OCI bidlist help for NU Forum

[Anonymous User]

didn't get much input from NU-specific thread. reposting in the general legal employment forum

TLS crew, I've made a first pass at generating my bidlist and need your opinions, here's my bidlist (in no particular order as of yet):

New York

Allen & Overy
Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft
clifford chance
Davis Polk
Dechert
Freshfields
Fried Frank
Linklaters
Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy
Paul Weiss
Shearman & Sterling
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
Weil
White & Case
Willkie Farr
O'Melveny & Myers
Cahill Gordon & Reindel
Chadbourne & Parke

Bay Area

Fenwick & West
DLA Piper
Wilson Sonsini
Perkins Coie
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
Goodwin Procter
Gunderson

Chicago

Sidley Austin
K&L Gates

I'm holding off on adding more Chicago firms until I get results from CCBA, but depending on that, I may add in Goldberg, Chapman, mcguirewoods and Mayer Brown

My questions are:

1) What bid range should I start bidding on NYC firms? Bay area firms? Chicago firms?
2) Are any of these firms "out of reach" given my credentials?
3) Am I missing any firms that should be on there?

Stats = 3.5x, LR, significant work experience
Interests = transactional (M&A, securities work)

Thanks for any input in advance!

[09042014]

You are really only to get interviews at 15ish firms in these three cities (you cna get a few more in DC, and a lot more if you add secondary cities).

So, you really need to pick which market you want to be in, and maybe through a couple to another city. But picking three major markets just won't work.

You won't get any of these firms above your 17th-ish bid slot, except for DPW and maybe STB.

So pick 20 firms from this list that you want interviews at (then put 21:STB 22:DPW)

Real quick, why do you want transnational but not KE Chicago or KE NYC? Their rumor'd cut off point is 3.5 at NU.

So find the 20 firms you want. Then order them like this:

1: Sidley Chicago (if you even wanna bid it)
2: KE Chicago

3-20: rank the remaining firms with by A) number of interview slots --the firms with 20 go fast and B) how unselective the firm is. Your 3-7 should be unselective firms with only 20 interview slots.

21: STB
22: DPW
22+ Other high end NYC firms, maybe some DC firms, or any non-(Chicago, NYC, or CA firms).

[Anonymous User]

You are really only to get interviews at 15ish firms in these three cities (you cna get a few more in DC, and a lot more if you add secondary cities).

So, you really need to pick which market you want to be in, and maybe through a couple to another city. But picking three major markets just won't work.

You won't get any of these firms above your 17th-ish bid slot, except for DPW and maybe STB.

So pick 20 firms from this list that you want interviews at (then put 21:STB 22:DPW)

Real quick, why do you want transnational but not KE Chicago or KE NYC? Their rumor'd cut off point is 3.5 at NU.

So find the 20 firms you want. Then order them like this:

1: Sidley Chicago (if you even wanna bid it)
2: KE Chicago

3-20: rank the remaining firms with by A) number of interview slots --the firms with 20 go fast and B) how unselective the firm is. Your 3-7 should be unselective firms with only 20 interview slots.

21: STB
22: DPW
22+ Other high end NYC firms, maybe some DC firms, or any non-(Chicago, NYC, or CA firms).

Thanks for the feedback! To address your question about KE, I've heard terrible things about their culture, so I'm not really interested in working for them.

Are Bay Area firms popular enough during OCI so popular that they would go really quick or can I afford to bid them lower? Can I conceivably target Bay Area and NYC only and maybe just throw in Sidley and one more for Chicago?

[09042014]

You are really only to get interviews at 15ish firms in these three cities (you cna get a few more in DC, and a lot more if you add secondary cities).

So, you really need to pick which market you want to be in, and maybe through a couple to another city. But picking three major markets just won't work.

You won't get any of these firms above your 17th-ish bid slot, except for DPW and maybe STB.

So pick 20 firms from this list that you want interviews at (then put 21:STB 22:DPW)

Real quick, why do you want transnational but not KE Chicago or KE NYC? Their rumor'd cut off point is 3.5 at NU.

So find the 20 firms you want. Then order them like this:

1: Sidley Chicago (if you even wanna bid it)
2: KE Chicago

3-20: rank the remaining firms with by A) number of interview slots --the firms with 20 go fast and B) how unselective the firm is. Your 3-7 should be unselective firms with only 20 interview slots.

21: STB
22: DPW
22+ Other high end NYC firms, maybe some DC firms, or any non-(Chicago, NYC, or CA firms).

Thanks for the feedback! To address your question about KE, I've heard terrible things about their culture, so I'm not really interested in working for them.

Are Bay Area firms popular enough during OCI so popular that they would go really quick or can I afford to bid them lower? Can I conceivably target Bay Area and NYC only and maybe just throw in Sidley and one more for Chicago?

My year Bay Area was pretty popular because we had a lot of CA natives in my class. I'm not sure it's typical, but that year it was hard to get them.

You gotta throw in Sidley at spot 1 because it's extremely popular. I assume K&L is pretty popular too, so leaving it at spot 15 or so is just wasting a bid. I'd keep Sidley and get rid of Weil. Who knows how big their summer class will be after they started laying people off.

However you want to do it, you are really only going to get about 15 firms. You'll get 9/10 of your first 10 if you are smart and bid smaller interviews slot firms first. You'll get 4/5 of your 10-15. And a couple above 15.

The more chicago firms you put in the top 15, the less NYC and SF. And even just splitting NYC and SF is hard. Because you'll only get 7ish firms from each and it's hard to get a good spread of firms in each city.

Do you have decent ties to Chicago and SF?

[Anonymous User]

Anon OP here

Strong SF ties (went to school and worked there for almost 9 years), no ties to Chicago except NU. Okay, so does it make sense to bid Sidley 1st and then Bay Area firms with smaller interview schedules 2-10 and then NYC the rest?

[Pokemon]

You are really only to get interviews at 15ish firms in these three cities (you cna get a few more in DC, and a lot more if you add secondary cities).

So, you really need to pick which market you want to be in, and maybe through a couple to another city. But picking three major markets just won't work.

You won't get any of these firms above your 17th-ish bid slot, except for DPW and maybe STB.

So pick 20 firms from this list that you want interviews at (then put 21:STB 22:DPW)

Real quick, why do you want transnational but not KE Chicago or KE NYC? Their rumor'd cut off point is 3.5 at NU.

So find the 20 firms you want. Then order them like this:

1: Sidley Chicago (if you even wanna bid it)
2: KE Chicago

3-20: rank the remaining firms with by A) number of interview slots --the firms with 20 go fast and B) how unselective the firm is. Your 3-7 should be unselective firms with only 20 interview slots.

21: STB
22: DPW
22+ Other high end NYC firms, maybe some DC firms, or any non-(Chicago, NYC, or CA firms).

I think STB/DPW were gone by the 20th last year.
Bidding Chicago/SF and NYC sounds like a recipe for not many interviews imho.
Last year I started missing on NYC firms around 8 (Linklaters) and got the last NYC firm at 23.

[09042014]

You are really only to get interviews at 15ish firms in these three cities (you cna get a few more in DC, and a lot more if you add secondary cities).

So, you really need to pick which market you want to be in, and maybe through a couple to another city. But picking three major markets just won't work.

You won't get any of these firms above your 17th-ish bid slot, except for DPW and maybe STB.

So pick 20 firms from this list that you want interviews at (then put 21:STB 22:DPW)

Real quick, why do you want transnational but not KE Chicago or KE NYC? Their rumor'd cut off point is 3.5 at NU.

So find the 20 firms you want. Then order them like this:

1: Sidley Chicago (if you even wanna bid it)
2: KE Chicago

3-20: rank the remaining firms with by A) number of interview slots --the firms with 20 go fast and B) how unselective the firm is. Your 3-7 should be unselective firms with only 20 interview slots.

21: STB
22: DPW
22+ Other high end NYC firms, maybe some DC firms, or any non-(Chicago, NYC, or CA firms).

I think STB/DPW were gone by the 20th last year.
Bidding Chicago/SF and NYC sounds like a recipe for not many interviews imho.

Good to know. But I doubt OP is getting DPW anyway. Not worth bidding with a 3.5 IMO.

[bk1]

I hope you bid on K&E at CCBA. If not I'd add them to your OCI bidlist if you are serious about bidding Chicago. You may dislike them now but beggars can't be choosers at this stage. They make a substantial portion of the SA market in Chicago and not bidding them is like shooting yourself in the foot. If, down the road, you have multiple offers and can be picky then sure, turn down K&E. But I think at this point (the point before you have offers) one of the bigger mistakes people make is trying to be too picky about firms.

[Anonymous User]

I hope you bid on K&E at CCBA. If not I'd add them to your OCI bidlist if you are serious about bidding Chicago. You may dislike them now but beggars can't be choosers at this stage. They make a substantial portion of the SA market in Chicago and not bidding them is like shooting yourself in the foot. If, down the road, you have multiple offers and can be picky then sure, turn down K&E. But I think at this point (the point before you have offers) one of the bigger mistakes people make is trying to be too picky about firms.

very good advice, thanks bk. would any of you advise skipping Chicago altogether (aside from CCBA and maybe throwing in a bid for Sidley) and just focus on NYC/Bay Area with my #s?

[bk1]

very good advice, thanks bk. would any of you advise skipping Chicago altogether (aside from CCBA and maybe throwing in a bid for Sidley) and just focus on NYC/Bay Area with my #s?

Maybe. I mean you're only looking to bid 2-3 Chicago firms at OCI so it isn't like that's a huge portion of your bidlist, but then again the top 10-15 spots on your bidlist are prime real estate. Whether it's worth axing those to give yourself a better shot at interviews at other places is something I can't answer since I'm not very good at putting together a bidlist. DF or someone else can answer it better than I can.