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Suddenly I have 4 phone interviews w/ different divisions and offices of the Washington State AG's Office. They actually hire a few of their 2L clerks post-grad, according to hiring needs, so this would be pretty cool.

Are you a 1L or 2L? I'm waiting on tether hooks. 1L here. (Though I guess it's the same program.) Also. since you're anonymous, what were your geographic preferences/division preferences?

I'm a 2L, from the PNW, mediocre grades at a low T14. For locations i think i just put the larger offices with Olympia first choice since it's the capital. For divisions i put everything except the business/econ related ones like antitrust & bankruptcy. i have interviews w/ torts, ecology, natural resources, and government compliance & enforcement.

their hiring process is interesting. After all the divisions do their interviews, they have a draft to pick who they offer to. So even if every office/division you talked to wants you, you only get one offer.

I'm a 1L from the PNW at a T6, median grades. Applied to basically everything in Seattle and Olympia. I hope that they sent out 2L interviews first....

Ugh.

OP here, just letting u know that they're still scheduling interviews. i'm up to 7 now (have done 2 of them).

Good lord!

Well, I haven't heard a peep from any of the divisions, so either I've already been dinged, or they haven't gotten through all the applications.

2L at T20 - top 20% of class. No interviews. I applied for pretty much every division and location. I'm hoping they didn't throw out my application - that PDF form they wanted us to fill out is crap, and apparently not all the boxes I checked were saved. Adobe can suck it.

Do you have ties to the PNW?

I can't imagine how many interviews they're doing if they're interviewing per location and division, especially if they're planning to give out one offer at the end. Also, does anybody have any estimate of how many clerks they generally take? I heard that they got about 140 applications this year, but I'm guessing most of those applications applied very widely, since that's how they seem to encourage you to apply...

Anonymous User wrote:2L at T20 - top 20% of class. No interviews. I applied for pretty much every division and location. I'm hoping they didn't throw out my application - that PDF form they wanted us to fill out is crap, and apparently not all the boxes I checked were saved. Adobe can suck it.

It was a word doc, not a pdf. it actually worked ok for me (not often the case b/c so many people don't know how to make a word form.)

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:2L at T20 - top 20% of class. No interviews. I applied for pretty much every division and location. I'm hoping they didn't throw out my application - that PDF form they wanted us to fill out is crap, and apparently not all the boxes I checked were saved. Adobe can suck it.

It was a word doc, not a pdf. it actually worked ok for me (not often the case b/c so many people don't know how to make a word form.)

I used a version that I downloaded and filled out out over break, and it was a PDF. I just checked and noticed they replaced it on their website with a word doc. Fantastic.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:2L at T20 - top 20% of class. No interviews. I applied for pretty much every division and location. I'm hoping they didn't throw out my application - that PDF form they wanted us to fill out is crap, and apparently not all the boxes I checked were saved. Adobe can suck it.

It was a word doc, not a pdf. it actually worked ok for me (not often the case b/c so many people don't know how to make a word form.)

I used a version that I downloaded and filled out out over break, and it was a PDF. I just checked and noticed they replaced it on their website with a word doc. Fantastic.

Ah, that sucks. Maybe they got complaints about it.

jfc, i've gotten 2 more calls tonight. up to 9 total. maybe they're misreading my lame gpa as something much higher.

Alright, I'm extremely curious now about your class rank and past WE. Would you mind sharing? (Totally understand if you feel like that would out you).

Anonymous User wrote:Alright, I'm extremely curious now about your class rank and past WE. Would you mind sharing? (Totally understand if you feel like that would out you).

below median, low T14, worked for a couple of local govts before law school, born & raised in the northwest. i suppose my WE might be what's doing it, although the experience isn't particularly relevant except for my 1L summer (also local govt). could show a willingness to work for government or something.

any more specific i think would out me.

No, that's super helpful. I would bet money that they're salivating over your past work experience. Congrats

Also, for what it's worth, I've heard through the grapevine that law students from Washington state schools get an automatic geographic preference bump. No idea whether the source is that credible, so take this with a large grain of salt. From my past experiences with the Washington market in general, though, this sounds plausible.

Also, how long are these phone conversations? This selection process sounds exhausting, though I'd love to have 9 interviews from them.

Anonymous User wrote:No, that's super helpful. I would bet money that they're salivating over your past work experience. Congrats

Also, for what it's worth, I've heard through the grapevine that law students from Washington state schools get an automatic geographic preference bump. No idea whether the source is that credible, so take this with a large grain of salt. From my past experiences with the Washington market in general, though, this sounds plausible.

Also, how long are these phone conversations? This selection process sounds exhausting, though I'd love to have 9 interviews from them.

The 2 i've done so far have been about 30 min. One is actually going to be skype, which is not my favorite, but oh well. 9 is a lot but it's not as bad as oci, at least.

Anonymous User wrote:Also, does anybody have any estimate of how many clerks they generally take? I heard that they got about 140 applications this year

can i ask where you heard this 140 number? it seems low.

i asked in one of my interviews how many clerks they were hiring in their division (olympia-torts) and they said 3 or 4. if every office/division hired multiple clerks practically all of those 140 would get a job! and that seems too much to hope for, lol.

Phone conversation with one of the hiring individuals. I called to ask about whether the hiring timeline could be expedited for those of us with other offers pending. (It can't, by the way). I got the chance to ask a few other questions, number of total applicants being one of them).

Take the number with a huge grain of salt. I imagine that not all 140 want to work in all the little offices... my guess is that a significant percentage of those applications marked only Seattle, only Olympia, or only the market their school is located in, but that is purely my speculation. If this is true, I imagine your chances shoot way up if you indicated a willingness to work in one of the less popular locations. On the other hand, I imagine things like the antitrust division in Seattle are getting swamped with 80+ or so applicants vying for 4 positions, if they have the same hiring numbers as Olympia-Torts.

It just seems so weird that each division basically has its own selection process. Also, now I'm just absolutely confused by the hiring process. If there are only 140 applicants, there are definitely enough spots for every applicant. But, if each division only has 4 or so spots, they most certainly have a huge number of applications per spot, because the 140 applicants will most likely have applied to a large number of divisions. But each applicant will only get one offer, so it seems like they won't fill all the spots unless they basically interview everybody? I'm just confused.

OP here. offers went out friday evening around 8pm. my final tally was 14 interviews w/ 3 offices. wast told i was a highly ranked applicant for a lot of divisions and it would just depend on their draft order where i ended up. was v happy to get an offer on friday but unfortunately it was not my preferred office (out of 14 interviews, 12 were at my preferred office. thought those were good enough odds!). will prob still take it and im sure it'll be fine.

Got an offer from a division I didn't get an interview with. Pretty sure it's a screw up.

Second poster here. I got offered an interview with Olympia-Torts this Monday (after the March 1st supposed offer deadline). I think that some departments must not have been able to fill up all there spots, so interviews are still going around. (I had to decline it as I already accepted a job offer elsewhere).