DC Bidding Strategy - HYS Forum

[Anonymous User]

After spring grades, sitting at roughly top 20% at HYS (as reckoned from reading previous threads on the topic). Not interested in NYC: gunning for D.C. biglaw.

Other relevant info: K-JD, moot court, editorial board of secondary journal (LR results haven't come back yet), 1L SA, multiple publications.

Is it worth bidding on firms like W&C, Covington, WilmerHale, GDC, etc., or are these typically out of reach for anyone outside the top 10-15%? Planning to massmail the DC firms not coming to OCI, send an app to Quinn Emanuel, etc. Also planning to include bids at some of the large-class NYC firms.

CDO is not of much help in realistically assessing chances (tendency to be wildly over-optimistic, if reading past OCI threads is any suggestion), so I'm here for some uncensored truth.

[rpupkin]

You're competitive for all those DC firms/offices. As you acknowledge, the DC market is competitive. And it hurts a little that you're K-JD. But I'd be surprised if you didn't end up with at least a couple of offers in DC.

[Anonymous User]

You gave away that you're at Yale by saying CDO. How do you know your class rank?

[Anonymous User]

3H/1P. Rough rank estimation based on statistical distribution & consensus that 1H=median per past threads.

[Anonymous User]

YLS rising 3L here.

3H/1P is certainly good enough for most DC firms. Only tough ones would be W&C, Boies, Kellogg Huber (and I guess some other boutiques), but I know for a fact that at least W&C has taken students with Ps before. A P on its own won't be a problem for the other firms you list. K-JD is going to be the tougher hurdle for you. The main take away from last year's FIP was that students who had no real work experience were at a disadvantage relative to those who did, though a lot of this might just reflect K-JDs having less experience in interviews. 1L SA probably helps a bit on the margins; the other stuff (law journal, Moot Court, secondary journal, etc.) is just stuff to make small talk in interviews and won't matter for callbacks or offers.

FWIW, I would be surprised if median were actually 1 H; that seems low. Where is that number from? The official CDO number is that each year, about 10% of the graduating 3L class has perfect grades. Working back, I have to think that more than 20% of the 1L class has perfect grades, especially given that 1Ls tend to invest much more in spring exam prep than 2Ls/3Ls.

[Anonymous User]

YLS rising 3L here.

3H/1P is certainly good enough for most DC firms. Only tough ones would be W&C, Boies, Kellogg Huber (and I guess some other boutiques), but I know for a fact that at least W&C has taken students with Ps before. A P on its own won't be a problem for the other firms you list. K-JD is going to be the tougher hurdle for you. The main take away from last year's FIP was that students who had no real work experience were at a disadvantage relative to those who did, though a lot of this might just reflect K-JDs having less experience in interviews. 1L SA probably helps a bit on the margins; the other stuff (law journal, Moot Court, secondary journal, etc.) is just stuff to make small talk in interviews and won't matter for callbacks or offers.

FWIW, I would be surprised if median were actually 1 H; that seems low. Where is that number from? The official CDO number is that each year, about 10% of the graduating 3L class has perfect grades. Working back, I have to think that more than 20% of the 1L class has perfect grades, especially given that 1Ls tend to invest much more in spring exam prep than 2Ls/3Ls.

I'm a recent grad, and I'd cosign this. I've never heard that 10% graduate with perfect grades thing, but it sounds plausible to me. I agree that top 20% is probably quite optimistic after 1L. I'd also guess that like 20%+ of the class has 3H/1P.

As an anecdote, I was 3H/1P with 1 yr of decidedly not impressive work experience, and I was at one of the firms you mention (though I did have YLJ, and I only had an offer from one). What made my FIP much easier was getting an NYC offer I could have lived with before FIP even started, which let me bid 100% DC without worry. See if there's anything you can do beyond mailing Quinn to get a few callbacks before you have to bid on FIP. I'd also consider mailing Quinn NYC, where you're much more likely to get an offer just because it's so much bigger, for that reason, especially since Quinn DC has basically none of the benefits of DC Biglaw other than its location.

[Anonymous User]

OP here.

Thanks for the help everyone. The 1H=median theory comes from here: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... &start=125 and the fact that many profs still seem to be on a loose ~35/65 H/P curve. I suppose given the opacity of the system, it's best not to attempt any analogizing from the posted grade cutoffs for firms at other schools (i.e. CCN).

Grateful for the advice.

[Anonymous User]

That would probably be accurate if everyone took 4 big lectures second semester, but in reality most people are taking at least 1 seminar or clinic with 80%+ Hs. A typical second semester 1L probably takes 2 black letter lectures, one seminar (say 80% Hs) and one clinic (100% Hs if graded/maybe just a CR). Then you have that 35%ish distribution for the black letter.

[Anonymous User]

Makes sense - so 2H/2P is a more realistic median? (Purely curious, because it seems like multiple people in the past have ended 1L with straight P's, which seems really low. I guess people have since learned to select courses more strategically?)

[Anonymous User]

Makes sense - so 2H/2P is a more realistic median? (Purely curious, because it seems like multiple people in the past have ended 1L with straight P's, which seems really low. I guess people have since learned to select courses more strategically?)

I'm sure plenty of people still end up with straight Ps--it's not that unlikely if you aren't strategic. Honestly, we're all sort of in the dark about this stuff, and IME the later you get in law school, the more often people will tell you their grades. I still know very little about what grades most of my friends had after 1L. So unless you try really hard and maybe find the right prof or dean who actually knows this kind of info, we're all just using educated guesses.

In the end, you're definitely fine for DC grades-wise. It's no guarantee, but I'd say quite likely if you interview decently, especially if you mail the places that aren't coming to FIP.

Oh, and consider bidding for the NYC offices of places like S&C or Debevoise that have giant classes but a much less prestigious DC office. It's definitely possible to get an offer in NYC, ask to split between NYC and DC, and get offers in both places. They probably have less of D.C. feel, but if it's location you care about, it's something to think about.