do firms do a background check?

[20160810]

You need to apply a balancing test before listing your prep school on your law school resume. Balance the likelihood that it will help you get a job (which, I'll grant you, is statistically nonzero) against the likelihood that it will raise eyebrows and make people think you're an asshole (higher, I'd wager).

The ONLY way I might list my high school is if I grew up in a place, went away for a while, and it's not obvious in my resume that I'm from there. But you've also got the cover letter.

I wouldn't put on the resume, but I would use it for interviews. I went to a really good/well known high school, and I bring it up when my interviewer went to college around the area. It's a very good way to establish ties and start conversations.

I can think of one scenario you could put it on your resume - if you won an award or something. But that still wouldn't be in the education section.

IN FAIRNESS, I did interview at one firm in San Jose where like half of the attorney bios listed a local prep school. I thought it was weird and I've never seen this done anywhere else, but there are some people who care. In situations like that, if I'd gone to the same school, you bet I would have brought it up. But for the most part, no one curr.

[Anonymous User]

IP firms DO require undergrad transcripts. Just about every firm I spoke to at PLIP last year required it. I made a good faith error on my resume, put 3.4 instead of 3.3 last year when I submitted it for PLIP. I hadn't looked that my undergrad GPA in years and it was an honest mistake -- only realized it when I ordered the UG transcript before the trip to PLIP. I showed up to the actual interviews with a corrected resume (along with the transcript) but never did explicitly point out the correction. Of course it is impossible to know if the error affected my chances, but I doubt it did.

One firm (from OCI this time -- the error on my resume had long been corrected) asked for my undergrad transcript after my callback. Then they dinged me. Go figure.

[niederbomb]

Okay, I changed my Spanish to "conversational."

Will I look like a major asshole if I include my high school on my resume? It was a good school. I've heard that i-banks actually like that, and aren't law firms similar prestige whores?

It depends on if your interviewer/hiring partner comes from a similarly privileged background and, as others said, the high school is in the same area for which you are interviewing.

Obviously, a big law partner is more likely than not to have grown up in the lap of privilege; then, it might help you if he or she went to that school or a similar school. But it's not guarantee. Personally, if I saw a prep school on a resume, I'd trash it and find an excuse to blacklist that person from the firm for infiniti (especially if that person ended up at an equal-ranked or lower-ranked law school than me), but maybe that's just me.

I suggest you do your homework, stalk your hiring partner, and plan accordingly.

EDIT: Likely to have grown up in the lap of privilege today - judging by most top law schools' current affirmative action policies favoring rich + white + suburban. But no guarantee that it was this way 20-30 years ago if your hiring partner is that old.