jbagelboy wrote:Hey, thanks for keeping up with this. Will have OCI this summer.
Not OP but a V50 interviewer and legal recruiting committee member.
How do you view students going into OCI with a 1L SA from another big firm? Is it a potential negative if you think an applicant might have another outstanding offer on the table (don't want to hurt your yield, ect.)? Or mild positive since I'll have a better idea of what the work is actually like (although it might be a different practice area)?
Positive. Shows commitment to private practice. Not worried about another offer on the table, but would expect you to be able to say good things in response to "why our firm?" (E.g. if we are in a different city than your 1L firm, or if our work is very different, I would be a little worried about which one you "really" want.)
Also, is talking about pre-law school professional work experience annoying to you? (take, for example, consulting). I can imagine an interviewee going on about a different service industry being a distraction, although there are a few interesting experiences to speak to and I've been asked about it in prior interviews at length. Don't want to repeat that if it's a mistake in the OCI context though.
Not annoying if I ask, just don't drone on or sound like you were too in love with it. Whatever your experience was, you have now chosen a different career path, so don't make it sound like your dream is the first career. "Management consulting gave me some good opportunities and I learned X, but I left that for law school because I'm also looking for Y," is good. And just try to develop a sense of how much you are BS-ing. This is esp. true for consulting. I will eyeroll and look down on any applicant who says something remotely like, "management consulting was great because I truly got to be a high-level strategist to our clients, providing advice to C-suite executives who were attuned to my every word, and everyone at that client is going to fondly remember our engagement for years to come."
Does it matter to be president of an important student group on-campus? Do the titles of student orgs/specialized moot courts/journals that show up on your resume ect. automatically "slot" you into a specific niche - and could that have a negative impact on being called back if your niche is more selective? A little afraid of having too heavy a focus on a particular area of law that some people on this site especially don't view very favorably.
Not totally sure what you're getting at, but we might be concerned that someone is "too" public interest so it's just a question of how much of that particular area/niche is on your resume. Single items won't really sink you. A 1L position for an environmental NGO isn't a problem. Being a member of a clinic isn't a problem. Being a member of the public interest law society isn't even a problem. But, for instance, someone who was in the Peace Corps, is the founder of the International Human Rights Society, spent their 1L summer in Rwanda, etc. will have to have an extremely compelling story for why they are interested in a big firm. (And not a story that relies on the pro bono section of our website!)
For our oci, the interviewers never see your grades until you come into the interview with your transcript. When you first see the transcript, how visibly does it impact how you decide to proceed with the interview? Do you ask different questions to students with different grades (if you haven't seen those grades before). Any advice on how to react to an interviewer's reaction to seeing your grades first time would be appreciated.
Ehh, don't worry about it. I personally make a point of not even looking at the transcript during the interview because I think it's rude, I just shove it under my legal pad when the student hands it to me. If interviewers do look at the transcript, there could be such a range of reactions that you shouldn't try to read the tea leaves. The risk is that you misunderstand a raised eyebrow and seem defensive. I can't think of a situation where being proactively defensive about grades ("Just so you know, I was sick and my cat died on the day of my Torts exam") will help you. Some interviewers will ask about bad grades ("What happened in Contracts?") which might feel awkward but is about the kindest thing they can do for you.
Lastly, if your firm as offices in NY and CA, and you find out that a student has interviews lined up with both offices, is that kid totally fucked? Or is there flexibility? I know some firms organizationally keep recruiting entirely separate and others don't.
Not totally fucked, but depends on the firm. We understand that law students don't always know where they want to be and deciding between 2 cities isn't bad. Deciding between 6 is. And you would only be fucked in your scenario if you lied to one ("I definitely plan on spending my summer in NY") and then we find out you are interviewing elsewhere. Even at a "offices interview separately" firm, they would find that stuff out.