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I'm a rising 3L at a school that is not a feeder for Chicago, so my adviser has no idea what I should do to try to get a job in Chicago. I am moving to Chicago when I graduate (Spring of 2014) for my spouse's job. Any ideas of law firms I could apply to in Chicago that might be interested in a candidate like me?

I'm at a T30 law school, and I'm in the top 20%. I don't do journal or moot court, but I do an extracurricular that involves writing briefs that are filed with courts on behalf of pro bono clients. I also do some other extra curriculars, and I'm the president of one of them.

I spent my 1L summer with local gov and my 2L summer with a federal agency. I didn't feel like there was much room for improvement at either job - I never received constructive feedback on any assignments; they always just said that my work was really good and that I was one of the best interns they had ever had. I definitely liked the compliments, but I want to work somewhere where they will help me become a better lawyer.

Any suggestions about jobs in Chicago are appreciated, and firms more so. Thanks!

I'd help you out but there's basically one Chicago non-IP office coming to UChicago/Northwestern's OCIs and that's Latham who told me they didn't even know if they'll need 3Ls. Breaking into Chicago is hard because there's always UIUC/UChicago/Northwestern/Kent/Loyola people waiting. Is your spouse moving before you graduate? If so I would make some networking connections when you're in town.

Anonymous User wrote:I'd help you out but there's basically one Chicago non-IP office coming to UChicago/Northwestern's OCIs

??????

Or do you mean 3L OCI specifically

2014 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I'd help you out but there's basically one Chicago non-IP office coming to UChicago/Northwestern's OCIs

??????

Or do you mean 3L OCI specifically

3L OCI. It's a wasteland

Anonymous User wrote:I'd help you out but there's basically one Chicago non-IP office coming to UChicago/Northwestern's OCIs and that's Latham who told me they didn't even know if they'll need 3Ls. Breaking into Chicago is hard because there's always UIUC/UChicago/Northwestern/Kent/Loyola people waiting. Is your spouse moving before you graduate? If so I would make some networking connections when you're in town.

NU also has a post for something called Lavelle Law in Palatine, IL which appears to be a firm and is only interviewing 3Ls. Also, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and SEC Chicago branches are exclusively interviewing 3Ls.

There are a lot of smaller firms in Chicago that might be interested, but I think you'll need to do some legwork to find them. If your law school belongs to a consortium or has a lateral hiring contact in Chicago then they may be able to help provide a list of firms that you can reach out to.

Good luck!