OCI callbacks thread Forum

[kurama20]

CCN, below median
25+ interviews
3 callbacks, all in different major markets
tons of rejections

My guesstimate from speaking to people is that if you exclude the top 10%, URMs, and IP folks, the median number of callbacks is about 2.

Top 10%, URMs, and IP folks seem to be getting 6-10+

What is it with the URM thing? Why do people act like being URM is a golden ticket for getting hired? I have never heard of being black/latino/native american being a boost for anything other than admission purposes. Since when in the hell is it a boost to be a minority when getting a job? Is this just TLS speculation based on the existence of things like diversity career fairs etc? Because the hard data seems to point to the opposite of what people are saying. I doubt firms are clamoring to hire URMS in the bottom half of their classes.

firms are often forced to hire URMs because their of pressure from their clients

So does part of the contract with the clients include a " fire them before they make partner" clause too?

[FrankReynolds]

Asians are considered minorities in law firm marketing material, and I believe are still underrepresented in the partnership. However, unless you can speak an Asian language fluently, I would not expect any boost. Most top law schools are over-represented with Asians.

[Mark71121]

CCN, below median
25+ interviews
3 callbacks, all in different major markets
tons of rejections

My guesstimate from speaking to people is that if you exclude the top 10%, URMs, and IP folks, the median number of callbacks is about 2.

Top 10%, URMs, and IP folks seem to be getting 6-10+

What is it with the URM thing? Why do people act like being URM is a golden ticket for getting hired? I have never heard of being black/latino/native american being a boost for anything other than admission purposes. Since when in the hell is it a boost to be a minority when getting a job? Is this just TLS speculation based on the existence of things like diversity career fairs etc? Because the hard data seems to point to the opposite of what people are saying. I doubt firms are clamoring to hire URMS in the bottom half of their classes.

firms are often forced to hire URMs because their of pressure from their clients

So does part of the contract with the clients include a " fire them before they make partner" clause too?

not that i know of. that would be illegal

[kurama20]

not that i know of

So what the hell is going on then? Either URM's have a tough time in the legal field (the obvious and most likely answer) or something else is amiss.....

[neskerdoo]

are Asians considered URMs for law firm hiring?

why is this anonymous

[Mark71121]

not that i know of

So what the hell is going on then? Either URM's have a tough time in the legal field (the obvious and most likely answer) or something else is amiss.....

really isnt difficult to understand. firms have to maintain a certain number of URMs on staff to satisfy clients. if some are fired due to incompetence, more are brought in to replace. rinse and repeat.

[Anonymous User]

T14
Top 10% LR URM

7 call backs (oci ended already), two V5.
Mostly targeted NY, LA firms in the top half of the vault rankings. I think number one for me is CGSH, I'd take them over the V5's. I just get a good feeling that they are legit about their diversity initiatives and really are about inclusion. We'll see though.

Update 12 cb's all V50, except one longshot minority-owned litigation boutique in LA.

I think it has been mentioned before but urm's have a hard time making partner not because of a lack of talent, but because usually clients end up poaching urm's for their own companies as in-house.

Just as an example a friend of mine at a v10 from 1L, he was a 3L at the time, just recently got offered a nice position as assistant director of latin american affairs at a large mining company.

[Anonymous User]

This OCI season makes me really second-guess myself on my choice of school. I'm paying sticker at a lower T14, where I got above average but not stellar grades; I could have gone to a T25 for nearly free. My thinking was that if I did average at my T14, I'd be able to pay off my loans and have a good salary left over, because 60+% worked NLJ firms and the average starting salary was >$125k. Now, it's looking like I'm going to be basically unemployed or else have to settle for a really crappy law-school-reject job no matter where I graduate from.

[kurama20]

T14
Top 10% LR URM

7 call backs (oci ended already), two V5.
Mostly targeted NY, LA firms in the top half of the vault rankings. I think number one for me is CGSH, I'd take them over the V5's. I just get a good feeling that they are legit about their diversity initiatives and really are about inclusion. We'll see though.

Update 12 cb's all V50, except one longshot minority-owned litigation boutique in LA.

I think it has been mentioned before but urm's have a hard time making partner not because of a lack of talent, but because usually clients end up poaching urm's for their own companies as in-house.

Just as an example a friend of mine at a v10 from 1L, he was a 3L at the time, just recently got offered a nice position as assistant director of latin american affairs at a large mining company.

What is CGSH? And what is it that makes these in house positions etc. so much more attractive to URMs than becoming partner at their firm? Honestly I'm still having a hard time buying that URM's are being given golden tickets. Also maybe we could start a separate thread just for URM OCI results? It would help to see if this URM boost at hiring is as prevalent as people think it is.

[Anonymous User]

T14
Top 10% LR URM

7 call backs (oci ended already), two V5.
Mostly targeted NY, LA firms in the top half of the vault rankings. I think number one for me is CGSH, I'd take them over the V5's. I just get a good feeling that they are legit about their diversity initiatives and really are about inclusion. We'll see though.

Update 12 cb's all V50, except one longshot minority-owned litigation boutique in LA.

I think it has been mentioned before but urm's have a hard time making partner not because of a lack of talent, but because usually clients end up poaching urm's for their own companies as in-house.

Just as an example a friend of mine at a v10 from 1L, he was a 3L at the time, just recently got offered a nice position as assistant director of latin american affairs at a large mining company.

What is CGSH? And what is it that makes these in house positions etc. so much more attractive to URMs than becoming partner at their firm? Honestly I'm still having a hard time buying that URM's are being given golden tickets. Also maybe we could start a separate thread just for URM OCI results? It would help to see if this URM boost at hiring is as prevalent as people think it is.

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

[dresden doll]

T14
Top 10% LR URM

7 call backs (oci ended already), two V5.
Mostly targeted NY, LA firms in the top half of the vault rankings. I think number one for me is CGSH, I'd take them over the V5's. I just get a good feeling that they are legit about their diversity initiatives and really are about inclusion. We'll see though.

Update 12 cb's all V50, except one longshot minority-owned litigation boutique in LA.

I think it has been mentioned before but urm's have a hard time making partner not because of a lack of talent, but because usually clients end up poaching urm's for their own companies as in-house.

Just as an example a friend of mine at a v10 from 1L, he was a 3L at the time, just recently got offered a nice position as assistant director of latin american affairs at a large mining company.

What is CGSH? And what is it that makes these in house positions etc. so much more attractive to URMs than becoming partner at their firm? Honestly I'm still having a hard time buying that URM's are being given golden tickets. Also maybe we could start a separate thread just for URM OCI results? It would help to see if this URM boost at hiring is as prevalent as people think it is.

I would think that bump =/= golden ticket. I don't think anyone claimed otherwise.

[kurama20]

T14
Top 10% LR URM

7 call backs (oci ended already), two V5.
Mostly targeted NY, LA firms in the top half of the vault rankings. I think number one for me is CGSH, I'd take them over the V5's. I just get a good feeling that they are legit about their diversity initiatives and really are about inclusion. We'll see though.

Update 12 cb's all V50, except one longshot minority-owned litigation boutique in LA.

I think it has been mentioned before but urm's have a hard time making partner not because of a lack of talent, but because usually clients end up poaching urm's for their own companies as in-house.

Just as an example a friend of mine at a v10 from 1L, he was a 3L at the time, just recently got offered a nice position as assistant director of latin american affairs at a large mining company.

What is CGSH? And what is it that makes these in house positions etc. so much more attractive to URMs than becoming partner at their firm? Honestly I'm still having a hard time buying that URM's are being given golden tickets. Also maybe we could start a separate thread just for URM OCI results? It would help to see if this URM boost at hiring is as prevalent as people think it is.

I would think that bump =/= golden ticket. I don't think anyone claimed otherwise.

Compared to what most people/2L are going through in this economy it's pretty damn close.

[Anonymous User]

Top 1/3 T10, 17 interviews total, have had 13 so far.

Two dings (V25, V75), one callback (V50), ten various Vault and non-Vault firms pending.

It's a real weight off your shoulders when that first callback comes in.

It's this poster again. I finished my remaining interviews today. Another callback came in (non-Vault), but so did another ding (V25). Still, if I get two callbacks for every three dings, I'll exceed the goals I set for OCI.

[Anonymous User]

Re-inforcing the idea that CCN isn't as screwed as people are making it out to be. Sorta...

CLS
67-75 percentile (barely stone), not Law Review, not URM, no relavent work experience (or anything else too special)
14 EIP interviews; 9 callbacks (5 V10, 2 V20, 2 V50); 3 rejections (2 V10, 1 V50); 2 no word (2 V10); All NYC

Things I've Noticed:
- Most people have crappy interview skills. And this is rather amazing, because most of them have no trouble in social situations talking to students-people. Interviewers are people too. You want to lighten up thier day, make them feel good about talking to you... not make it feel like they're doing a job. Is that really so hard? You're gonna be a lawyer, is this how you'll treat your clients? ::mutters::
- There's a rather clear cut line between Stone and non-Stone... not that all Stones are getting high callback rates, but 75% are, versus around 25% for non-Stone.
- NY is offering much more/faster callbacks than non-NY. This isn't really new or suprising, but since everything's delayed this year, the other offices seem especially slow. Relax.
- Several V10/V20 firms I've had callbacks at have told me that they plan on doing a tiered callback structure (for the first time), which means some people who have not been rejected yet, WILL get a callback, just much later in the process (mid-Sept-ish I'm told) than usual. Sometimes they volunteer this information, sometimes I have to ask, but no one's hiding it.
- An observation from a V10 firm's CLS reception for callback-people. There were only 20-30 students there, and almost 50% were Law Review. Keep in mind not everyone who got a callback could make it, but I'm pretty sure ITE a high % were there. For comparison, they gave ~100 callbacks last summer according to career services. And this is a firm that's doing well ITE.

[Anonymous User]

Lower T14
Non-URM/Non-LR
Top 35-40%
15 Interviews (NYC)
3 Call backs (V50, V100, V100)
9 Rejections
3 Pending

[Anonymous User]

MVP
URM
3.0
19 interviews - NYC, Chicago + secondary market.
1 callback
3 dings
Waiting on the rest.

[Anonymous User]

For those with call-back interviews: Did the OCI interviews for the firms you got call-backs at go much more smoothly than the ones where you didn't get a call-back on?

[Anonymous User]

MVP
Targeted DC and some NY
50% (secondary journal)
14 Interviews
0 Callbacks
5 Rejections
4 Obvious rejections still outstanding
2 that have made callbacks, but not rejected me
1 Interview left today
Zero morale

[Anonymous User]

For those with call-back interviews: Did the OCI interviews for the firms you got call-backs at go much more smoothly than the ones where you didn't get a call-back on?

yes. the interviews make a difference especially if your grades are good but not so spectacular and above-and-beyond the firm's median. unfortunately i didn't hit my stride until halfway thru OCI.

[Anonymous User]

For those with call-back interviews: Did the OCI interviews for the firms you got call-backs at go much more smoothly than the ones where you didn't get a call-back on?

I'm the CLS from a few posts ago. Some are bad enough that you're pretty sure you're not getting a callback... but I've been no-callbacked at a few that I thought went really well. It's a screening interview, sometimes you just don't make the soft grade cutoff, or they're only hiring a handful of summers, etc. But I've yet to have a "bad" interview call me back.

[Anonymous User]

For those with call-back interviews: Did the OCI interviews for the firms you got call-backs at go much more smoothly than the ones where you didn't get a call-back on?

Not really. For one of my callbacks, the guy looked at my transcript at the very beginning of the interview and then started to talk about everything non-law, non-firm related. We honestly talked about baseball and True Blood for about 20 minutes. I thought he went to the meaningless conversation because they were not even interested in me. Got a callback the next day.

[Anonymous User]

For those with call-back interviews: Did the OCI interviews for the firms you got call-backs at go much more smoothly than the ones where you didn't get a call-back on?

Not really. For one of my callbacks, the guy looked at my transcript at the very beginning of the interview and then started to talk about everything non-law, non-firm related. We honestly talked about baseball and True Blood for about 20 minutes. I thought he went to the meaningless conversation because they were not even interested in me. Got a callback the next day.

were your grades good? if so, then he probably decided that you meet their grade cutoff, and all he needed to do was to make sure that you're socially competent.

[Anonymous User]

For those with call-back interviews: Did the OCI interviews for the firms you got call-backs at go much more smoothly than the ones where you didn't get a call-back on?

I thought I had a pretty good interview with one of the firms that called me back, and a decent but not outstanding interview with the other firm that has called me back so far. On the other hand, I got dinged by a firm where I thought I nailed the interview. It's a lot like law school finals: you may have an idea as to how you think you did, but that idea only roughly correlates with your grade.

[Anonymous User]

agreed with the above comments.

Sometimes you know it went decently. Sometimes (as was the case with one firm from which I was swiftly rejected) I saw the interviewer's bio, saw Yale UG/Yale Law and thought, No f-ing way this is going to go well. Maybe it was my grades, but I think a big part of that rejection was that I was seriously nervous and self conscious.

[Anonymous User]

For those with call-back interviews: Did the OCI interviews for the firms you got call-backs at go much more smoothly than the ones where you didn't get a call-back on?

Not really. For one of my callbacks, the guy looked at my transcript at the very beginning of the interview and then started to talk about everything non-law, non-firm related. We honestly talked about baseball and True Blood for about 20 minutes. I thought he went to the meaningless conversation because they were not even interested in me. Got a callback the next day.

were your grades good? if so, then he probably decided that you meet their grade cutoff, and all he needed to do was to make sure that you're socially competent.

This.