CLS 3.2-3.3 Potential Bid List Forum

[Anonymous User]

Here is a preliminary bid list I made. Basically I concentrated on NYC firms with big classes. Are there any firms on here I shouldn't bother with? Any ones I'm glaringly missing? Does the order make any sense (it's based on the interview:bid ratio from last year)? Do I have too many reaches?


(in order from #1 to #30)
Kirkland & Ellis
freshfields bruckhaus deringer
Dewey & LeBouef
Proskauer Rose
Sidley Austin
Fitzpatrick Cella Harper & Scinto
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel
Linklaters
Ropes & Gray
White & Case
Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman
O'Melveny & Myers
Stroock Stroock & Lavan
Jones Day
Debevoise & Plimpton
Hughes Hubbard & Reed
Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson
Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft
Morgan Lewis & Bockius
Schulte Roth & Zabel
Dechert
Chadbourne & Parke
Paul Weiss
Cleary Gotlieb Steen & Hamilton
Winston & Strawn
K&L Gates
Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy
clifford chance
Cahill Gordon & Reindel
Brown Rudnick

[MrKappus]

Not sure how realistic V10 is for bottom quarter of Columbia.

[Anonymous User]

^
I'm at median. I just included Cleary because it had the biggest summer class.

[timbs4339]

Here is a preliminary bid list I made. Basically I concentrated on NYC firms with big classes. Are there any firms on here I shouldn't bother with? Any ones I'm glaringly missing? Does the order make any sense (it's based on the interview:bid ratio from last year)? Do I have too many reaches?


(in order from #1 to #30)
Kirkland & Ellis
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Dewey & LeBouef
Proskauer Rose
Sidley Austin
Fitzpatrick Cella Harper & Scinto
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel
Linklaters
Ropes & Gray
White & Case
Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman
O'Melveny & Myers
Stroock Stroock & Lavan
Jones Day
Debevoise & Plimpton
Hughes Hubbard & Reed
Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson
Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft
Morgan Lewis & Bockius
Schulte Roth & Zabel
Dechert
Chadbourne & Parke
Paul Weiss
Cleary Gotlieb Steen & Hamilton
Winston & Strawn
K&L Gates
Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy
Clifford Chance
Cahill Gordon & Reindel
Brown Rudnick

This is a great bidlist for CLS median. I only have a few suggestions.

Do you have an IP degree? You'll probably need one for Fitzpatrick. Consider bidding Kaye Scholer too, they have a strong IP practice. And Kirkland is a good reach but you can probably bid them lower, around 10. Bid Schulte higher- they love CLS students. You may want to double check the class sizes, idk if Freshfields had a very large summer class.

[Helmholtz]

Am I missing something or is Freshfields at #2 kind of weird?

[Anonymous User]

This is a great bidlist for CLS median. I only have a few suggestions.

Do you have an IP degree? You'll probably need one for Fitzpatrick. Consider bidding Kaye Scholer too, they have a strong IP practice. And Kirkland is a good reach but you can probably bid them lower, around 10. Bid Schulte higher- they love CLS students. You may want to double check the class sizes, idk if Freshfields had a very large summer class.

I don't have an IP degree unfortunately, so I'll take Fitzpatrick off.

The reason Kirkland is so high is that last year 169 people bid on them but only 60 got interviews, so I thought I needed to bid them high. You think #10 would be high enough? What should go at the very top then?

According to NALP, Freshfields summer class was 19, which was within the top 30 largest class sizes.

Am I missing something or is Freshfields at #2 kind of weird?

I used an algorithm, and that's what it spit out, so some of the stuff might not make sense.



ETA: Thanks for the help. I am not expecting to get much useful guidance from career services.

[timbs4339]

This is a great bidlist for CLS median. I only have a few suggestions.

Do you have an IP degree? You'll probably need one for Fitzpatrick. Consider bidding Kaye Scholer too, they have a strong IP practice. And Kirkland is a good reach but you can probably bid them lower, around 10. Bid Schulte higher- they love CLS students. You may want to double check the class sizes, idk if Freshfields had a very large summer class.

I don't have an IP degree unfortunately, so I'll take Fitzpatrick off.

The reason Kirkland is so high is that last year 169 people bid on them but only 60 got interviews, so I thought I needed to bid them high. You think #10 would be high enough? What should go at the very top then?

According to NALP, Freshfields summer class was 19, which was within the top 30 largest class sizes.

Am I missing something or is Freshfields at #2 kind of weird?

I used an algorithm, and that's what it spit out, so some of the stuff might not make sense.



ETA: Thanks for the help. I am not expecting to get much useful guidance from career services.

I'd still check the NALP forms. Your algorithm may have confused 2010 summer and 2011- for example Freshfields hired 19 in 2010 and 9 in 2011. Cahill took 37 this year and 15 in 2010.

[Anonymous User]

Rising 3L at CLS here. I might take off any V10s to maximize your chance at landing an offer, but other than that, I think that this is a great median bid list. Also, you should be able to add at least one V10 screening interview by just showing up to OCI early each day and checking the list of openings.

[Anonymous User]

When you say V10, are you including K&E, Debevoise, and Paul Weiss? Some people advised me to bid on less selective V20s - do I have those covered?

[timbs4339]

When you say V10, are you including K&E, Debevoise, and Paul Weiss? Some people advised me to bid on less selective V20s - do I have those covered?

If I was making a bidlist with your grades, those three firms would be a high as I'd go.

[Anonymous User]

When you say V10, are you including K&E, Debevoise, and Paul Weiss? Some people advised me to bid on less selective V20s - do I have those covered?

If I was making a bidlist with your grades, those three firms would be a high as I'd go.

So should I go with just one of those if I want to be conservative?

In general, I want to be conservative because I am not a good interviewer. (I am practicing on that front.) Should I be even more conservative in my list? My thought was that it was more conservative to pick firms with bigger classes as opposed to ones lower on the Vault rankings.

[irie]

This is a great bidlist for CLS median. I only have a few suggestions.

Do you have an IP degree? You'll probably need one for Fitzpatrick. Consider bidding Kaye Scholer too, they have a strong IP practice. And Kirkland is a good reach but you can probably bid them lower, around 10. Bid Schulte higher- they love CLS students. You may want to double check the class sizes, idk if Freshfields had a very large summer class.

I don't have an IP degree unfortunately, so I'll take Fitzpatrick off.

The reason Kirkland is so high is that last year 169 people bid on them but only 60 got interviews, so I thought I needed to bid them high. You think #10 would be high enough? What should go at the very top then?

According to NALP, Freshfields summer class was 19, which was within the top 30 largest class sizes.

Am I missing something or is Freshfields at #2 kind of weird?

I used an algorithm, and that's what it spit out, so some of the stuff might not make sense.



ETA: Thanks for the help. I am not expecting to get much useful guidance from career services.

would love to see that algorithm )

[timbs4339]

When you say V10, are you including K&E, Debevoise, and Paul Weiss? Some people advised me to bid on less selective V20s - do I have those covered?

If I was making a bidlist with your grades, those three firms would be a high as I'd go.

So should I go with just one of those if I want to be conservative?

In general, I want to be conservative because I am not a good interviewer. (I am practicing on that front.) Should I be even more conservative in my list? My thought was that it was more conservative to pick firms with bigger classes as opposed to ones lower on the Vault rankings.

Yes, but at a certain point the chances of you landing a callback with a firm are so low the increased class size doesn't matter. If you don't have any work experience and are an average interview I wouldn't waste a bid on any of those firms.

Definitely work on your interviewing skills, but remember that you don't need to be the best interviewer, just good enough not to throw up any red flags. Very few people at CLS are so offensive (and either don't realize it or can't moderate it during an interview) that they shoot themselves in the foot. Downside to that is it makes it much harder to get a callback if you don't meet the grade cutoff. However, some people do better in interviews if they don't think they have a shot at making it to the callback stage because they relax, just shoot the shit and make a connection that way.

[Renzo]

When you say V10, are you including K&E, Debevoise, and Paul Weiss? Some people advised me to bid on less selective V20s - do I have those covered?

If I was making a bidlist with your grades, those three firms would be a high as I'd go.

So should I go with just one of those if I want to be conservative?

In general, I want to be conservative because I am not a good interviewer. (I am practicing on that front.) Should I be even more conservative in my list? My thought was that it was more conservative to pick firms with bigger classes as opposed to ones lower on the Vault rankings.

I would scratch PW and Debevoise, and instead throw DPW on the list somewhere. While still very selective, they tend to be less grade sensitive and more "fit" sensitive than other V10 firms.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Thanks for all the advice.

One other question.....which firms that I have a shot at have a reputation for being quirky?

[mths]

OP here. Thanks for all the advice.

One other question.....which firms that I have a shot at have a reputation for being quirky?

MoFo

[Renzo]

OP here. Thanks for all the advice.

One other question.....which firms that I have a shot at have a reputation for being quirky?

MoFo

Depends how you mean "quirky." For example, Quinn is "that quirky sweatshop that lets you wear jeans to work."

But however you mean it, I agree with MoFo.

[mths]

OP here. Thanks for all the advice.

One other question.....which firms that I have a shot at have a reputation for being quirky?

MoFo

Depends how you mean "quirky." For example, Quinn is "that quirky sweatshop that lets you wear jeans to work."

But however you mean it, I agree with MoFo.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. I will add MoFo to the list and remove Debevoise, PW, K&E, Cleary, and Fitzpatrick.

I skipped Quinn because I heard a story about last year's EIP in which a Quinn attorney refused to interview someone because his/her GPA was below some hard cutoff. I don't think it's worth wasting a bid on a firm that won't hire me regardless of the interview.

Any suggestions on how to order the firms 1-30? I ranked them based on the ratio of interviews:bids (the lower the ratio, the higher it would be on my list), but I am not sure this is the best way to go about it.

[mths]

OP here. I will add MoFo to the list and remove Debevoise, PW, K&E, Cleary, and Fitzpatrick.

I skipped Quinn because I heard a story about last year's EIP in which a Quinn attorney refused to interview someone because his/her GPA was below some hard cutoff. I don't think it's worth wasting a bid on a firm that won't hire me regardless of the interview.

Any suggestions on how to order the firms 1-30? I ranked them based on the ratio of interviews:bids (the lower the ratio, the higher it would be on my list), but I am not sure this is the best way to go about it.

check out their summer class size as well

Also I don't know if you need to remove Cleary

Debevoise gives me the creeps but K&E might not be totally out of your reach.

[Anonymous User]

What about Latham? Should I include them?

[timbs4339]

What about Latham? Should I include them?

Definitely. I know they are coming to try and hire 3Ls, so they could be in expansionist mode. I also know they hired down to median last year.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks guys.

One other question.....are there particular classes that firms will want to see that I registered to take next year? I know that I am supposed to take evidence, corporations, admin, tax, and federal courts. Do firms expect to see all these on your transcript? Do they care at all?

Also, which firms have robust trusts and estates practices?

[seriouslyinformative]

robust trusts and estates practices?

Those words almost never appear in the same sentence.

[timbs4339]

Thanks guys.

One other question.....are there particular classes that firms will want to see that I registered to take next year? I know that I am supposed to take evidence, corporations, admin, tax, and federal courts. Do firms expect to see all these on your transcript? Do they care at all?

Also, which firms have robust trusts and estates practices?

They don't care. Individual interviewers may strike up conversations, but they're more likely to strike up conversations about interesting, non-traditional classes- I had conversations about Law and Genocide but not Fed Courts or Evidence. I was specifically told by two interviewers that it doesn't matter what classes you take 2L year as long as you graduate.