

Seriously, if you are a prospective Hastings student reading this thread, you should ignore the doom and gloom... Blaming Hastings for an individual's inability to close an interview is baloney.

I'm only in the top 45%, and granted I'm also on a moot court team and a not very impressive journal... but still. Top 45%. And I ended up with 8 OCI interviews. From those I got 2 callbacks both of which turned into job offers. I also got an interview and job offer from a firm that doesn't do OCI, but who asked a professor of mine for a couple names of his favorite students and he decided to mention me.

The firm I accepted my offer from is mid-size (150-200 atty's) and pays its first year associates $110,000. So, this business about only kids in the top 10% getting job offers is baloney. Your grades only get you an interview, even if your grades are top 10%. After you're in the interview, you have just as good a shot as all the T14 kids they're interviewing too. You only have yourself to blame, (and your interview skills, and your resume, and sheer random luck) once you get in the door.

Not that its all roses... I would say at this point about half my friends here have job offers and half are still looking. But a lot of small and mid sized firms don't start interviewing until spring anyway. Good talented people always land on their feet, even if they're not in the Top 10% and even if they don't go to Boalt.

[20160810]

Seriously, if you are a prospective Hastings student reading this thread, you should ignore the doom and gloom... Blaming Hastings for an individual's inability to close an interview is baloney.

I'm only in the top 45%, and granted I'm also on a moot court team and a not very impressive journal... but still. Top 45%. And I ended up with 8 OCI interviews. From those I got 2 callbacks both of which turned into job offers. I also got an interview and job offer from a firm that doesn't do OCI, but who asked a professor of mine for a couple names of his favorite students and he decided to mention me.

The firm I accepted my offer from is mid-size (150-200 atty's) and pays its first year associates $110,000. So, this business about only kids in the top 10% getting job offers is baloney. Your grades only get you an interview, even if your grades are top 10%. After you're in the interview, you have just as good a shot as all the T14 kids they're interviewing too. You only have yourself to blame, (and your interview skills, and your resume, and sheer random luck) once you get in the door.

Not that its all roses... I would say at this point about half my friends here have job offers and half are still looking. But a lot of small and mid sized firms don't start interviewing until spring anyway. Good talented people always land on their feet, even if they're not in the Top 10% and even if they don't go to Boalt.

I won the lottery, therefore everyone should buy lotto tickets!

[Anonymous User]

A lot of people I've talked to don't have anything lined up, but I don't go around asking everyone about their employment opportunities. The current 2L class is quite large and the state of the CA economy certainly doesn't help our data.

I have an IP background, top 30-40%, and received 10-12 interviews at OCI (all with large firms). I didn't get any callbacks despite being told that I would be recommended for a callback at a few of the firms. However, getting interviews 3000 miles away from California where I have no connections seemed to be a lot easier. I am going to an IP firm in the 100-200 lawyer range.

I'm glad that I applied outside of California and I would recommend others to do so. A 12.4% unemployment rate is difficult to fight against.

[General Tso]

That top 45% might literally be the only person outside the top 25% that got anything through OCI. We have people in the top TEN (top 2%) that got nothing. Of course you always have the rare people who can dazzle an interviewer with their personality, but that doesn't mean we should extrapolate those results for any general meaning.

[Anonymous User]

A lot of people I've talked to don't have anything lined up, but I don't go around asking everyone about their employment opportunities. The current 2L class is quite large and the state of the CA economy certainly doesn't help our data.

I have an IP background, top 30-40%, and received 10-12 interviews at OCI (all with large firms). I didn't get any callbacks despite being told that I would be recommended for a callback at a few of the firms. However, getting interviews 3000 miles away from California where I have no connections seemed to be a lot easier. I am going to an IP firm in the 100-200 lawyer range.

I'm glad that I applied outside of California and I would recommend others to do so. A 12.4% unemployment rate is difficult to fight against.

Where outside of CA? Like Chicago and NY?

[Anonymous User]

A lot of people I've talked to don't have anything lined up, but I don't go around asking everyone about their employment opportunities. The current 2L class is quite large and the state of the CA economy certainly doesn't help our data.

I have an IP background, top 30-40%, and received 10-12 interviews at OCI (all with large firms). I didn't get any callbacks despite being told that I would be recommended for a callback at a few of the firms. However, getting interviews 3000 miles away from California where I have no connections seemed to be a lot easier. I am going to an IP firm in the 100-200 lawyer range.

I'm glad that I applied outside of California and I would recommend others to do so. A 12.4% unemployment rate is difficult to fight against.

Where outside of CA? Like Chicago and NY?

I applied to DC, Boston, Chicago. I heard that some IP people are going to NY, but I didn't apply there.

[drdolittle]

I won the lottery, therefore everyone should buy lotto tickets!

Coming from a Davis lottery winner?

[20160810]

I won the lottery, therefore everyone should buy lotto tickets!

Coming from a Davis lottery winner?

I'm very lucky to have gotten the job I got, but the difference is that I'm not suggesting anyone in the top-45% can get a firm job.

[Anonymous User]

I won the lottery, therefore everyone should buy lotto tickets!

Coming from a Davis lottery winner?

I'm very lucky to have gotten the job I got, but the difference is that I'm not suggesting anyone in the top-45% can get a firm job.

I wasn't suggesting "anyone" in the top 45% can either. I'm just saying that the people on this board are downers and its not nearly as bad a picture as you guys are saying it is. You may know people in the top 10 that haven't found jobs yet, but thats not the whole deal. I know plenty of students not even close to the top 10% and who fanagled firm jobs, or the PI jobs they wanted, coming out of OCI. The stress you guys are putting on your class rank and the law school's rank is way overboard. OCI is more about doing well in interviews, having a great 1L summer experience to talk about, and having at least a few years of work experience before coming to law school. THATS the formula, not Class Rank + School Rank = Job.

[General Tso]

OCI is more about doing well in interviews, having a great 1L summer experience to talk about, and having at least a few years of work experience before coming to law school. THATS the formula, not Class Rank + School Rank = Job.

I fit this profile, and I know others who have more work experience, better grades, better personality and better interviewing skills than me. Didn't help any of us. I mean, I KNOW the dude above talking about his IP job search. Dude is a straight baller...smart as hell, masters degree and undergrad engineering degree from TOP universities, real cool personality and good grades at Hastings. If someone so perfect for IP cannot get a job in california, I think that just goes to tell you how the rest of us will fare.

I'm glad you posted in this thread though. You are one of the few Hastings success stories this year.

[Anonymous User]

And plus, you really cannot reasonably compare IPSECURE (esp. ppl with grad degrees) with non-IPSECURE (the rest of the people).

[Anonymous User]

I'll add one more Hastings success story (note that I'm another IP guy though).

I have median grades with an undergrad engineering degree and I accepted an offer from a California firm that pays $145k to its first year associates.

I guess the moral of my story is that Hastings has very good job prospects for IP people.

On a side note, I will say that I think Hastings is a great school, and is probably underrated, but the simple truth is that things are rough out there and job prospects are gonna be bleak almost everywhere.

I really wish all you Hastings peeps good luck on the job search. Just hang in there.

[Anonymous User]

I think that I've met 3-4 Hastings EE/CompE/CS folks who had serious issues getting IP summer employment over the last 2 years. The problem is that in this economy, Hastings students need to be going for patent prosecution rather than patent litigation. But Hastings doesn't get much interest from patent prosecution firms. One of the largest patent prosecution firms in the country is in Sunnyvale and they don't even recruit from Hastings OCI (not even a resume collect). Hastings probably gets 5 firms with patent prosecution services at its OCI and they all recruit nationally. The IP students have to put in a lot of extra effort.

Hastings is a great school, but I think that IP people are hurt a bit there compared to other schools. A lower-ranked school like Santa Clara has patent professionals paying to give a weekly speech or event. That provides for some serious non-OCI networking. Hastings has 1 IP event per year.

[General Tso]

On a side note, I will say that I think Hastings is a great school, and is probably underrated, but the simple truth is that things are rough out there and job prospects are gonna be bleak almost everywhere.

I mean, this is what it really boils down to. Some people get all indignant when we gripe and take it as if we are knocking the school. There's nothing wrong with the school. Hastings has some great faculty and a lot of great things going for it. It's the economy, not the school. I still think most of us will be fine in the long run, even if we have our bumps in the road for the first few years of practice.

[Anonymous User]

I'm the poster from near the end of the first page, and my summer job is in the patent litigation group in the Palo Alto office of a well-respected large firm.

I think it's really that BigLaw firms are generally moving away from patent prosecution to focus on litigation combined with the fact that those firms have fairly rigid criteria for candidates. Naturally, the "qualifying" pool for BigLaw is smaller at Hastings than at some other local schools, which makes patent litigation harder to break into. Patent prosecution firms, on the other hand, usually don't adhere to the same "minimum GPA required" approach that the big firms use. Basically, the big firms will only look at the students that meet the cutoffs, and only the candidates in that pool will be evaluated on interest or fit for a particular practice group, including patent litigation. The filtering process just goes through the GPA cutoff before looking at whether patent litigation would be an appropriate practice area. I have a few friends who have no technical background but met the GPA requirements and are also doing patent litigation at big-name firms this summer.

Beyond that, it doesn't seem to me like there are additional hurdles to be surmounted by Hastings students to doing litigation. I only have one friend at Santa Clara, but he chose to go there knowing he wanted to do prosecution, so the high requirements to get into litigation did not really affect him. It may be that many of the students attending Santa Clara made similar evaluations before choosing to attend there, resulting in a somewhat self-selected class. Though I do think that in this economy (and just generally as more people with technical degrees choose to attend law school), walking through the door with an EE degree no longer guarantees even a prosecution job.

[Anonymous User]

I'm the IP guy going to an East Coast firm. I'm only interested in patent prosecution. The IP firm I'm going to is a full-service IP firm, but it has one of the largest patent prosecution practices. I'm really happy to have the opportunity to work there.

But I'm really surprised at my lack of interviews in the Bay Area. My technical credentials are very strong for patent prosecution. I applied to all sorts of firms, from tiny patent prosecution boutiques to the few BigLaw firms with patent prosecution groups. I know some people from the class of 2010 and they also had issues trying to break into the Bay Area patent prosecution field.

I sent 12-15 resumes to other markets and received interview offers at several of them. DC and Boston were the easiest markets for me. One firm gave me an interview offer 30 minutes after I emailed my resume. They didn't care too much about law school; the emphasis seemed to be on technical background. Some of my interviewers didn't even know what Hastings was (they confused it with SCU, USF, or Berkeley). DC firms seem to put some extra emphasis on personality because they have a lot of in-person interaction with the USPTO.

One thing I've noticed about many patent prosecutors is that they think that students are all interested in BigLaw firms despite most BigLaw firms not doing patent prosecution anymore. It seems that they think back to their law school days when patent prosecution was practiced in BigLaw. I found making a statement that they are "BigPatent" nowadays was useful.

Hopefully this stuff will be useful to someone today or the class of 2013 next year.

General Tso, were you in Section 4? I think I know who you are, but did you change your username?

[sundance95]

Seriously, if you are a prospective Hastings student reading this thread, you should ignore the doom and gloom... Blaming Hastings for an individual's inability to close an interview is baloney.

I'm only in the top 45%, and granted I'm also on a moot court team and a not very impressive journal... but still. Top 45%. And I ended up with 8 OCI interviews. From those I got 2 callbacks both of which turned into job offers. I also got an interview and job offer from a firm that doesn't do OCI, but who asked a professor of mine for a couple names of his favorite students and he decided to mention me.

The firm I accepted my offer from is mid-size (150-200 atty's) and pays its first year associates $110,000. So, this business about only kids in the top 10% getting job offers is baloney. Your grades only get you an interview, even if your grades are top 10%. After you're in the interview, you have just as good a shot as all the T14 kids they're interviewing too. You only have yourself to blame, (and your interview skills, and your resume, and sheer random luck) once you get in the door.

Not that its all roses... I would say at this point about half my friends here have job offers and half are still looking. But a lot of small and mid sized firms don't start interviewing until spring anyway. Good talented people always land on their feet, even if they're not in the Top 10% and even if they don't go to Boalt.

I bet you are good at rock, paper, anecdote.

[AntiHuman]

can someone please explain this? I understand average does not mean median and some people did not report (ones that prolly did not make as much)...but still...

--LinkRemoved--

is davis employment prospects somewhat similar to this?

[Anonymous User]

can someone please explain this? I understand average does not mean median and some people did not report (ones that prolly did not make as much)...but still...

--LinkRemoved--

is davis employment prospects somewhat similar to this?

What is it about this chart that needs explaining?

[AntiHuman]

can someone please explain this? I understand average does not mean median and some people did not report (ones that prolly did not make as much)...but still...

--LinkRemoved--

is davis employment prospects somewhat similar to this?

What is it about this chart that needs explaining?

This looks quite impressive to me...I go to Hastings/Davis...and I'd be extremely happy at a mid sized firm that payed 100K+(maybe even 90K+)

just took my first final recently and I might have got destroyed...so I'm looking for reassurance that grades don't totally determine one's job situation!

it looks like to me from this chart that top third or so would get a decent firm job...but statistics could be misleading?

[drdolittle]

can someone please explain this? I understand average does not mean median and some people did not report (ones that prolly did not make as much)...but still...

--LinkRemoved--

is davis employment prospects somewhat similar to this?

What is it about this chart that needs explaining?

Ditto on the WTF comment above. Also, no, Davis' job prospects are not this good. Remember though that this is a Hastings' jobs prospects thread.

[20160810]

can someone please explain this? I understand average does not mean median and some people did not report (ones that prolly did not make as much)...but still...

--LinkRemoved--

is davis employment prospects somewhat similar to this?

What is it about this chart that needs explaining?

This looks quite impressive to me...I go to Hastings/Davis...and I'd be extremely happy at a mid sized firm that payed 100K+(maybe even 90K+)

just took my first final recently and I might have got destroyed...so I'm looking for reassurance that grades don't totally determine one's job situation!

it looks like to me from this chart that top third or so would get a decent firm job...but statistics could be misleading?

If you're not a URM and not IP, top third probably isn't getting you much at either school, but you're at least in the running.

[Anonymous User]

it looks like to me from this chart that top third or so would get a decent firm job...but statistics could be misleading?

If you're not a URM and not IP, top third probably isn't getting you much at either school, but you're at least in the running.

[/quote]

For the tenth time, thats just patently false. This chart does nothing to tie the best jobs to the best class ranks. There are no class ranks in this employment stats chart.

Also, URM? Really? We're now using that excuse?

[eth3n]

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