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Hi all. 2L here who struck out at OCI and who hasn't had much luck getting interviews in the past few months. I go to a top 20 law school (non t14) and am in the top 20% of my class. I'm also on a secondary journal. I'm just wondering where I should be looking now for a summer gig. I've already mass mailed over 100 firms around my school as well as my home town (in a secondary market and close to a large market) with no success (not even screening interviews).

I figure I would've at least received some interest from firms around my school given my grades but I've heard nothing. I'm just interested in hearing what I might be doing wrong or where I'm lacking. Right now I'm looking at a few government/PI positions but I don't have much experience directly related to those positions. Anyone have any tips/ideas?

Thanks in advance.

take a more active role than mass-mailing. Just send some emails to people from firms near your hometown who you have something in common with and ask them if they'd be willing to talk to you about their firm/job/line of work and hope that you can impress someone enough to get a job.... you're going to be hard-pressed to find a job at a firm that has an official internship program and does OCI

You are much more likely to land some sort of non-OCI job if you have a connection to the place you are applying. Anyone can send out a mass mailer, but your name will move to the top of the pile if you have someone the decision maker trusts vouching for you. To that end expand your concept of networking. Don't just contact alumni but draw on unlikely personal contacts. Does your uncle work in real estate? He probably works with a local lawyer. Is your parent's neighbor a civil servant in the government? What about a professor you clicked with? Can he refer you to his old firm? Do you have friends from undergraduate who work for a corporation? See if they know anyone in the general counsel's office.

My main point is that none of these is particularly likely to get you a job, but it isn't that hard to put feelers out. If one of them comes back then you have the connection you were missing in your mass mailers.

I don't know if you're doing anything wrong per se; you might just be super late with mass mailing many firms. I started mass mailing midlaw firms in secondary markets in August, before on-campus interviews. I got a couple hits in August/early September and had interviews before I got back to campus for OCI. The interviewers at the midlaw firms informed me that they started their recruiting process at the beginning of August, and were interviewing tons of applicants for a couple of spots.

You should consider branching out to other smaller markets, as well. Your secondary market may only a few openings, as a lot of smaller firms don't even take summers. Although you should continue mailing firms, just in case some have not finalized offers, I would focus on smaller gov jobs. (I say smaller gov jobs because the fed gov jobs in DC have already been finalizing candidates.) Some gov jobs don't finish hiring until Spring, so you should keep applying. Also, if you have a PI background, send apps out to non-profit agencies, too.

Mass-mail another 200-300 firms (seriously). Your odds of getting anything this late in the game from a risky tactic like mass mailing are probably well under 1%, which means you probably need to double or triple the number of firms you contacted to get even one legitimate shot. Also, if your school does a spring OCI, then obviously you should be hitting up everyone on Symplicity.