HLS EIP 2015 Forum

[Anonymous User]

1 DS / 2 Hs / 7 Ps. This should put me around median in theory, right?

I've put together a rough bidlist; would appreciate feedback. All are NYC. Looking at transaction generally, interested in project finance/energy in particular. FWI, 3 years of work experience outside of US (foreign government).

1 Allen & Overy
2 Clifford Chance
3 Freshfields
4 Linklaters
5 White & Case
6 Milbank
7 Skadden
8 Orrick
9 Cleary Gottlieb
10 Latham
11 STB
12 Shearman
13 Schulte
14 Debevoise
15 DPW
16 GDC
17 Weil
18 Cadwalader
19 MoFo
20 Baker Botts
21 Baker & Mackenzie
22 Pillsbury
23 Vinson & Elkins
24 Akin Gump
25 Paul Weiss
26 Chadbourne
27 Ropes & Gray

How grade-selective are DPW/Skadden/Cleary/STB? Doable with 3 Hs?

-- Corgi

[Anonymous User]

1 DS / 2 Hs / 7 Ps. This should put me around median in theory, right?

I've put together a rough bidlist; would appreciate feedback. All are NYC. Looking at transaction generally, interested in project finance/energy in particular. FWI, 3 years of work experience outside of US (foreign government).

1 Allen & Overy
2 Clifford Chance
3 Freshfields
4 Linklaters
5 White & Case
6 Milbank
7 Skadden
8 Orrick
9 Cleary Gottlieb
10 Latham
11 STB
12 Shearman
13 Schulte
14 Debevoise
15 DPW
16 GDC
17 Weil
18 Cadwalader
19 MoFo
20 Baker Botts
21 Baker & Mackenzie
22 Pillsbury
23 Vinson & Elkins
24 Akin Gump
25 Paul Weiss
26 Chadbourne
27 Ropes & Gray

How grade-selective are DPW/Skadden/Cleary/STB? Doable with 3 Hs?

-- Corgi

DPW/Skadden/Cleary/STB are all doable with 3 H's. While Wachtell and S&C are most likely out, all others (including Cravath) are possibilities (especially with the DS).

[Anonymous User]

Thoughts on this list? Primary focuses are white collar criminal litigation and being in D.C.

2DS/6H/2P

1 Williams & Connolly LLP (DC)
2 Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (DC/NY)
3 Hogan Lovells (DC)
4 sidley austin llp (DC)
5 WilmerHale (DC)
6 Covington & Burling LLP (DC)
7 Steptoe & Johnson (DC)
8 Kirkland & Ellis (DC)
9 Arnold & Porter (DC)
10 Boies Schiller & Flexner (NY)
11 Susman Godfrey (NY)
12 Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz (NY)
13 Jones Day (DC)
14 Latham & Watkins (DC)
15 Baker Botts (DC)
16 King & Spalding (DC)
17 Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (NY/DC)
18 mayer brown llp (DC)
19 DLA Piper (DC)
20 Crowell & Moring (DC)
21 O'Melveny & Myers (DC)
22 Sullivan & Cromwell (NY)
23 Debevoise & Plimpton (NY)
24 Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (NY/DC)
25 Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP (NY)
26 Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP (NY)
27 Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton (NY)

[Anonymous User]

If I remember correctly, there are awards for best LRW briefs second semester of 1L and some awards for various electives if there were papers or research projects involved.

[Person1111]

Williston Competition, 1L Ames Best Brief Awards, Morgan Chu Prize, potentially papers/research projects, and I think a couple of others.

[TripTrip]

http://hlsdope.org/eip

Not to spam, but you're the crew most likely to spot flagrant errors on here. Let me know if you see any.

[Anonymous User]

Thank you so much for doing this!

[Anonymous User]

Thoughts on this list? Primary focuses are white collar criminal litigation and being in D.C.

2DS/6H/2P

1 Williams & Connolly LLP (DC)
2 Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (DC/NY)
3 Hogan Lovells (DC)
4 Sidley Austin LLP (DC)
5 WilmerHale (DC)
6 Covington & Burling LLP (DC)
7 Steptoe & Johnson (DC)
8 Kirkland & Ellis (DC)
9 Arnold & Porter (DC)
10 Boies Schiller & Flexner (NY)
11 Susman Godfrey (NY)
12 Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz (NY)
13 Jones Day (DC)
14 Latham & Watkins (DC)
15 Baker Botts (DC)
16 King & Spalding (DC)
17 Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (NY/DC)
18 Mayer Brown LLP (DC)
19 DLA Piper (DC)
20 Crowell & Moring (DC)
21 O'Melveny & Myers (DC)
22 Sullivan & Cromwell (NY)
23 Debevoise & Plimpton (NY)
24 Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (NY/DC)
25 Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP (NY)
26 Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP (NY)
27 Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton (NY)

I'm going to use your list to illustrate something that everybody should know/be doing:

Remember that your bidding order should be based not on how much you want a firm (they don't ever see it) but on how likely you are to get an interview there.

So, for example, you have Covington 6th and Steptoe 7th even though according to the spreadsheets (/HLSDope--you should just look there) nearly everybody who bids them gets an interview. By contrast, A&P, which you have 9th, only offers interviews to about 56% of bidders. Williams and Connolly is the most selective firm in DC, but its bid to interview ratio (59%) is higher than that of, e.g., Wilmer (51%), Hogan (51%) and Sidley (46%). Now, I'm not saying you should put all of them above W&C. If it's your first choice, you should keep it at or towards the top b/c of its relatively low ratio. But you definitely shouldn't put A&P after Covington.

I have no knowledge of the New York firms on your list, but my sense is that some of those would be wasted bids at their current positions. With your grades, assuming normal personality/interview skills, I don't see a problem going all-in on DC (especially if you have ties/have lived in the city before).

Also, this is nitpicky, but I think you can only bid on one Gibson office. But I may be misremembering--I went all in on DC.

Best,
-DCSummer

[Anonymous User]

Hey Everyone,

5 H's, 5 P's (Both LRWs were P's).

I am interested primarily in DC (Interested in litigation (appellate specifically but don't worry i won't lean on that) and regulatory work) but I have a few ties (not much but I hope enough) to Texas and would be happy to go there if I strike out in DC. Here is my tentative bid list. I would love feedback and thoughts. With my interests specifically, did I miss anything? Let me know.

1 Hogan Lovells (DC)
2 sidley austin llp (DC)
3 King & Spalding (DC)
4 Boies Schiller & Flexner (DC)
5 Crowell & Moring (DC)
6 Jones Day (DC)
7 Latham & Watkins (DC)
8 WilmerHale (DC)
9 Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (DC)
10 Arnold & Porter (DC)
11 Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (DC)
12 Covington & Burling LLP (DC)
13 mayer brown llp (DC)
14 O'Melveny & Myers (DC)
15 Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld (DC)
16 Norton Rose Fulbright (Austin)
17 Jones Day (Houston)
18 Norton Rose Fulbright (Dallas)
19 Kirkland & Ellis (DC)
20 Wiley Rein (DC)
21 K&L Gates (DC)
22 Morgan, Lewis & Bockius (DC)
23 Baker Botts (DC)
24 Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (DC)
25 Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (DC)
26 Hunton & Williams (DC)
27 Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton (DC)
28 Winston & Strawn LLP (DC)
29 Vinson & Elkins (Houston)
30 Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP (DC)
31 Steptoe & Johnson (DC)
32 Baker Botts (Houston)
33 Jenner & Block (DC)
34 Ropes & Gray (DC)
35 Sidley Austin (Dallas)

Thanks again.

[Anonymous User]

How many H's for Latham and Gibson LA and NYC? Thanks

[lawbeahs]

Hi all. Would you mind commenting on this tentative bid list? 2DS, 2H, 6P. 2yrs work experience as IP paralegal. Planning to target only the Boston market (good ties). Really want some sort of litigation- white collar defense would be ideal, but also open to general litigation.

I tried to take bid/interview stats into account in ordering these. Please let me know if you think I should change any of the ordering, drop any firms, add any firms, etc.

Thanks!

1. DLA Piper
2. Mintz Levin
3. fish and richardson
4. Jones Day
5. Cooley
6. Nixon Peabody
7. Holland and Knight
8. K&L Gates
9. Proskauer Rose
10. Choate
11. Nelson Mullins
12. Latham & Watkins
13. Skadden
14. foley hoag
15. Ropes & Gray
16. WilmerHale
17. Goodwin Proctor
18. Sullivan
19. Morgan Lewis
20. Brown Rudnick
21. McDermott, Will and Emory
22. Goulston & Storrs
23. Dechert
24. Sidley Austin
25. Weil
27. Nutter
28. Locke Lord
29. Seyfarth
30. McCarter & English
31. Greenberg Traurig
32. Foley & Lardner

[Person1111]

Hi all. Would you mind commenting on this tentative bid list? 2DS, 2H, 6P. 2yrs work experience as IP paralegal. Planning to target only the Boston market (good ties). Really want some sort of litigation- white collar defense would be ideal, but also open to general litigation.

I tried to take bid/interview stats into account in ordering these. Please let me know if you think I should change any of the ordering, drop any firms, add any firms, etc.

Thanks!

1. DLA Piper
2. Mintz Levin
3. Fish and Richardson
4. Jones Day
5. Cooley
6. Nixon Peabody
7. Holland and Knight
8. K&L Gates
9. Proskauer Rose
10. Choate
11. Nelson Mullins
12. Latham & Watkins
13. Skadden
14. Foley Hoag
15. Ropes & Gray
16. WilmerHale
17. Goodwin Proctor
18. Sullivan
19. Morgan Lewis
20. Brown Rudnick
21. McDermott, Will and Emory
22. Goulston & Storrs
23. Dechert
24. Sidley Austin
25. Weil
27. Nutter
28. Locke Lord
29. Seyfarth
30. McCarter & English
31. Greenberg Traurig
32. Foley & Lardner

You have kind of weird grades (not bad by any means, just a weird stat line I don't see often). How did these break down by semester? It's probably unimportant, but it could affect your messaging.

I think the firms on your list are fine. I'd think about ordering them a bit differently. Making a bid list by bid/interview ratios is a fine general principle, but if dla piper is your #1 you probably took it too far.

[TripTrip]

For what it's worth, your first ~ten bids should almost always be exclusively in order of where you want to work.

Students every year think they are missing interviews because the employer doesn't have enough slots, when a lot of the time it's actually that the student didn't have a slot available. You can't do back to back interviews and have to variably take 30 and 20 minute interviews, so you're only able to do about a third as many interviews each day as any single interviewer.

A lot of firms will have open interview slots even though students who bid on them didn't get a slot because the student had already filled that day by the time CSM reached that bid.

[lawbeahs]

Hi all. Would you mind commenting on this tentative bid list? 2DS, 2H, 6P. 2yrs work experience as IP paralegal. Planning to target only the Boston market (good ties). Really want some sort of litigation- white collar defense would be ideal, but also open to general litigation.

I tried to take bid/interview stats into account in ordering these. Please let me know if you think I should change any of the ordering, drop any firms, add any firms, etc.

Thanks!

1. DLA Piper
2. Mintz Levin
3. Fish and Richardson
4. Jones Day
5. Cooley
6. Nixon Peabody
7. Holland and Knight
8. K&L Gates
9. Proskauer Rose
10. Choate
11. Nelson Mullins
12. Latham & Watkins
13. Skadden
14. Foley Hoag
15. Ropes & Gray
16. WilmerHale
17. Goodwin Proctor
18. Sullivan
19. Morgan Lewis
20. Brown Rudnick
21. McDermott, Will and Emory
22. Goulston & Storrs
23. Dechert
24. Sidley Austin
25. Weil
27. Nutter
28. Locke Lord
29. Seyfarth
30. McCarter & English
31. Greenberg Traurig
32. Foley & Lardner

You have kind of weird grades (not bad by any means, just a weird stat line I don't see often). How did these break down by semester? It's probably unimportant, but it could affect your messaging.

I think the firms on your list are fine. I'd think about ordering them a bit differently. Making a bid list by bid/interview ratios is a fine general principle, but if DLA Piper is your #1 you probably took it too far.

Hey, thanks so much for the comments. I will restructure the ordering with my top picks closer to the top. W/r/t grades, first semester I got 2 DS, 3P; second semester I got 2H, 3P. Do you think I need to worry about messaging this to firms at all?

[lawschool22]

http://hlsdope.org/eip

Not to spam, but you're the crew most likely to spot flagrant errors on here. Let me know if you see any.

Loving the site. A couple requests that might improve usability.

1. When I add something to my bid list, it might be better to just give me some indication that the firm was added to my list, rather than take me to a new page. This would allow you to add several firms quickly, instead of having to click "go back to all firms" each time.

2. When I do click "go back to all firms" from my bidlist, it would be better if the site remembered which market I had been in previously. So if I click DC, add a DC firm, and click "go back," I would prefer to return to the list of DC firms. Or alternatively you could have two return buttons. One that takes you back to "all firms" and a dynamic button that would read" go back to Washington, D.C. firms," for instance.

[TripTrip]

Hey, thanks so much for the comments. I will restructure the ordering with my top picks closer to the top. W/r/t grades, first semester I got 2 DS, 3P; second semester I got 2H, 3P. Do you think I need to worry about messaging this to firms at all?

No. No firm wants to hear a story about grades, least of all those grades.

http://hlsdope.org/eip

Not to spam, but you're the crew most likely to spot flagrant errors on here. Let me know if you see any.

Loving the site. A couple requests that might improve usability.

1. When I add something to my bid list, it might be better to just give me some indication that the firm was added to my list, rather than take me to a new page. This would allow you to add several firms quickly, instead of having to click "go back to all firms" each time.

2. When I do click "go back to all firms" from my bidlist, it would be better if the site remembered which market I had been in previously. So if I click DC, add a DC firm, and click "go back," I would prefer to return to the list of DC firms. Or alternatively you could have two return buttons. One that takes you back to "all firms" and a dynamic button that would read" go back to Washington, D.C. firms," for instance.

I hear you on both. I've gotten both of those comments a couple of times and will work on implementing them.

ETA: Both have been implemented.

[Anonymous User]

Is there an (unofficial, but known) cut-off for WLRK?

[Anonymous User]

If I mailed to a firm (and have decent - good grades) is it a waste of time because they will say "see you at EIP"?

[wwwcol]

If I mailed to a firm (and have decent - good grades) is it a waste of time because they will say "see you at EIP"?

It's not a good strategy to mass mail firms if they're coming to EIP (except if only certain offices interview at EIP and you're interested in an office that is not attending). Maybe you'll get a pre EIP CB here and there but in general it just raises questions about why you're not following the same process that everyone else does. Half the purpose of EIP is to streamline recruiting and mass mailing just creates unnecessary paperwork

[mino]

TripTrip - since this whole "cutoff" thing seems to be on a lot of peoples minds, I was wondering if you'd thought about adding the following to HLSDope - a survey feature in the career section where people could put their grades and where they got callbacks/offers - with enough data we may be able to see if firms have unofficial cutoffs? Just a thought.

[TripTrip]

TripTrip - since this whole "cutoff" thing seems to be on a lot of peoples minds, I was wondering if you'd thought about adding the following to HLSDope - a survey feature in the career section where people could put their grades and where they got callbacks/offers - with enough data we may be able to see if firms have unofficial cutoffs? Just a thought.

I know how you feel and have thought about this. The first problem is scale. The easiest way to analogize this is to compare it to law school grade/LSAT cutoffs. We know with near certainty what the standards are for the T14, but it gets more wishy-washy the farther down you go. The same applies to firms, and firms often have different standards at each office. There are over 400 offices participating in EIP this year. To make matters worse, most offices only give out a tiny handful of offers (there's about as many firm offices as students, and students turn down three out of four offers, so on average four per office) so the sample is never going to be representative. Even if everyone responded to a survey, some offices would appear overly selective when in reality they don't give a flying hoot about HLS grades.

The second problem is that no one wants to respond to a survey about grades, no one wants to respond to a survey about employment, and even fewer people are willing to respond to a survey about both grades AND employment. Unlike the course catalog survey, I have no carrot to dangle. The people who want information about law firm grade cutoffs are decidedly not the people who have useful information to contribute.

The third "problem" is that Vault already does a comprehensive selectivity survey. If the HLS Dope results were any different than that list, Dope's would probably be wrong. For HLS students, if a firm doesn't appear on that list they will probably be competitive with almost any grades. For firms that do appear on that list, market still dictates how much grades will matter (DC will be harder, Chicago will be easier, etc.).

Most importantly, OCS has all this information. They keep track of the nuances of law firm hiring and grade selectivity and how it fluctuates year to year better than any algorithm built on tiny strands of unreliable data could. OCS advisors have special logins to view draft bid lists on HLS Dope, so you can just ask them to take a look by emailing ocs@law.harvard.edu or by setting up an appointment. I know law students tend to be independent, but if you want to know if you're bidding on firms that are too selective based on your specific situation OCS is going to be a better resource than anything I could provide.

[Anonymous User]

Might be helpful to make a list of firms pay notably above market (bonus included). I only know two, but I know there are many more out there.

Wachtell (320k? (100% bonus))
Boies Schiller (250k?)

[robotrick]

Might be helpful to make a list of firms pay notably above market (bonus included). I only know two, but I know there are many more out there.

Wachtell (320k? (100% bonus))
Boies Schiller (250k?)

The bid->offer% is extremely low at both firms, and less than half of students offered positions (in the case of Boies, way less than half) even accept them.

Susman is slightly different in that they make less than 2 offers per year on average but they have a 100% acceptance rate.

[mino]

Triptrip - thank you so much for such an in depth reply!

[jbagelboy]

Might be helpful to make a list of firms pay notably above market (bonus included). I only know two, but I know there are many more out there.

Wachtell (320k? (100% bonus))
Boies Schiller (250k?)

I think Wachtell was only doing 100% bonus in 2006-07. Now they are more like 50% on 165k base. So think $250k (still awesome).

Boies Schiller is 174k base with floating bonuses that are somewhat merit/hour dependent. I think 200-220k is a more reasonable assessment for a first year.

Other firms known for paying consistently above market are Irell & Manella, Cahill Gordon, and boutiques. Kirkland & Ellis, Quinn Emmanuel, Gibson Dunn will pay above market bonuses to high billers at varying rates. I don't think all of these firms have adjusted yet to the new DPW market scale.