With grades starting to finally come in and some firm data now available, I figured it was about time to start this thread before lots of UVA threads pop up. For a start, here is last year's thread: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=157796. I hope that 2 and 3Ls as well as UVA alum will join us in here to give advice about bidding, firms, and the rest of the process.

Couple things:
1. Please only talk in this thread if you are/were a UVA student. I know last year there was a lot of people following this thread to see how UVA's OGI was doing. It turned out to cause a lot of panic and not be a good indicator of legal hiring at all. It is just too random. Also, for advice to be helpful it really ought to be UVA specific. Even CB info is not that helpful from other schools because interview dates could be several weeks different.
2. Certain info that CS asked be kept confidential ought to be kept confidential and not given out here (perhaps UVA mods can make sure of this).
3. How can it be OGI research time already?!?

Good luck, everyone

Added: here is the link to the Callback specific thread: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=191472&start=75

So, you know what would be really helpful in prepping for OGI? My fucking grades.

But yeah, thanks for making this thread. Checking in.

Agreed, wouldn't be surprised if it is Tuesday or Wednesday before they are all in.

While the wait for grades for rising 2Ls is frustrating, it probably isn't much of a problem for y'all - you'll have all your grades by the OGI bidding deadline and you'll know about VLR by then as well.

What I will says is far more problematic is that rising 3L's need their grades for clerkship applications. I think that rising 3Ls are at a distinct disadvantage for early summer clerkship hiring - most of our peers already have their grades and can send full a full 2 years of grades, while UVA kids have to wait or just send 3 semesters of grades.

Interesting, I (obviously) haven't thought of that. With as much focus as the school has placed on clerkships in the last five years, you'd think they'd realize this is another barrier they could do something about. I don't know how long other schools take to deliver grades (is there a thread on this?), but six weeks is really just ridiculous.

Can anyone speak to grade distribution. Do they get released at some point or do we just ballpark based on 3.65 = ~ top 10%, 3.4 = ~ top 1/3, 3.3 = ~ median etc.?

They never get released... that said, career services can tell you where you stand.

A few datapoints:

3.3 = median
3.48 = top 25%
3.71-3.73 = historical VLR grade-on cutoff (top 6.7% / top 25 students)
~3.8-3.82 = #13 in the class (at the beginning of the 3L year, the transfer grade-on info is released - transfers can grade on to VLR if, after a full year of grades, their GPA is ≥ the median GPA of the VLR grade-on's)

Checking in. One grade left.

+1

From the UVA student thread:




I will try to answer any questions people have, as will others I am sure.

edit: that 2011 UVA OGI thread was not our finest hour. Try your very best to not have an immediate meltdown when OGI preselects are first released. Trickle-down + lottery cured a lot of the initial ills, I think.

Anyone have any idea what last year's Law Review cutoff was?

I can't remember exactly what the cut-off was last year. I do recall that in the past 3-4 years, the cutoff has bounced between 3.71 and 3.73. Also, not that it really helps for OGI, but if at the end of 4 semesters, you're GPA has passed the post 1L cutoff, you grade onto VLR as a 3L. Two students in the c/o 2012 did this.

For those who have gone through OGI:

If you're a VLR grade on, is it safe to toss all 50 bids on DC? Really don't like/want to live in NYC.

I know a LR grade on who did this and only ended up with one offer in DC at a firm that was definitely not his/her top choice.

Reading that thread it seems like people bidding NY to be "safe" ended up getting killed. I spoke with someone at CS who intimated the same thing. Is this the general consensus of what happened among c/o 2013?

Well...shit. I know it's just one example, but do you know if s/he had WE or ties to DC? Also, any idea how many callbacks s/he had other than the one offer?

Even if you're a VLR grade-on who wants DC, you're doing yourself a big favor by including a few New York firms like Cravath, S&C, Debevoise, STB, DPW, etc. Look for the firms that don't have major DC offices so that you're not wasting an opportunity with a DC office. In other words, with firms like Latham, Gibson, Covington, etc. you should be bidding on the DC office only.

Everyone in the top 10% should be bidding on S&C, because no firm cares about your transcript more and your personality less.

Very helpful, thanks.

DC is tough... The largest summer class is Covington with ~40-45 SA's; everyone else in DC is anywhere between 5 and 25 SA's. I know many people who had top 10 (numerical rank, not %) who were disappointed with the firms they got offers from in DC. The competition is tough for DC - you're competing with the top of the class at HYS for the handful of SA slots.

The poster below is right - anyone who is a grade-on should be bidding on S&C, STB, Skadden, etc. NYC in addition to DC.

Also, re ties: in my experience, ties were not that important for DC. What was important for DC, however, was having a clear, articulable reason for being in DC. When they ask you why DC, you need to be able to say stuff along the lines of: I'm interested in regulatory work, or I want to be in a firm/office driven by litigation rather than corporate work, etc.

What is the lowest bid that could get you a lottery interview, i.e. how far down the bid list can you expect to get lottery picks? And, at what point in your bid list does the bid number not matter any more? 20s, 30s?

Again, thanks to those of you posting this stuff, it's incredibly helpful.

If that's really their approach, wouldn't it result in a horrendous culture in the office?

Also, does anyone actually use bids on the few gov't jobs mixed in with firms, or is that a waste of a bid?

Eh, I think S&C just relies on self-selection. Most people I know who went to S&C chose it over peer firms - they are very, very good at what they do. And, with a 100 person class there's room for a variety of personalities.

I would say that gov't jobs during OCI are probably a wasted bid - every SA at least gives you a shot at full-time employment, the same can't be said for the government positions.

I didn't get any lottery bids a couple years ago. I was very fortunate and got 9 out of my top 10 bids on preselect. The one I didn't get I had ranked #8 and did not get it as a lottery. But, this all depends on how many bids a given firm gets - some firms will only get 30-40 bids, so it's far more likely that if you put them low, you can pick them up by lottery.

Hey Guys - thanks for resurrecting this thread, very helpful. I have a couple questions for rising 3Ls who were below median going into OGI:

1. Bid strategies, what worked, what didn't work?

2. For those who received multiple pre-selects despite being below median (saw several post between 2-8 pre-selects last year) what qualities and/or strategies worked?

3. Any other things you would do differently knowing what you know now?

Anyone have thoughts on this?