2012 UVA OGI Thread Forum

[joeshmo39]

Question about the warnings against bidding multiple cities. I am generally interested in a three different secondary markets (all of which I have ties/compelling stories to wanting to be there). All of the best firms from these markets come to OGI. I am planning on bidding the top couple of firms from the three markets pretty high and then fill the rest out with NYC firms. Is this a bad idea, even if I just targeting a few firms in certain markets and then apply about half NYC? Why is this a bad idea? I have a 3.614 if that matters.

Good grades always matter. I think having ties means this strategy is OK though. As long as you have an honest, articulable reason for wanting to be there that should be good. You should work with career services to find an honest answer to "are you applying elsewhere" because I was asked that several times. Something like "Well, Charlotte is a place I would really like to be, but I have applied to some New York firms because, in this market, I want to make sure I'm keeping my options open and I know their summer classes are large. Still, I'll ideally be in Charlotte." If they ask about other secondary markets say, "Charlotte is one of my favorite cities, but I'd also consider Nashville because my wife's family lives there."

You'll have to edit that if you're not a huge Bobcats fan, but I would bid on all 3 markets + NYC then worry about finessing an answer later on.

[jawsthegreat]

Thoughts:

Here is how my thought process broke down last year. I had a 3.59 and I knew I wasn't competitive at some of the top firms. I immediately knocked Williams, Cravath, and S and C off my list. But by the time you actually rank all the bids you really want and think you're competitive for, you still have slots left in a lot of cases. Thus, I ended up bidding some firms that were out of my reach at like 50 and indeed they did not pre-select me. If I were you I'd try to be a little safer at the top, but 50 bids is just way too many to use intelligently with a 20 interview cap.

I also remember that I hit the interview cap after pre-select fairly quickly and thus didn't have a lot of luck in the lottery because I wasn't allowed to participate. However, I picked up interviews outside the lottery and outside pre-select. I think, and maybe others want to comment, that the cap meant some top firms ended up getting turned down by pre-selects and thus had to fill their spots with people they didn't pre-select the first time. Depending on the firm, there are only so many 3.4+ or 3.5+ people in the class love. Career Services will throw you in there. I was thrown in with some firms I didn't really want to interview with because, for them to come back this year, UVa had to fill those seats. Bottom Line: you're always alive, sometimes just by blind luck.

I'm also thinking the "DC is death" thing may have been a little overblown last year. Other will have better insight. I had one DC screener and I converted it into an offer, I had 20 NYC screeners and ended up with 2 offers. Obviously that data is near useless, but there it is. Combine it with other data, make a graph, I don't care. My inference is also based on talking to other people.

In the end, OGI is a crazy and random process. I met some cool people and experienced some weird interview stories. Some things you just can't control for - like getting interviewed after lunch when the person is sleepy. I thought I totally nailed one interview with a firm I really wanted and it didn't pan out. Keep your head up, enjoy the delicious food, and realize that there is usually a little bit of reason to the interview. For instance, I didn't click with a lot of people during my callbacks. What did that tell me? Well, maybe this place isn't for me. No hard feelings. It's not always you, sometimes it really is them.

Schedule your shit EARLY! Several times I waited a day or two after getting a callback to schedule it, that is stupid. Schedule as soon as you can, duck out of class for 10 minutes if it's an 80 minute class that just started. As someone who was still going on callbacks in October, you do not want to go on callbacks in October. It's not only harmful to drag the process on, but it's bad for your chances of landing a job. In the beginning of callback season attorneys are excited to meet and interview you. By the end it's less exciting. You'll also burn out. On a related note - try to schedule back-to-back-to-back . . . callbacks. Spend a week in New York in September, it's fine. Flying back and forth to La Guardia twice a week sucks. You might be worried about missing class, but it's more time efficient to miss a week or two of class early on than to miss 5 classes in September and 1 in October. The travel time really adds up and going in and out ruins your flow.

Another comment is that in this next month you're going to read Chambers and Vault and make assumptions about the type of people who work at these firms and what their cultures are like. Who they are, what the personality is like, what the quality of life is like. Your assumptions will be wrong. It's not your fault, and it's not that you shouldn't do it. It's just that it's hard to access that information from where you sit and learning about firms is not that simple. Different offices and groups will have different personalities. I was lucky enough to go on a callback at a firm very near the top of my list, and everyone there was weird. I knew as soon as I left that I would never set foot in that office. I ended up taking an offer at a firm that was barely on my radar coming in. Now that I'm at the firm it is indeed what I was looking for, but there was no way for me to know that beforehand.

Also, I found career services to helpful but sometimes they're prone to "yeah, go ahead, shoot for it." If you have good but not great grades, below a 3.6 or so, don't interview with Sull Crom just because some guy 3 years ago landed an offer there. If you have a 3.31 don't bid on Skadden NYC because some chick, who did private equity for KKR for 7 years before going to law school, went to UVa then summered for them. Sure, it might happen, but try to play smart. Sometime I feel like CSO is telling me I could be the exception to the rule, but I'm probably not. This goes triple if you came straight through from undergrad and don't have cool WE.

./End Ramblings

Apologies for my likely useless and unedited post.

Someone with a 3.59 that went 2/20 getting offers in NYC is a bad interviewer. A 3.59 should be getting 10+ callbacks(which would turn into more offers) w/o blinking twice.

[Anonymous User]

Someone with a 3.59 that went 2/20 getting offers in NYC is a bad interviewer. A 3.59 should be getting 10+ callbacks(which would turn into more offers) w/o blinking twice.

I disagree. I think there is a great deal of randomness that can't be 100% attributed to whether your a good interviewer or not. To support my theory, some of my worst interviews somehow turned into offers and some of what I thought to be my best interviews turned into nothing. Several firms in cities I had great ties to turned me down whereas firms in cities I had no ties to gave me an offer. Don't assume there is 1 to 1 causation for every OGI result. There isn't.

[jawsthegreat]

Someone with a 3.59 that went 2/20 getting offers in NYC is a bad interviewer. A 3.59 should be getting 10+ callbacks(which would turn into more offers) w/o blinking twice.

I disagree. I think there is a great deal of randomness that can't be 100% attributed to whether your a good interviewer or not. To support my theory, some of my worst interviews somehow turned into offers and some of what I thought to be my best interviews turned into nothing. Several firms in cities I had great ties to turned me down whereas firms in cities I had no ties to gave me an offer. Don't assume there is 1 to 1 causation for every OGI result. There isn't.

There isn't a 1 to 1 causation for a reason. Everyone has different results because of different reasons, yes. However, someone w/ a 3.59 simply should do better than going 2/20 offers in New York. That's a horrific performance for that GPA. Once your GPA gets that high your resume to a much larger degree when your GPA is lower, just doesn't really matter. You meet the criteria. If you aren't closing the deal, it's a failure in the interview.

[5ky]

Someone with a 3.59 that went 2/20 getting offers in NYC is a bad interviewer. A 3.59 should be getting 10+ callbacks(which would turn into more offers) w/o blinking twice.

I disagree. I think there is a great deal of randomness that can't be 100% attributed to whether your a good interviewer or not. To support my theory, some of my worst interviews somehow turned into offers and some of what I thought to be my best interviews turned into nothing. Several firms in cities I had great ties to turned me down whereas firms in cities I had no ties to gave me an offer. Don't assume there is 1 to 1 causation for every OGI result. There isn't.

It's just going to be a fact that 2 offers out of 20 screeners for NYC with a 3.59 will be at the very bottom of outcomes. It's important that 1Ls know that and save themselves some anxiety.

On the other hand, whether you are a good or poor interviewer is largely out of your control at the extremes, and I'm sure anon knows he/she wasn't a very good interviewer and might be self-conscious about it. The earlier comment deriding the person was a little distasteful.

[jawsthegreat]

Someone with a 3.59 that went 2/20 getting offers in NYC is a bad interviewer. A 3.59 should be getting 10+ callbacks(which would turn into more offers) w/o blinking twice.

I disagree. I think there is a great deal of randomness that can't be 100% attributed to whether your a good interviewer or not. To support my theory, some of my worst interviews somehow turned into offers and some of what I thought to be my best interviews turned into nothing. Several firms in cities I had great ties to turned me down whereas firms in cities I had no ties to gave me an offer. Don't assume there is 1 to 1 causation for every OGI result. There isn't.

It's just going to be a fact that 2 offers out of 20 screeners for NYC with a 3.59 will be at the very bottom of outcomes. It's important that 1Ls know that and save themselves some anxiety.

On the other hand, whether you are a good or poor interviewer is largely out of your control at the extremes, and I'm sure anon knows he/she wasn't a very good interviewer and might be self-conscious about it. The earlier comment deriding the person was a little distasteful.

Perhaps. But, I remember how anxious I was last year at this time last year. Anything posted like that would have freaked me out, especially when it made it seem like OCS is too "optimistic." If anything, they are WAY overboard in their pessimism. They need to know that someone saying stuff like that vastly underperformed what they should have done. There are plenty of reasons to freak out that are actually worthy of causing freak outs.

[5ky]

Oh I definitely agree with that. A 3.59 with 2 offers from 20 NYC screeners is objectively poor. And while it might not be anybody's fault per se (say a combination of K-JD, just bad at interviewing in general, despite preparation, etc.), most people are going to do much better than that.

1Ls can hopefully see that from this thread itself. A 3.58 got an offer from S&C last year, and then a 3.59 did relatively poorly. There's a wide range of outcomes, but those are probably the high and the low.

[$$$$$$]

Someone with a 3.59 that went 2/20 getting offers in NYC is a bad interviewer. A 3.59 should be getting 10+ callbacks(which would turn into more offers) w/o blinking twice.

I disagree. I think there is a great deal of randomness that can't be 100% attributed to whether your a good interviewer or not. To support my theory, some of my worst interviews somehow turned into offers and some of what I thought to be my best interviews turned into nothing. Several firms in cities I had great ties to turned me down whereas firms in cities I had no ties to gave me an offer. Don't assume there is 1 to 1 causation for every OGI result. There isn't.

There isn't a 1 to 1 causation for a reason. Everyone has different results because of different reasons, yes. However, someone w/ a 3.59 simply should do better than going 2/20 offers in New York. That's a horrific performance for that GPA. Once your GPA gets that high your resume to a much larger degree when your GPA is lower, just doesn't really matter. You meet the criteria. If you aren't closing the deal, it's a failure in the interview.

Jaws is 100% correct. Do not take interview or OGI advice from someone that went 2/20 in NYC with a 3.59. I'd take law school advice from them cause they killed it, but not advice on how to get a job. I would rather take advice from someone that got 10 callbacks with a 3.0 and struck out than someone that got a 3.6 and had 2 offers in the easiest market to get an offer.

That being said, while it is luck to some degree, the people I know that killed it had grades ranging from slightly above median to top of the class. The thing that stood out? They are awesome, interesting, likable people. If you have grades around median, it means you are smart enough, so you have to go in and crush the interview. You have to make every single person want you. With a 3.6+, it is easier, and if you are likable you'll be totally fine.

Bottom line, this is not the time to think "oh gee what a random process," this is the time to absolutely destroy every single interview you have. People have different ways of doing this, but I suggest you start thinking about what you want to bring out about yourself and present to interviewers. Even if you have the grades, you have to make them want you. I know plenty of people that struck out with 3.5+, and enough with 3.3+ that had v20 offers to say that you have to prepare your ass off regardless of grades and to be as comfortable with yourself and your story as possible.

[Anonymous User]

Oh I definitely agree with that. A 3.59 with 2 offers from 20 NYC screeners is objectively poor. And while it might not be anybody's fault per se (say a combination of K-JD, just bad at interviewing in general, despite preparation, etc.), most people are going to do much better than that.

1Ls can hopefully see that from this thread itself. A 3.58 got an offer from S&C last year, and then a 3.59 did relatively poorly. There's a wide range of outcomes, but those are probably the high and the low.

I disagree with this and with jawsthegreat. Going 2 offers for 20 screeners in NYC is certainly not "objectively poor" with a 3.59. First, most people fall within the decent interviewing range. Second, there are two many other factors that impact whether or not the interview goes well. Honestly, no matter how charismatic you are, there are some interviewers that you will just not click with. Other times, you catch the interviewer at a bad time (some interviewers get incredibly grumpy after 12 interviews without lunch, and if you're that person who walks in to the grump, nothing's going to turn it around). Third, 2 offers out of 20 screeners isn't that bad. I'd imagine that the poster probably had 6-10 callbacks, which is perfectly fine. Often times, there are just some things that are outside of your control. Plus, that poster noted that their one DC screener turned into an offer and, honestly, DC firms are much harder to crack.

tl;dr version - 90% of people are average interviewers, anyone who came out of OGI with multiple big law offers is a decent interviewer (anyone who says otherwise is full of it).

[Anonymous User]

Oh I definitely agree with that. A 3.59 with 2 offers from 20 NYC screeners is objectively poor. And while it might not be anybody's fault per se (say a combination of K-JD, just bad at interviewing in general, despite preparation, etc.), most people are going to do much better than that.

1Ls can hopefully see that from this thread itself. A 3.58 got an offer from S&C last year, and then a 3.59 did relatively poorly. There's a wide range of outcomes, but those are probably the high and the low.

I disagree with this and with jawsthegreat. Going 2 offers for 20 screeners in NYC is certainly not "objectively poor" with a 3.59. First, most people fall within the decent interviewing range. Second, there are two many other factors that impact whether or not the interview goes well. Honestly, no matter how charismatic you are, there are some interviewers that you will just not click with. Other times, you catch the interviewer at a bad time (some interviewers get incredibly grumpy after 12 interviews without lunch, and if you're that person who walks in to the grump, nothing's going to turn it around). Third, 2 offers out of 20 screeners isn't that bad. I'd imagine that the poster probably had 6-10 callbacks, which is perfectly fine. Often times, there are just some things that are outside of your control. Plus, that poster noted that their one DC screener turned into an offer and, honestly, DC firms are much harder to crack.

tl;dr version - 90% of people are average interviewers, anyone who came out of OGI with multiple big law offers is a decent interviewer (anyone who says otherwise is full of it).

Completely disagree with this. Who gives a shit if a guy is in a grumpy mood, or you don't click with someone. You have to make someone want you despite personality differences, despite having food coma, despite them being in a shitty mood. If you can't wake someone out of their food coma, then of course you won't get an offer, because you are probably as boring as watching bread become stale. You should realize quickly if personalities are different and adjust your approach mid interview. I have a friend who went into an interview, realized the guy was a huge tool, and decided he would be a huge tool also.....what happened? He got an offer.

At OGI, these people will not be in shitty moods, they get to have a day off to come to beautiful cville and hang out with students rather than being stuck in some shitty office, doing the same shit they do everyday. You have 20 minutes to impress, and you should be doing that every second of the interview. Yea, sometimes it doesn't work out, but most of the time, if you have the grades, it will work out.

[jawsthegreat]

Oh I definitely agree with that. A 3.59 with 2 offers from 20 NYC screeners is objectively poor. And while it might not be anybody's fault per se (say a combination of K-JD, just bad at interviewing in general, despite preparation, etc.), most people are going to do much better than that.

1Ls can hopefully see that from this thread itself. A 3.58 got an offer from S&C last year, and then a 3.59 did relatively poorly. There's a wide range of outcomes, but those are probably the high and the low.

I disagree with this and with jawsthegreat. Going 2 offers for 20 screeners in NYC is certainly not "objectively poor" with a 3.59. First, most people fall within the decent interviewing range. Second, there are two many other factors that impact whether or not the interview goes well. Honestly, no matter how charismatic you are, there are some interviewers that you will just not click with. Other times, you catch the interviewer at a bad time (some interviewers get incredibly grumpy after 12 interviews without lunch, and if you're that person who walks in to the grump, nothing's going to turn it around). Third, 2 offers out of 20 screeners isn't that bad. I'd imagine that the poster probably had 6-10 callbacks, which is perfectly fine. Often times, there are just some things that are outside of your control. Plus, that poster noted that their one DC screener turned into an offer and, honestly, DC firms are much harder to crack.

tl;dr version - 90% of people are average interviewers, anyone who came out of OGI with multiple big law offers is a decent interviewer (anyone who says otherwise is full of it).

*Facepalm* This is just so wrong I won't address most of it. I will say though, that converting 6-10 callbacks into 2 offers only furthers my point, not disproving it.

[5ky]

Halfway through, I'm sure most of the interviewers would rather be back in NYC instead of listening to the 14th law student that day explain how he wanted to do corporate work because it was collaborative as opposed to zero-sum.

Charlottesville isn't beautiful from the inside of an interview room, and is a pain to get to and from. Many of them will be in shitty moods.

[Anonymous User]

checking in. around a 3.09. Really bummed out but will probably bid a couple of cities.

I am definitely not relying on OGI. Although, I know I am a really good interviewer---this will not help.

any advice appreciated, I am bidding secondary markets.

[jawsthegreat]

checking in. around a 3.09. Really bummed out but will probably bid a couple of cities.

I am definitely not relying on OGI. Although, I know I am a really good interviewer---this will not help.

Bid NYC and your secondary market. Mass mail your secondary market and anywhere you've got ties. Use this summer (if you aren't in Cville) to start forming connections with people you can use in the future.

As long as you weren't born and raised in Manhattan you have a better than decent change of finding a firm willing to hire you.

[Anonymous User]

Oh I definitely agree with that. A 3.59 with 2 offers from 20 NYC screeners is objectively poor. And while it might not be anybody's fault per se (say a combination of K-JD, just bad at interviewing in general, despite preparation, etc.), most people are going to do much better than that.

1Ls can hopefully see that from this thread itself. A 3.58 got an offer from S&C last year, and then a 3.59 did relatively poorly. There's a wide range of outcomes, but those are probably the high and the low.

I disagree with this and with jawsthegreat. Going 2 offers for 20 screeners in NYC is certainly not "objectively poor" with a 3.59. First, most people fall within the decent interviewing range. Second, there are two many other factors that impact whether or not the interview goes well. Honestly, no matter how charismatic you are, there are some interviewers that you will just not click with. Other times, you catch the interviewer at a bad time (some interviewers get incredibly grumpy after 12 interviews without lunch, and if you're that person who walks in to the grump, nothing's going to turn it around). Third, 2 offers out of 20 screeners isn't that bad. I'd imagine that the poster probably had 6-10 callbacks, which is perfectly fine. Often times, there are just some things that are outside of your control. Plus, that poster noted that their one DC screener turned into an offer and, honestly, DC firms are much harder to crack.

tl;dr version - 90% of people are average interviewers, anyone who came out of OGI with multiple big law offers is a decent interviewer (anyone who says otherwise is full of it).

Completely disagree with this. Who gives a shit if a guy is in a grumpy mood, or you don't click with someone. You have to make someone want you despite personality differences, despite having food coma, despite them being in a shitty mood. If you can't wake someone out of their food coma, then of course you won't get an offer, because you are probably as boring as watching bread become stale. You should realize quickly if personalities are different and adjust your approach mid interview. I have a friend who went into an interview, realized the guy was a huge tool, and decided he would be a huge tool also.....what happened? He got an offer.

At OGI, these people will not be in shitty moods, they get to have a day off to come to beautiful cville and hang out with students rather than being stuck in some shitty office, doing the same shit they do everyday. You have 20 minutes to impress, and you should be doing that every second of the interview. Yea, sometimes it doesn't work out, but most of the time, if you have the grades, it will work out.

No, most of the time it won't. Often times, the firms are only going to call back 10-15% of the people they screen. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Depending on the % of preselects and the quality of lottery picks, 60-80% of the people they see in screening interviews pass the threshold. Thus, sometimes, perhaps over half the time, it just won't work out.

And look, I'm not saying that people shouldn't prepare for interviews - they certainly should. People should practice, people should do mock interviews, and people should bring their upbeat versions of themselves. But, people shouldn't be fake - being fake is worse than being boring. You should be yourself - it's important to be comfortable and confident.

But, all this talk about being some sort of AutoAdmit alpha male in interviews and "crushing" all your screeners is silly. And, the suggestion that someone sucked because they only got 3 offers from OGI is utterly fucking absurd. People should have realistic expectations - otherwise, when you don't get tons of callbacks right away, people will get depressed and their next round of screeners will suffer, etc.

[Anonymous User]

Oh I definitely agree with that. A 3.59 with 2 offers from 20 NYC screeners is objectively poor. And while it might not be anybody's fault per se (say a combination of K-JD, just bad at interviewing in general, despite preparation, etc.), most people are going to do much better than that.

1Ls can hopefully see that from this thread itself. A 3.58 got an offer from S&C last year, and then a 3.59 did relatively poorly. There's a wide range of outcomes, but those are probably the high and the low.

I disagree with this and with jawsthegreat. Going 2 offers for 20 screeners in NYC is certainly not "objectively poor" with a 3.59. First, most people fall within the decent interviewing range. Second, there are two many other factors that impact whether or not the interview goes well. Honestly, no matter how charismatic you are, there are some interviewers that you will just not click with. Other times, you catch the interviewer at a bad time (some interviewers get incredibly grumpy after 12 interviews without lunch, and if you're that person who walks in to the grump, nothing's going to turn it around). Third, 2 offers out of 20 screeners isn't that bad. I'd imagine that the poster probably had 6-10 callbacks, which is perfectly fine. Often times, there are just some things that are outside of your control. Plus, that poster noted that their one DC screener turned into an offer and, honestly, DC firms are much harder to crack.

tl;dr version - 90% of people are average interviewers, anyone who came out of OGI with multiple big law offers is a decent interviewer (anyone who says otherwise is full of it).

*Facepalm* This is just so wrong I won't address most of it. I will say though, that converting 6-10 callbacks into 2 offers only furthers my point, not disproving it.

And your attitude is why none of the 2012 grads post anymore. My apologies for giving people realistic expectations.

I wasn't aware that someone getting 3 biglaw offers from OGI was a crappy performance.

[5ky]

This is why UVA can't have nice things, so much great fighting. This iteration of the OGI thread is going to eclipse last year's for sheer disaster.

[jawsthegreat]

Oh I definitely agree with that. A 3.59 with 2 offers from 20 NYC screeners is objectively poor. And while it might not be anybody's fault per se (say a combination of K-JD, just bad at interviewing in general, despite preparation, etc.), most people are going to do much better than that.

1Ls can hopefully see that from this thread itself. A 3.58 got an offer from S&C last year, and then a 3.59 did relatively poorly. There's a wide range of outcomes, but those are probably the high and the low.

I disagree with this and with jawsthegreat. Going 2 offers for 20 screeners in NYC is certainly not "objectively poor" with a 3.59. First, most people fall within the decent interviewing range. Second, there are two many other factors that impact whether or not the interview goes well. Honestly, no matter how charismatic you are, there are some interviewers that you will just not click with. Other times, you catch the interviewer at a bad time (some interviewers get incredibly grumpy after 12 interviews without lunch, and if you're that person who walks in to the grump, nothing's going to turn it around). Third, 2 offers out of 20 screeners isn't that bad. I'd imagine that the poster probably had 6-10 callbacks, which is perfectly fine. Often times, there are just some things that are outside of your control. Plus, that poster noted that their one DC screener turned into an offer and, honestly, DC firms are much harder to crack.

tl;dr version - 90% of people are average interviewers, anyone who came out of OGI with multiple big law offers is a decent interviewer (anyone who says otherwise is full of it).

*Facepalm* This is just so wrong I won't address most of it. I will say though, that converting 6-10 callbacks into 2 offers only furthers my point, not disproving it.

And your attitude is why none of the 2012 grads post anymore. My apologies for giving people realistic expectations.

I wasn't aware that someone getting 3 biglaw offers from OGI was a crappy performance.

On average? No, it isn't. Anyone that gets 3 Biglaw offers in OGI "won" law schools and should be thrilled. But, if you would read what myself and others are saying, it's that 3 big law offers w/ that GPA is well below the median number of offers that someone w/ that GPA should be getting. Especially if they had 20 NYC screener. If this was all DC, then that'd be a completely normal performance. But NYC, along w/ the GPA changes things big time.

[Julio_El_Chavo]

Okay, there's a lot of bullshit in this thread but I just want to emphasize this: DO PRACTICE INTERVIEWS WITH EVERYONE AND ANYONE ALL THE TIME AND EVERY DAY. I got way better at interviewing as the process went on and I'm kicking myself for not doing more practice interviews BEFORE OGI. Videotape yourself doing practice interviews. See if you look weird or nervous (like if you have any nervous hand gestures, etc.). Listen to your voice: are you speaking too fast? Slow your speech down if you have to. Have canned answers down COLD for EVERY common question that you know is going to be asked. Also, make sure you have a few specific questions to ask each individual interviewer about their particular experience or cases they've worked on, etc. You want to have at least enough questions and back-and-worth small talk to go through an entire interview with your own questions and comments because some interviews (which you might actually get CBs from) are going to involve the interviewer basically sitting you down and asking you what questions YOU have for HIM/HER.

[Anonymous User]

Okay, there's a lot of bullshit in this thread but I just want to emphasize this: DO PRACTICE INTERVIEWS WITH EVERYONE AND ANYONE ALL THE TIME AND EVERY DAY. I got way better at interviewing as the process went on and I'm kicking myself for not doing more practice interviews BEFORE OGI. Videotape yourself doing practice interviews. See if you look weird or nervous (like if you have any nervous hand gestures, etc.). Listen to your voice: are you speaking too fast? Slow your speech down if you have to. Have canned answers down COLD for EVERY common question that you know is going to be asked. Also, make sure you have a few specific questions to ask each individual interviewer about their particular experience or cases they've worked on, etc. You want to have at least enough questions and back-and-worth small talk to go through an entire interview with your own questions and comments because some interviews (which you might actually get CBs from) are going to involve the interviewer basically sitting you down and asking you what questions YOU have for HIM/HER.

Thanks for the advice. For the questions you ask them, do you recommend just looking on Chambers or their bio and picking out something interesting? I feel like, with the latter at least, it's sometimes hard not to be creepy when you say "oh well I actually noticed that you worked on xxx in 2009, how was that?" But then you obviously don't want to ask the generic "so what's the CULTURE like at your firm?"

What worked for you?

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the advice. For the questions you ask them, do you recommend just looking on Chambers or their bio and picking out something interesting? I feel like, with the latter at least, it's sometimes hard not to be creepy when you say "oh well I actually noticed that you worked on xxx in 2009, how was that?" But then you obviously don't want to ask the generic "so what's the CULTURE like at your firm?"

What worked for you?

I intensely second this question! What are good specific examples of questions to ask?

[Anonymous User]

Thoughts:

Here is how my thought process broke down last year. I had a 3.59 and I knew I wasn't competitive at some of the top firms. I immediately knocked Williams, Cravath, and S and C off my list. But by the time you actually rank all the bids you really want and think you're competitive for, you still have slots left in a lot of cases. Thus, I ended up bidding some firms that were out of my reach at like 50 and indeed they did not pre-select me. If I were you I'd try to be a little safer at the top, but 50 bids is just way too many to use intelligently with a 20 interview cap.

I also remember that I hit the interview cap after pre-select fairly quickly and thus didn't have a lot of luck in the lottery because I wasn't allowed to participate. However, I picked up interviews outside the lottery and outside pre-select. I think, and maybe others want to comment, that the cap meant some top firms ended up getting turned down by pre-selects and thus had to fill their spots with people they didn't pre-select the first time. Depending on the firm, there are only so many 3.4+ or 3.5+ people in the class love. Career Services will throw you in there. I was thrown in with some firms I didn't really want to interview with because, for them to come back this year, UVa had to fill those seats. Bottom Line: you're always alive, sometimes just by blind luck.

I'm also thinking the "DC is death" thing may have been a little overblown last year. Other will have better insight. I had one DC screener and I converted it into an offer, I had 20 NYC screeners and ended up with 2 offers. Obviously that data is near useless, but there it is. Combine it with other data, make a graph, I don't care. My inference is also based on talking to other people.

In the end, OGI is a crazy and random process. I met some cool people and experienced some weird interview stories. Some things you just can't control for - like getting interviewed after lunch when the person is sleepy. I thought I totally nailed one interview with a firm I really wanted and it didn't pan out. Keep your head up, enjoy the delicious food, and realize that there is usually a little bit of reason to the interview. For instance, I didn't click with a lot of people during my callbacks. What did that tell me? Well, maybe this place isn't for me. No hard feelings. It's not always you, sometimes it really is them.

Schedule your shit EARLY! Several times I waited a day or two after getting a callback to schedule it, that is stupid. Schedule as soon as you can, duck out of class for 10 minutes if it's an 80 minute class that just started. As someone who was still going on callbacks in October, you do not want to go on callbacks in October. It's not only harmful to drag the process on, but it's bad for your chances of landing a job. In the beginning of callback season attorneys are excited to meet and interview you. By the end it's less exciting. You'll also burn out. On a related note - try to schedule back-to-back-to-back . . . callbacks. Spend a week in New York in September, it's fine. Flying back and forth to La Guardia twice a week sucks. You might be worried about missing class, but it's more time efficient to miss a week or two of class early on than to miss 5 classes in September and 1 in October. The travel time really adds up and going in and out ruins your flow.

Another comment is that in this next month you're going to read Chambers and Vault and make assumptions about the type of people who work at these firms and what their cultures are like. Who they are, what the personality is like, what the quality of life is like. Your assumptions will be wrong. It's not your fault, and it's not that you shouldn't do it. It's just that it's hard to access that information from where you sit and learning about firms is not that simple. Different offices and groups will have different personalities. I was lucky enough to go on a callback at a firm very near the top of my list, and everyone there was weird. I knew as soon as I left that I would never set foot in that office. I ended up taking an offer at a firm that was barely on my radar coming in. Now that I'm at the firm it is indeed what I was looking for, but there was no way for me to know that beforehand.

Also, I found career services to helpful but sometimes they're prone to "yeah, go ahead, shoot for it." If you have good but not great grades, below a 3.6 or so, don't interview with Sull Crom just because some guy 3 years ago landed an offer there. If you have a 3.31 don't bid on Skadden NYC because some chick, who did private equity for KKR for 7 years before going to law school, went to UVa then summered for them. Sure, it might happen, but try to play smart. Sometime I feel like CSO is telling me I could be the exception to the rule, but I'm probably not. This goes triple if you came straight through from undergrad and don't have cool WE.

./End Ramblings

Apologies for my likely useless and unedited post.

Thanks a lot. This was really useful.

[Anonymous User]

OK, whoa people, slow it up. I'm the OP with the 3.59 who went 2/20. I'm glad I got a good discussion going here, especially the personal insults, those were pretty sweet. I also wasn't completely precise, maybe that is scaring some people. Let me shed some light on this for you:

1. I received an offer in August that I was excited about so I turned down half a dozen callbacks. I had 23 screeners, I received 13 callbacks, some in a secondary market I bid on, and I went on 7 callbacks. In NYC I probably had 17 screeners-6CBs-2 offers - 1 V50, 1 V5. That's not great, but see 2.

2. I'm not a very good interviewer. Most of you will do better. Honestly, interviews have never been my strong suit because I find the whole idea very artificial. To be certain, I had some good ones, and a lot of bad ones. Probably more than most UVA kids.

3. I'm also K-JD and that's not a plus. I didn't write about it, because no one who is going to read this thread can do anything about it, but it hurt a bit. I could feel the interviewer, especially on CBs, looking at my resume and thinking "this dude is boring" or at least that I wasn't as exciting as the people they had interviewed before with cool work experience and more time to develop themselves.

4. I'm objectively terrible. Seriously, I'm the worst. They did a study: control group, charts, regression analysis, the whole 9 yards. All the peer reviews tried to poke holes in it but they just couldn't. Fundamentalist Christians haven't even tried to argue the "Anon is Terrible Theory" is "just a theory." It's an open and shut case. I tried to work on some of my shortcomings but no doctors or therapists will meet with me because I'm so awful. It's something I'm trying to live with.

*Edited for readability.

[5ky]

Yeah sorry homie. That's a way better result than what it sounded like, which was that a 3.59 was still hustling for a job in October, which would not be the norm.

[Anonymous User]

Interviewing question:

I have an internship with ESPN listed on my resume. The job was unrelated to law - I updated statistics and scores and edited news articles for an unpopular sport. If asked about my experiences there, which would be more important: A) casually discussing what it was like, and maybe using that to segue into a brief mention of a related hobby (writing a blog about a local team which played this sport) or B) trying to use this "experience" to demonstrate having some useful skill, like attention to detail.

The latter would take no small amount of ingenuity. I mostly just chilled in a newsroom watching 80s movies.