Cautionary Tale Forum

[thrillerjesus]

Anyone who will be graduating with minimal debt and still wants biglaw is either an idiot or else just has no idea of what that life is like.

This is really stupid.

Well, perhaps "idiot" is too strong a word. But it's certainly a messed up value system. If you don't have a $1600/month loan payment, you don't need to make $160k right out of the box. And considering that the work itself is comparatively mind-numbing, the social value of the work is close to nil, and the work-life balance is atrocious, it would seem that a person shooting for that situation without the debt load is basically sacrificing their personal life for the sole benefit of having a "prestigious" employer. Which strikes me as kind of stupid.

Biglaw is not the only path to making big money, it's just the only path to big money that doesn't actually require you to be good at being a lawyer. You just need to kill 1L and be willing to work like a slave.

[okinawa]

.

[Anonymous User]

Hi TLS.

There seems to be a lot of talk on here about T14 schools OCI and what-not, and I wanted to give a different perspective on what the job market is like for non-top 14rs.

My story:

A year ago, had to decide between a T10 school in a city I did not want to be, and a T30 NY school (duh) on basically a full scholarship. Took the T30 for family reasons plus my aversion to debt. Worked pretty hard, finished in the top 20% plus secondary journal. OCI came: 7 interviews, 1 callback, no offers. Honestly, did not feel as if I had a real shot at biglaw, and I have numerous classmates in the same position.

Any questions?

I find it hard to believe that was the norm for someone with your stats a year ago. I go to fordham now, am also in the top 20% and on a secondary journal and I received 13 screeners, 6 callbacks, and so far have two offers both from v100 firms. I also know multiple people on my journal with similar stats who got just as many, if not more, screeners/callbacks. That being said, I don't think you should be discouraging people from coming to Fordham based on your bad experience last year.

[Julio_El_Chavo]

What is a Fordham?

[Anonymous User]

OP here.

I am not complaining about my plight, nor am I saying that nobody at Fordham gets biglaw. From what I have seen, law review people do amazing, and top 25% or so have a shot, and congrats to the person that keeps posting that they did amazing and all their friends did amazing. That is good to hear. I am just giving one perspective on the situation and that of a number of my friends that were all pretty shocked to strike out based on their place in the class. This is by no means meant to discourage anyone considering Fordham. I would just suggest really doing your research and going in knowing that Fordham does not place "like a T14" as some have suggested.

[Anonymous User]

After LR it is a risk for sure. I know multiple people on Urban with offers and some on other journals with offers. 7 interviews is low for top 20% and probably reflects an unlucky bidding strategy. Good luck, the vast majority of people at Fordham don't have offers right now, but the majority of those people will find employment.

[Total Litigator]

Moral of the story might be know where you should be bidding.

[mrloblaw]

Anyone who will be graduating with minimal debt and still wants biglaw is either an idiot or else just has no idea of what that life is like.

This is really stupid.

Well, perhaps "idiot" is too strong a word. But it's certainly a messed up value system. If you don't have a $1600/month loan payment, you don't need to make $160k right out of the box. And considering that the work itself is comparatively mind-numbing, the social value of the work is close to nil, and the work-life balance is atrocious, it would seem that a person shooting for that situation without the debt load is basically sacrificing their personal life for the sole benefit of having a "prestigious" employer. Which strikes me as kind of stupid.

Biglaw is not the only path to making big money, it's just the only path to big money that doesn't actually require you to be good at being a lawyer. You just need to kill 1L and be willing to work like a slave.

If your argument was valid, shouldn't all the top kids at T14s be gunning for LRAP? Better hours, (often) more challenging and meaningful work, etc. Yet those kids still gun for biglaw.

[MrAnon]

OP should be rightfully upset. The school pedals biglaw whether it wants to admit it or not. All the schools in that range do. Whether you come to the school with expectations of no debt or a million in debt then you expect greater than a 15% shot at biglaw. They dont put shitlaw alums in the admissions literature for everyone to fawn over. They show off the biglaw alums. Whatever calculations he made, be they passing up a top tier school for the money or whatever, he did it because he was under the impression, and it was pushed, that he had a good shot at biglaw.

[thrillerjesus]

Anyone who will be graduating with minimal debt and still wants biglaw is either an idiot or else just has no idea of what that life is like.

This is really stupid.

Well, perhaps "idiot" is too strong a word. But it's certainly a messed up value system. If you don't have a $1600/month loan payment, you don't need to make $160k right out of the box. And considering that the work itself is comparatively mind-numbing, the social value of the work is close to nil, and the work-life balance is atrocious, it would seem that a person shooting for that situation without the debt load is basically sacrificing their personal life for the sole benefit of having a "prestigious" employer. Which strikes me as kind of stupid.

Biglaw is not the only path to making big money, it's just the only path to big money that doesn't actually require you to be good at being a lawyer. You just need to kill 1L and be willing to work like a slave.

If your argument was valid, shouldn't all the top kids at T14s be gunning for LRAP? Better hours, (often) more challenging and meaningful work, etc. Yet those kids still gun for biglaw.

Not if they want to practice in non-LRAP areas. Lots of us are actually interested in doing private criminal defense, or professional misconduct, or personal injury. Biglaw gives you the big money sooner, and without having to actually be skilled at anything. It's a bit more of a gamble to go another route, because you actually will rise or fall based on your lawyering ability.

[JusticeHarlan]

OP should be rightfully upset. The school pedals biglaw whether it wants to admit it or not. All the schools in that range do. Whether you come to the school with expectations of no debt or a million in debt then you expect greater than a 15% shot at biglaw. They dont put shitlaw alums in the admissions literature for everyone to fawn over. They show off the biglaw alums. Whatever calculations he made, be they passing up a top tier school for the money or whatever, he did it because he was under the impression, and it was pushed, that he had a good shot at biglaw.

First of all, any current 2L knew how the economy was when they put down their deposits in spring of 2010. Let's not pretend anyone who did any research couldn't see what was coming. It was gonna be rough, and no one should have gone to law school as biglaw or bust. OP probably realized that, taking the scholarship money at Fordham.

But, more interestingly, we're trying to evaluate how typical OP's situation is for someone of his class rank. Multiple people seem to think 7 screeners seems too low for his rank, and a suboptimal bidding strategy might have been part of it. That's obviously something Fordham career services should be advising student better about. But to extrapolate from this one story to a less than 15% chance at biglaw, or drawing any % from any single person's story, is silly. At my school I know some people on law review who are sweating bullets without an offer, and people on secondaries who are sitting happy with good SA gigs lined up. I'm sure Fordham is the same.

tl;dr: don't blame the school for someone who knew what was up going into things, who will be graduating without debt, and seems to be under-performing their numbers relative to similarly situated students.

[Anonymous User]

OP should be rightfully upset. The school pedals biglaw whether it wants to admit it or not. All the schools in that range do. Whether you come to the school with expectations of no debt or a million in debt then you expect greater than a 15% shot at biglaw. They dont put shitlaw alums in the admissions literature for everyone to fawn over. They show off the biglaw alums. Whatever calculations he made, be they passing up a top tier school for the money or whatever, he did it because he was under the impression, and it was pushed, that he had a good shot at biglaw.

First of all, any current 2L knew how the economy was when they put down their deposits in spring of 2010. Let's not pretend anyone who did any research couldn't see what was coming. It was gonna be rough, and no one should have gone to law school as biglaw or bust. OP probably realized that, taking the scholarship money at Fordham.

But, more interestingly, we're trying to evaluate how typical OP's situation is for someone of his class rank. Multiple people seem to think 7 screeners seems too low for his rank, and a suboptimal bidding strategy might have been part of it. That's obviously something Fordham career services should be advising student better about. But to extrapolate from this one story to a less than 15% chance at biglaw, or drawing any % from any single person's story, is silly. At my school I know some people on law review who are sweating bullets without an offer, and people on secondaries who are sitting happy with good SA gigs lined up. I'm sure Fordham is the same.

tl;dr: don't blame the school for someone who knew what was up going into things, who will be graduating without debt, and seems to be under-performing their numbers relative to similarly situated students.

fordham 2l on lr...v10 lined up.

i'd say most people on lr are fine...lr really killed it this year based on all the people i've spoken to.

one thing i must say is that career services does a great job of trying to give people realistic expectations. the problem is that people simply don't listen. i'm somewhere between 5-6% percent and the dean of csc told me candidly where i should bid, and what was a reach. there wasn't much that was a reach, but still a firm like s&c, i needed to bid higher, because they likely would not pick me and even then it'd still be a stretch for me. so i dropped them off my list.

i know she did the same for another friend top 15% and while he was pissed at the time that she was so negative, it made him bid more strategically and he landed two great offers.

sounds like the op dropped the ball.

[tyro]

Do you agree that your bidding strategy might have been too aggressive?

[Anonymous User]

I go to Fordham, top 7-10%, high-ranked secondary journal.

20 OCI screeners, 7 callbacks. Have gone on 5 callbacks, been rejected from 4 of them. I'm trying to be hopeful for the 3 firms from which I either have not heard, or have not visited.

BIDDING: In constructing my bid list: I attended the "Getting to 35" event, and got the insight about what firms hire students from different percentages in the class. I went to career services, who helped me shave off a number of firms (though interestingly did not advise me against bidding on Sullivan & Cromwell). I also spoke with a bunch of OCI-successful 3Ls who had similar stats to me when they went through OCI, and shared my bid list with them. All said it looked good - that there were no firms on it that seemed out of place.

In looking back, however, I think I probably bid on too many V20 firms (I probably had about 14 of the top 20 Vault firms on my list). At the same time, however, multiple people who had both gone through the process plus career services had told me this strategy was fine.

INTERVIEWING: I did the mock interview program, and received positive feedback about my presentation, resume, and demeanor. I did Spring OCI at school as well, so I had some experience with legal interviewing already. During my screeners and callbacks, I have felt comfortable in 90% of my interviews, and always have questions prepared.

Having not received any offers despite a decent number of callbacks, I asked a bunch of friends about their interviewing strategies. I even did another mock interview with a lawyer friend of mine to determine whether I was coming off as a prick during interviews. All feedback was again positive - that I was asking the right questions, presenting the information on my resume in a confident manner, and showing that I am smart, friendly, and motivated.

This post might be premature, and I might get an offer in the next few weeks, but right now I'm at a loss to explain what is happening with my story. Unlike the OP I will graduate with a decent amount of debt. I knew that I had to be in the top 10% to have a great shot at BigLaw, and I did that. I knew that not making Law Review might hurt my chances, but I had no idea how severely the lack of LR would sting. All my LR friends are either deciding which offer to take, or have taken an offer. While a decent number of people on my journal have offers, a more sizable group of us are still waiting, or are watching the rejections pile up.

So, ultimately I echo the frustration of some of the Fordham posters here. I worry about my own situation, and am unsure how to explain it. I agree with the above poster that we all knew the economic situation when we sent in our deposit checks, but I feel like I put in the effort and got the results necessary to justify said check.

[YourCaptain]

With no debt, who cares about big law?

I'd wager <10% of people who go to law school aspire to be big law lawyers, and that may be being generous.

Are you really one of those people?

Who cares what they aspired to be when they went to law school. Once they get to law school and either discover what biglaw is and how much it pays or realize how much debt they are going to be in >80% then aspire to be big law lawyers. If you think less than 10% of students at any top 50 school are aspiring to be in biglaw you're a wrong.

Looks like you missed the part where OP was on an almost free ride. Anyone who will be graduating with minimal debt and still wants biglaw is either an idiot or else just has no idea of what that life is like.

lol ok buddy

[Anonymous User]

I go to Fordham, top 7-10%, high-ranked secondary journal.

20 OCI screeners, 7 callbacks. Have gone on 5 callbacks, been rejected from 4 of them. I'm trying to be hopeful for the 3 firms from which I either have not heard, or have not visited.

BIDDING: In constructing my bid list: I attended the "Getting to 35" event, and got the insight about what firms hire students from different percentages in the class. I went to career services, who helped me shave off a number of firms (though interestingly did not advise me against bidding on Sullivan & Cromwell). I also spoke with a bunch of OCI-successful 3Ls who had similar stats to me when they went through OCI, and shared my bid list with them. All said it looked good - that there were no firms on it that seemed out of place.

In looking back, however, I think I probably bid on too many V20 firms (I probably had about 14 of the top 20 Vault firms on my list). At the same time, however, multiple people who had both gone through the process plus career services had told me this strategy was fine.

INTERVIEWING: I did the mock interview program, and received positive feedback about my presentation, resume, and demeanor. I did Spring OCI at school as well, so I had some experience with legal interviewing already. During my screeners and callbacks, I have felt comfortable in 90% of my interviews, and always have questions prepared.

Having not received any offers despite a decent number of callbacks, I asked a bunch of friends about their interviewing strategies. I even did another mock interview with a lawyer friend of mine to determine whether I was coming off as a prick during interviews. All feedback was again positive - that I was asking the right questions, presenting the information on my resume in a confident manner, and showing that I am smart, friendly, and motivated.

This post might be premature, and I might get an offer in the next few weeks, but right now I'm at a loss to explain what is happening with my story. Unlike the OP I will graduate with a decent amount of debt. I knew that I had to be in the top 10% to have a great shot at BigLaw, and I did that. I knew that not making Law Review might hurt my chances, but I had no idea how severely the lack of LR would sting. All my LR friends are either deciding which offer to take, or have taken an offer. While a decent number of people on my journal have offers, a more sizable group of us are still waiting, or are watching the rejections pile up.

So, ultimately I echo the frustration of some of the Fordham posters here. I worry about my own situation, and am unsure how to explain it. I agree with the above poster that we all knew the economic situation when we sent in our deposit checks, but I feel like I put in the effort and got the results necessary to justify said check.

what is the vault range of the CBs you had?

[Anonymous User]

I go to Fordham, top 7-10%, high-ranked secondary journal.

what is the vault range of the CBs you had?

2 were V11-V20.
3 were V75-100.
1 was V31-40.
One is not Vault.

[Anonymous User]

I go to Fordham, top 7-10%, high-ranked secondary journal.

what is the vault range of the CBs you had?

2 were V11-V20.
3 were V75-100.
1 was V31-40.
One is not Vault.

your range seems totally fine. i am in same range as you. i had five callbacks and sneaked by with one offer.
i know what you mean. i don't know why it was so hard. just from anecdote, it seems like WE played a big role this time around. do you have good WE?

[Anonymous User]

I go to Fordham, top 7-10%, high-ranked secondary journal.

what is the vault range of the CBs you had?

2 were V11-V20.
3 were V75-100.
1 was V31-40.
One is not Vault.

your range seems totally fine. i am in same range as you. i had five callbacks and sneaked by with one offer.
i know what you mean. i don't know why it was so hard. just from anecdote, it seems like WE played a big role this time around. do you have good WE?

Worked for more than two years after undergrad. Full-time at a couple different companies.

[Anonymous User]

Another moral, bid lower than whatever CSC tells you.

[Anonymous User]

OP should be rightfully upset. The school pedals biglaw whether it wants to admit it or not. All the schools in that range do. Whether you come to the school with expectations of no debt or a million in debt then you expect greater than a 15% shot at biglaw. They dont put shitlaw alums in the admissions literature for everyone to fawn over. They show off the biglaw alums. Whatever calculations he made, be they passing up a top tier school for the money or whatever, he did it because he was under the impression, and it was pushed, that he had a good shot at biglaw.

First of all, any current 2L knew how the economy was when they put down their deposits in spring of 2010. Let's not pretend anyone who did any research couldn't see what was coming. It was gonna be rough, and no one should have gone to law school as biglaw or bust. OP probably realized that, taking the scholarship money at Fordham.

But, more interestingly, we're trying to evaluate how typical OP's situation is for someone of his class rank. Multiple people seem to think 7 screeners seems too low for his rank, and a suboptimal bidding strategy might have been part of it. That's obviously something Fordham career services should be advising student better about. But to extrapolate from this one story to a less than 15% chance at biglaw, or drawing any % from any single person's story, is silly. At my school I know some people on law review who are sweating bullets without an offer, and people on secondaries who are sitting happy with good SA gigs lined up. I'm sure Fordham is the same.

tl;dr: don't blame the school for someone who knew what was up going into things, who will be graduating without debt, and seems to be under-performing their numbers relative to similarly situated students.

fordham 2l on lr...v10 lined up.

i'd say most people on lr are fine...lr really killed it this year based on all the people i've spoken to.

one thing i must say is that career services does a great job of trying to give people realistic expectations. the problem is that people simply don't listen. i'm somewhere between 5-6% percent and the dean of csc told me candidly where i should bid, and what was a reach. there wasn't much that was a reach, but still a firm like s&c, i needed to bid higher, because they likely would not pick me and even then it'd still be a stretch for me. so i dropped them off my list.

i know she did the same for another friend top 15% and while he was pissed at the time that she was so negative, it made him bid more strategically and he landed two great offers.

sounds like the op dropped the ball.

OP here. I'm not sure how you can just assume that I "dropped the ball" when you didn't even see my bid list. I sat down with CPC, went through my list, dropped some firms that I thought would be out of my range. I ended up with a list that seemed like a good balance, and I would not say that is the reason for low number of screeners.

[JusticeHarlan]

OP here. I'm not sure how you can just assume that I "dropped the ball" when you didn't even see my bid list. I sat down with CPC, went through my list, dropped some firms that I thought would be out of my range. I ended up with a list that seemed like a good balance, and I would not say that is the reason for low number of screeners.

What would you say is the reason? I'm curious, not trying to harass you or anything.

[DrGuano]

OP should be rightfully upset. The school pedals biglaw whether it wants to admit it or not. All the schools in that range do. Whether you come to the school with expectations of no debt or a million in debt then you expect greater than a 15% shot at biglaw. They dont put shitlaw alums in the admissions literature for everyone to fawn over. They show off the biglaw alums. Whatever calculations he made, be they passing up a top tier school for the money or whatever, he did it because he was under the impression, and it was pushed, that he had a good shot at biglaw.

First of all, any current 2L knew how the economy was when they put down their deposits in spring of 2010. Let's not pretend anyone who did any research couldn't see what was coming. It was gonna be rough, and no one should have gone to law school as biglaw or bust. OP probably realized that, taking the scholarship money at Fordham.

But, more interestingly, we're trying to evaluate how typical OP's situation is for someone of his class rank. Multiple people seem to think 7 screeners seems too low for his rank, and a suboptimal bidding strategy might have been part of it. That's obviously something Fordham career services should be advising student better about. But to extrapolate from this one story to a less than 15% chance at biglaw, or drawing any % from any single person's story, is silly. At my school I know some people on law review who are sweating bullets without an offer, and people on secondaries who are sitting happy with good SA gigs lined up. I'm sure Fordham is the same.

tl;dr: don't blame the school for someone who knew what was up going into things, who will be graduating without debt, and seems to be under-performing their numbers relative to similarly situated students.

fordham 2l on lr...v10 lined up.

i'd say most people on lr are fine...lr really killed it this year based on all the people i've spoken to.

one thing i must say is that career services does a great job of trying to give people realistic expectations. the problem is that people simply don't listen. i'm somewhere between 5-6% percent and the dean of csc told me candidly where i should bid, and what was a reach. there wasn't much that was a reach, but still a firm like s&c, i needed to bid higher, because they likely would not pick me and even then it'd still be a stretch for me. so i dropped them off my list.

i know she did the same for another friend top 15% and while he was pissed at the time that she was so negative, it made him bid more strategically and he landed two great offers.

sounds like the op dropped the ball.

OP here. I'm not sure how you can just assume that I "dropped the ball" when you didn't even see my bid list. I sat down with CPC, went through my list, dropped some firms that I thought would be out of my range. I ended up with a list that seemed like a good balance, and I would not say that is the reason for low number of screeners.

ball dropper!!!

[Anonymous User]

OP here. I'm not sure how you can just assume that I "dropped the ball" when you didn't even see my bid list. I sat down with CPC, went through my list, dropped some firms that I thought would be out of my range. I ended up with a list that seemed like a good balance, and I would not say that is the reason for low number of screeners.

What would you say is the reason? I'm curious, not trying to harass you or anything.

I don't know what the reason is for the low number of screeners. I have a decent resume and there weren't any typo's or anything on it. Could just be unlucky I guess.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone who will be graduating with minimal debt and still wants biglaw is either an idiot or else just has no idea of what that life is like.

This is really stupid.

Well, perhaps "idiot" is too strong a word. But it's certainly a messed up value system. If you don't have a $1600/month loan payment, you don't need to make $160k right out of the box. And considering that the work itself is comparatively mind-numbing, the social value of the work is close to nil, and the work-life balance is atrocious, it would seem that a person shooting for that situation without the debt load is basically sacrificing their personal life for the sole benefit of having a "prestigious" employer. Which strikes me as kind of stupid.

Biglaw is not the only path to making big money, it's just the only path to big money that doesn't actually require you to be good at being a lawyer. You just need to kill 1L and be willing to work like a slave.

If your argument was valid, shouldn't all the top kids at T14s be gunning for LRAP? Better hours, (often) more challenging and meaningful work, etc. Yet those kids still gun for biglaw.

Actually, the argument can still be valid. It simply means any one of 3 factors, or a combination of them, is present: (1) Biglaw gunners don't know what they're getting into, (2) Biglaw gunners value a prestigious employer over a personal life, and/or (3) Biglaw gunners don't mind being slaves.