Am I competitive for NYC litigation? Forum

[Anonymous User]

- Top 30% at GULC
- Legal Research and Writing grade is tentatively at the 20th percentile
- No moot court

I'm interested in NYC commercial litigation but my writing has always been a weakness. Am I competitive for NYC litigation? If so, which range of firms?

[The Lsat Airbender]

Do whatever you can to make LR but yeah your profile sounds competitive for at least a few offers at litigation departments at V50 firms.

[Anonymous User]

For sure, apply early and often. Very little cost to applying to all possible firms via pre-OCI and then pick up the rest during OCI bidding (let’s hope with an offer under your belt). Try to snag a pre-OCI offer to understand which firms will bite and to limit the randomness of OCI bids by narrowing your range of firms to only those you’d rather work for than the current firm in which you have an offer.

[Anonymous User]

Also from GULC, doing NYC commercial litigation. You're absolutely competitive. Check out the spreadsheet the school compiles on GPA ranges for firms. Once spring grades come back you should be applying to tons of biglaw firms in June and July to get a pre-OCI offer so OCI is stress free (or you can just skip it).

[Anonymous User]

Also from GULC, doing NYC commercial litigation. You're absolutely competitive. Check out the spreadsheet the school compiles on GPA ranges for firms. Once spring grades come back you should be applying to tons of biglaw firms in June and July to get a pre-OCI offer so OCI is stress free (or you can just skip it).

How much does having a B/B+ in Legal Writing matter for NYC litigation?

[Anonymous User]

If you're top 30% at Georgetown I think you're competitive for basically all biglaw nyc litigation firms. You're not a shoo in for the V10 but I don't think you're an auto reject from them at all.

[Anonymous User]

If you're top 30% at Georgetown I think you're competitive for basically all biglaw nyc litigation firms. You're not a shoo in for the V10 but I don't think you're an auto reject from them at all.

This is true, also if you want to do lit the V10 per se are not necessarily the best options anyway. You might be better off at Debevoise or Cleary than Simpson or Weil.

[Anonymous User]

If you're top 30% at Georgetown I think you're competitive for basically all biglaw nyc litigation firms. You're not a shoo in for the V10 but I don't think you're an auto reject from them at all.

Sorry but think is not true - top 30% at GULC is absolutely an auto-reject at WLRK and pretty damn close to an auto reject at Cravath, DPW and SullCrom. That's almost half of the v10 lol

[Anonymous User]

If you're top 30% at Georgetown I think you're competitive for basically all biglaw nyc litigation firms. You're not a shoo in for the V10 but I don't think you're an auto reject from them at all.

Sorry but think is not true - top 30% at GULC is absolutely an auto-reject at WLRK and pretty damn close to an auto reject at Cravath, DPW and SullCrom. That's almost half of the v10 lol

^^^ take heed of this advice. It’s rare to have someone simultaneously on the recruiting committees of Wachtell, Cravath, DPW and S&C and you had best listen when they speak.

[Anonymous User]

If you're top 30% at Georgetown I think you're competitive for basically all biglaw nyc litigation firms. You're not a shoo in for the V10 but I don't think you're an auto reject from them at all.

Sorry but think is not true - top 30% at GULC is absolutely an auto-reject at WLRK and pretty damn close to an auto reject at Cravath, DPW and SullCrom. That's almost half of the v10 lol

^^^ take heed of this advice. It’s rare to have someone simultaneously on the recruiting committees of Wachtell, Cravath, DPW and S&C and you had best listen when they speak.

Wachtell sure absolutely auto, auto-reject. S&C perhaps because they put such a high focus on grades to the exclusion of everything else. DPW and Cravath would look at the app. Sure DPW and Cravath aren't dying to get a cum laude Georgetown graduate and would feel no pain not giving him the interview. Look ultimately here's the point: If a top 30% GT grad ended up at S&C/Cravath/DPW I would not be floored, I would be like wow nice job. If a top 30% GT grad ended up at Wachtell I would be floored and assume his mom/dad was a senator. Anyways this is all to say it is possible and worth networking at all the V10s except Wachtell.

[margarito]

If you're top 30% at Georgetown I think you're competitive for basically all biglaw nyc litigation firms. You're not a shoo in for the V10 but I don't think you're an auto reject from them at all.

Sorry but think is not true - top 30% at GULC is absolutely an auto-reject at WLRK and pretty damn close to an auto reject at Cravath, DPW and SullCrom. That's almost half of the v10 lol

^^^ take heed of this advice. It’s rare to have someone simultaneously on the recruiting committees of Wachtell, Cravath, DPW and S&C and you had best listen when they speak.

Thank you, this made me laugh.

[Anonymous User]

Fun fact: A quick look at the Wachtell website reveals that there are actually multiple attorneys there who went to GULC and graduated cum laude.

[Anonymous User]

Fun fact: A quick look at the Wachtell website reveals that there are actually multiple attorneys there who went to GULC and graduated cum laude.

Ha, I love when people provide facts.

That said:

There are 7, only 2 are associates (so are the only ones really comparable to someone graduating now), one of the associates graduated Order of the Coif, one of the partners graduated magna, one of the other partners is in antitrust and started at the FTC, and one of the other partners clerked for SCOTUS.

So it’s absolutely correct that Georgetown cum laude isn’t itself an auto-reject but wouldn’t say that on its own it’s likely to get you far.

All THAT said: the original question was whether the OP is competitive for “NYC litigation.” Bickering over whether and how many of the V10 they might get isn’t especially responsive.

OP, I don’t remember how Georgetown handles OCI (lottery v preselect and how many bids and so on), but am not sure how much a low grade in LWR will knock you out of the running, depending on what else you can offer, given that grading is on a curve and LWR classes tend to be small and many people probably had the experience of finding the grading subjective. But if writing actually is a weakness of yours, it’s a huge part of litigation, so keep that in mind - you can absolutely learn to improve, but you’d want to make sure that you do so you don’t start off at a disadvantage.

Best thing you can do is try to kill spring exams and get your grades up. Otherwise rely on what information you can get about who’s gotten hired at what firms with what grades (not all schools are great about giving this info). I’d bid relatively conservatively but don’t think all NYC litigation of any kind is closed to you at all. If it’s pre-select and there’s no limit on where you submit, then just spam all the firms and see what happens.

[Anonymous User]

If you're top 30% at Georgetown I think you're competitive for basically all biglaw nyc litigation firms. You're not a shoo in for the V10 but I don't think you're an auto reject from them at all.

Sorry but think is not true - top 30% at GULC is absolutely an auto-reject at WLRK and pretty damn close to an auto reject at Cravath, DPW and SullCrom. That's almost half of the v10 lol

^^^ replier is certainly a 0L or close to one. Wachtell lit recruiting is on another level than Cravath, DPW, and SullCrom and I was recruited at all these firms and worked at one but certainly didn't get a Wachtell offer lol. Top 30% GULC with decent social skills and all else equal is almost an auto-offer at Cravath, DPW, and Sullcrom but lucky to get an interview with Wachtell. I understand that may have changed briefly recently but Wachtell is more comparable to elite lit boutique recruiting.

[Anonymous User]

If you're top 30% at Georgetown I think you're competitive for basically all biglaw nyc litigation firms. You're not a shoo in for the V10 but I don't think you're an auto reject from them at all.

Sorry but think is not true - top 30% at GULC is absolutely an auto-reject at WLRK and pretty damn close to an auto reject at Cravath, DPW and SullCrom. That's almost half of the v10 lol

^^^ replier is certainly a 0L or close to one. Wachtell lit recruiting is on another level than Cravath, DPW, and SullCrom and I was recruited at all these firms and worked at one but certainly didn't get a Wachtell offer lol. Top 30% GULC with decent social skills and all else equal is almost an auto-offer at Cravath, DPW, and Sullcrom but lucky to get an interview with Wachtell. I understand that may have changed briefly recently but Wachtell is more comparable to elite lit boutique recruiting.

Yeah, auto-reject at GT for top third for DPW/S&C/CSM is absurd lol.

[Anonymous User]

If you're top 30% at Georgetown I think you're competitive for basically all biglaw nyc litigation firms. You're not a shoo in for the V10 but I don't think you're an auto reject from them at all.

Sorry but think is not true - top 30% at GULC is absolutely an auto-reject at WLRK and pretty damn close to an auto reject at Cravath, DPW and SullCrom. That's almost half of the v10 lol

^^^ replier is certainly a 0L or close to one. Wachtell lit recruiting is on another level than Cravath, DPW, and SullCrom and I was recruited at all these firms and worked at one but certainly didn't get a Wachtell offer lol. Top 30% GULC with decent social skills and all else equal is almost an auto-offer at Cravath, DPW, and Sullcrom but lucky to get an interview with Wachtell. I understand that may have changed briefly recently but Wachtell is more comparable to elite lit boutique recruiting.

Yeah, auto-reject at GT for top third for DPW/S&C/CSM is absurd lol.

"Auto-offer", OTOH, seems too bullish but definitely closer to the truth than auto-reject

[Dcc617]

Y’all understand that vault rankings are meaningless, right?

[Anonymous User]

Y’all understand that vault rankings are meaningless, right?

I mean they mean something especially for new york transactional work. I agree 0Ls and 1Ls ascribe way too much power to them. But if someone picked a V10 at random and a V50 at random the safest bet is that the V10 is more selective. Of course there are exceptions like a susman versus skadden, but vault isn't 100% random. Not everything is an all or nothing thing.

[The Lsat Airbender]

But even "more selective" isn't a useful proxy for the quality of the opportunity, by and large. That's a heuristic people import from college/law-school admissions (where selectivity is at least a barometer of other people's revealed preferences).