Your thoughts on my strange offer Forum

[Grizz]

I love how anon poster above posted anon to avoid ridicule.

[IAFG]

BigLaw isn't going anywhere if you strike out in 2LOLCI. If you have the credentials to get it, you can get it after graduation, after you take the bar, or after a clerkship. If you have a chance to avoid biglaw hell with an offer that promises good income, take it and never look back.

This is true for people who have auto-admit credentials. It is probably not true for someone with one offer, at a lower V100.

[Anonymous User]

Why not take the V100 offer, then lateral over in a few years if you're still interested?

That type of firm probably wouldn't want a biglaw lateral, otherwise they'd be finding one right now instead of recruiting people like OP. Big law laterals are damaged goods on the market; that's the secret that biglaw doesn't want you to know.

I have a somewhat similar situation except I already have the offer as a result of my SA. Offer rates for SA's at that firm were about 40% (4 offers--including me--over about 10 SA's in the past handful of years), but if you get an offer, it's like hitting the lottery. Good work hours, relatively interesting work, enter immediately on the partner track and stay there unless you screw it up, have a chance to make big law money in low cost of living area, etc. Only down side is you start at midlaw money (with bonuses that can bring it higher) for the first 3 years before stepping up to biglaw pay.

Personally, I say go for it if you have a good feel for the firm and trust the model. You do have the option of trying to talk to some of their employees prior to making a decision.

People will destroy me for saying this, but BigLaw isn't going anywhere if you strike out in 2LOLCI. If you have the credentials to get it, you can get it after graduation, after you take the bar, or after a clerkship. If you have a chance to avoid biglaw hell with an offer that promises good income, take it and never look back.

OP here. Your situation actually sounds EXACTLY the same. In any event, I am going thru the process of talking to lawyers at the firm. It sounds like the better your work the less likely you are to get the no offer. However, even someone who does great work could theoretically get a no offer if they don't anticipate the work being there at graduation.

On the split: Wouldn't that make my life a lot easier if they aloud splits. But they don't.

[Anonymous User]

You don't want to take that risk and take a firm that offers 50-60%. I was at one of those firms that offered 50-60%. They paid market but in the recent couple years their offer rates were in the 50s/60%s.

Sometimes things are outside your control. Different people think differently about your writing. 9/10 partners might think your writing is good but the one partner that thinks it is just ok might be the managing partner.

The thing is, ITE I'd say over 90% of the people that have summer positions are very capable and qualified. The problem is that since it is such a small sample size of students, you might be with everyone in the top 5% from a local TT or TTT. Plus there might be other factors involved ... ie "family connections" or just not liking you.

Don't take the risk. A lot of things are not in your control.
If that is the only offer you have, then take it, otherwise, take the sure or near sure thing.

[Grizz]

lol alloud

[existenz]

if they aloud splits.

Yeah, this makes me think he should take the V100.

[Anonymous User]

You don't want to take that risk and take a firm that offers 50-60%. I was at one of those firms that offered 50-60%. They paid market but in the recent couple years their offer rates were in the 50s/60%s.

Sometimes things are outside your control. Different people think differently about your writing. 9/10 partners might think your writing is good but the one partner that thinks it is just ok might be the managing partner.

The thing is, ITE I'd say over 90% of the people that have summer positions are very capable and qualified. The problem is that since it is such a small sample size of students, you might be with everyone in the top 5% from a local TT or TTT. Plus there might be other factors involved ... ie "family connections" or just not liking you.

Don't take the risk. A lot of things are not in your control.
If that is the only offer you have, then take it, otherwise, take the sure or near sure thing.

This is a big concern of mine. I get the feeling that they wouldn't MIND giving 100% offers IF they loved each summer AND they had the work to go around. The summer program is pretty new and I don't think they've quite figured out how to hire summers that are great fits yet.

[Bosque]

BigLaw isn't going anywhere if you strike out in 2LOLCI. If you have the credentials to get it, you can get it after graduation, after you take the bar, or after a clerkship. If you have a chance to avoid biglaw hell with an offer that promises good income, take it and never look back.

This is true for people who have auto-admit credentials. It is probably not true for someone with one offer, at a lower V100.

Not even true for most people with auto admit credentials. If you are looking for big law as a 3L, you are looking for a clerkship. That's pretty much your shot.

[IAFG]

BigLaw isn't going anywhere if you strike out in 2LOLCI. If you have the credentials to get it, you can get it after graduation, after you take the bar, or after a clerkship. If you have a chance to avoid biglaw hell with an offer that promises good income, take it and never look back.

This is true for people who have auto-admit credentials. It is probably not true for someone with one offer, at a lower V100.

Not even true for most people with auto admit credentials. If you are looking for big law as a 3L, you are looking for a clerkship. That's pretty much your shot.

If you had an SA and got an offer, there are firms trying to poach people like you. At least this cycle. Maybe it has been and will be different.

[Bosque]

BigLaw isn't going anywhere if you strike out in 2LOLCI. If you have the credentials to get it, you can get it after graduation, after you take the bar, or after a clerkship. If you have a chance to avoid biglaw hell with an offer that promises good income, take it and never look back.

This is true for people who have auto-admit credentials. It is probably not true for someone with one offer, at a lower V100.

Not even true for most people with auto admit credentials. If you are looking for big law as a 3L, you are looking for a clerkship. That's pretty much your shot.

If you had an SA and got an offer, there are firms trying to poach people like you. At least this cycle. Maybe it has been and will be different.

I haven't seen any. Then again, I haven't been looking, so maybe there really are some. But I haven't heard of any action of this type.

But even then, they are looking to poach people WITH offers. Not people with the numbers to get offers who didn't. They don't want the kids another firm tried out and decided to cut (even from a firm like the OP describes). They want the kids another firm tried out and liked. Not having a SA offer makes you damaged goods. It shouldn't automatically, but it does unfortunately. So even when this hiring is happening, it doesn't really help the OP if he gets no offered.

[minnbills]

The risk of being no-offered would be too much for me to stomach. Especially in light of your other option.

That said, it sounds like you've already made your decision and you're just looking for people to justify it.

[Anonymous User]

The risk of being no-offered would be too much for me to stomach. Especially in light of your other option.

That said, it sounds like you've already made your decision and you're just looking for people to justify it.

Not at all, its just everyone is opposed to it and I'm trying to see if their reasons for being opposed to it are strong ones.

[Anonymous User]

I love how anon poster above posted anon to avoid ridicule.

I posted anon b/c I was discussing a current offer of mine and have reasons for that information to remain anon.

Not at all, its just everyone is opposed to it and I'm trying to see if their reasons for being opposed to it are strong ones.

"Everyone" that's opposed to it is a TLS poster. This isn't a representative sample of law school students, much less practicing lawyers. TLS'ers are more likely to be highly-competitive, risk-adverse type A personalities attending highly-ranked schools than the general pool of law students or lawyers. As such, they are going to pursue biglaw and pooh pooh on any other option.

Of course, others' concerns of being no-offered are valid. You certainly will want to get as much information as you can about the probability of landing an offer and how much you trust their self-professed pay scales. This is ultimately a surprisingly simple risk assessment decision; it's just a matter of having the most reliable facts possible before making the decision.

[Anonymous User]

^ I am very confident in both the payscale and the 50% historical offer figure. The firm has been extremely upfront about both.

[rayiner]

The risk of being no-offered would be too much for me to stomach. Especially in light of your other option.

That said, it sounds like you've already made your decision and you're just looking for people to justify it.

Not at all, its just everyone is opposed to it and I'm trying to see if their reasons for being opposed to it are strong ones.

Look, it is a classic risk-reward situation. 50% probability of life-destroying pwnage with high upside, or 10% chance of life-destroying pwnage with moderate upside.

In your shoes I'd take the risk, but I was dumb enough to take the 50% risk when I decided to go to law school. So why not twice? If you've got federal clerkship-level stats then definitely take the risk, but gun hard to get a clerkship so you have a fallback.

[Anonymous User]

The risk of being no-offered would be too much for me to stomach. Especially in light of your other option.

That said, it sounds like you've already made your decision and you're just looking for people to justify it.

Not at all, its just everyone is opposed to it and I'm trying to see if their reasons for being opposed to it are strong ones.

Look, it is a classic risk-reward situation. 50% probability of life-destroying pwnage with high upside, or 10% chance of life-destroying pwnage with moderate upside.

In your shoes I'd take the risk, but I was dumb enough to take the 50% risk when I decided to go to law school. So why not twice? If you've got federal clerkship-level stats then definitely take the risk, but gun hard to get a clerkship so you have a fallback.

No way on earth do I have federal clerkship-level stats. Might be able to land a state appeals clerkship. Outside shot at state supreme.

[Anonymous User]

Serious, not intended to be self-aggrandizing question. I have super federal clerkship stats at a t14. My class standing can only go down from here. Am I to take it that, if I were to not get a clerkship (say, by scheduling every super-competitive interview I get and not talking to anyone from certain less hyped circuits), I wouldn't have a shot at getting an offer from a firm? That seems to be what people are saying above. You may say people in my situation are an exception to the general rule, but consider that people with federal clerkship stats have, by definition, Williams and Connolly stats or at least somewhere close. You would think anyone with clerkship numbers might be attractive to firms, period, not just someone with super-clerkship numbers.

[rayiner]

The risk of being no-offered would be too much for me to stomach. Especially in light of your other option.

That said, it sounds like you've already made your decision and you're just looking for people to justify it.

Not at all, its just everyone is opposed to it and I'm trying to see if their reasons for being opposed to it are strong ones.

Look, it is a classic risk-reward situation. 50% probability of life-destroying pwnage with high upside, or 10% chance of life-destroying pwnage with moderate upside.

In your shoes I'd take the risk, but I was dumb enough to take the 50% risk when I decided to go to law school. So why not twice? If you've got federal clerkship-level stats then definitely take the risk, but gun hard to get a clerkship so you have a fallback.

No way on earth do I have federal clerkship-level stats. Might be able to land a state appeals clerkship. Outside shot at state supreme.

Well then it depends on your risk tolerance, which only you can evaluate. How much debt do you have, etc? Without federal clerkship level grades, getting big law after a no-offer will be tough to impossible. So it really is just a decision between: high upside with high probability of downside versus moderate upside with low probability of downside.

Would you be OK in the situation where you got no-offered? I personally think it's good to take some risk when you're young, but I also have a ton of debt and want a wife and kids so not having a clerkship as a fall-back would really make me hesitate.

[rayiner]

Serious, not intended to be self-aggrandizing question. I have super federal clerkship stats at a t14. My class standing can only go down from here. Am I to take it that, if I were to not get a clerkship (say, by scheduling every super-competitive interview I get and not talking to anyone from certain less hyped circuits), I wouldn't have a shot at getting an offer from a firm? That seems to be what people are saying above. You may say people in my situation are an exception to the general rule, but consider that people with federal clerkship stats have, by definition, Williams and Connolly stats or at least somewhere close. You would think anyone with clerkship numbers might be attractive to firms, period, not just someone with super-clerkship numbers.

I'm not really sure what your question is about. Most federal (Article III) clerks will have some big law options after their clerkship. Your situation is different: if you schedule only super-competitive clerkship interviews and strike out, you can always just accept your offer from your 2L firm.

[Aberzombie1892]

Wait...don't most lower V100 firms have relatively low offer rates as well? If the offer rates between the mid law firm and big law firm are similar, and you cannot split, I would go with the mid law firm. If, on the other hand, the V100 firm has an offer rate of 85%+ at any point in the last 4 years, I would go with it.

[Anonymous User]

Wait...don't most lower V100 firms have relatively low offer rates as well? If the offer rates between the mid law firm and big law firm are similar, and you cannot split, I would go with the mid law firm. If, on the other hand, the V100 firm has an offer rate of 85%+ at any point in the last 4 years, I would go with it.

Huh? No. Some do, but some firms much higher in on the V range have lo offer rates as well. Near 100 seems like the norm all up and down vault tho.

[Aberzombie1892]

Oh okay. For some reason, I was thinking some the lower end of Vault firms (closer to 100) had offer rates of around 70%.

[Anonymous User]

Oh okay. For some reason, I was thinking some the lower end of Vault firms (closer to 100) had offer rates of around 70%.

Some do, sure.

[Anonymous User]

You don't want to take that risk and take a firm that offers 50-60%. I was at one of those firms that offered 50-60%. They paid market but in the recent couple years their offer rates were in the 50s/60%s.

Sometimes things are outside your control. Different people think differently about your writing. 9/10 partners might think your writing is good but the one partner that thinks it is just ok might be the managing partner.

The thing is, ITE I'd say over 90% of the people that have summer positions are very capable and qualified. The problem is that since it is such a small sample size of students, you might be with everyone in the top 5% from a local TT or TTT. Plus there might be other factors involved ... ie "family connections" or just not liking you.

Don't take the risk. A lot of things are not in your control.
If that is the only offer you have, then take it, otherwise, take the sure or near sure thing.

This is a big concern of mine. I get the feeling that they wouldn't MIND giving 100% offers IF they loved each summer AND they had the work to go around. The summer program is pretty new and I don't think they've quite figured out how to hire summers that are great fits yet.

I don't think that is true. If there are 6-10 summer associates, there is no way that 1/2 of them are "bad."
1 bad apple? maybe. 2 bad apples? unlikely but possible. 3-4 bad apples??? I think there is a problem at that point.

Especially in this market, SA generally come in and work very hard and know that firms have tight scrutiny. I doubt half the class or even 30-40% of a class are worth no-offers.

[Anonymous User]

You don't want to take that risk and take a firm that offers 50-60%. I was at one of those firms that offered 50-60%. They paid market but in the recent couple years their offer rates were in the 50s/60%s.

Sometimes things are outside your control. Different people think differently about your writing. 9/10 partners might think your writing is good but the one partner that thinks it is just ok might be the managing partner.

The thing is, ITE I'd say over 90% of the people that have summer positions are very capable and qualified. The problem is that since it is such a small sample size of students, you might be with everyone in the top 5% from a local TT or TTT. Plus there might be other factors involved ... ie "family connections" or just not liking you.

Don't take the risk. A lot of things are not in your control.
If that is the only offer you have, then take it, otherwise, take the sure or near sure thing.

This is a big concern of mine. I get the feeling that they wouldn't MIND giving 100% offers IF they loved each summer AND they had the work to go around. The summer program is pretty new and I don't think they've quite figured out how to hire summers that are great fits yet.

I don't think that is true. If there are 6-10 summer associates, there is no way that 1/2 of them are "bad."
1 bad apple? maybe. 2 bad apples? unlikely but possible. 3-4 bad apples??? I think there is a problem at that point.

Especially in this market, SA generally come in and work very hard and know that firms have tight scrutiny. I doubt half the class or even 30-40% of a class are worth no-offers.

Summer class is much smaller. Also, what I mean is that they wiould be willing to give offers to all summers if there was work for thm and all were fantastic, not merely good.