UVA Law Students Taking Questions Forum

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itsirtou

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by itsirtou » Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:44 am

bgdddymtty wrote:
itsirtou wrote:Bidding ends the 17th of July (I think) so I suppose this is something I should actually decide really soon within the next month, haha.
Whoops! I don't even know what month we're in anymore, haha.

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fouronthe4loor

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by fouronthe4loor » Wed Jun 15, 2011 7:50 pm

I already received 1 grade today... any chance more will trickle in later tonight, or should I not expect anything until tomorrow?

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Doritos

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by Doritos » Wed Jun 15, 2011 8:04 pm

fouronthe4loor wrote:I already received 1 grade today... any chance more will trickle in later tonight, or should I not expect anything until tomorrow?
I think it updates all at once so I would say nothing for you until tomorrow

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dailygrind

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by dailygrind » Wed Jun 15, 2011 8:48 pm

Doritos wrote:
fouronthe4loor wrote:I already received 1 grade today... any chance more will trickle in later tonight, or should I not expect anything until tomorrow?
I think it updates all at once so I would say nothing for you until tomorrow
Been my experience so far as well.

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by 094320 » Wed Jun 15, 2011 9:31 pm

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vamedic03

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by vamedic03 » Wed Jun 15, 2011 9:56 pm

itsirtou wrote:Okay, so this might be a really, really stupid question, but I have to ask you guys. I really don't want to do BigLaw at all -- I want to do public service. So I wasn't planning on doing OGI at all. However, when I told a couple of friends here, they looked at me like I was an idiot.

Am I being an idiot?
I would recommend bidding during OGI for several reasons:

(1) You will get a ton of interview experience. Every interview you do will build your experience and confidence.

(2) Supposedly under NALP, you can hold open one (1) firm offer until the spring if you're applying for public interest/service jobs.

(3) You can split (firm first half and public interest the second half) and get a taste of both.

(4) You might actually like working for a firm and it gives you valuable experience that can aid your future career in public service. There are a wide variety of firms out there and some, though not all, take pride in training their young associates.

(5) If you have a firm offer, it will place you, psychologically, in a better position for applying to public interest.

Finally, if you start your career in a firm, you can always work your way into public interest. It certainly might not be easy, but more people accomplish that than the reverse. Plus, the government, and many high end public interest groups, are filled with people who started their careers in firms.

In short, there's not harm in doing OGI even if you are pretty sure you want to go into public service. Just because you get an offer through OGI doesn't mean you have to accept it.

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itsirtou

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by itsirtou » Wed Jun 15, 2011 10:14 pm

vamedic03 wrote:
itsirtou wrote:Okay, so this might be a really, really stupid question, but I have to ask you guys. I really don't want to do BigLaw at all -- I want to do public service. So I wasn't planning on doing OGI at all. However, when I told a couple of friends here, they looked at me like I was an idiot.

Am I being an idiot?
I would recommend bidding during OGI for several reasons:

(1) You will get a ton of interview experience. Every interview you do will build your experience and confidence.

(2) Supposedly under NALP, you can hold open one (1) firm offer until the spring if you're applying for public interest/service jobs.

(3) You can split (firm first half and public interest the second half) and get a taste of both.

(4) You might actually like working for a firm and it gives you valuable experience that can aid your future career in public service. There are a wide variety of firms out there and some, though not all, take pride in training their young associates.

(5) If you have a firm offer, it will place you, psychologically, in a better position for applying to public interest.

Finally, if you start your career in a firm, you can always work your way into public interest. It certainly might not be easy, but more people accomplish that than the reverse. Plus, the government, and many high end public interest groups, are filled with people who started their careers in firms.

In short, there's not harm in doing OGI even if you are pretty sure you want to go into public service. Just because you get an offer through OGI doesn't mean you have to accept it.
Thanks! That's really good advice. I think I'm going to start researching firms then. And you're right -- I can really use the interview experience. (I kind of suck at them.)

Also, this: "(2) Supposedly under NALP, you can hold open one (1) firm offer until the spring if you're applying for public interest/service jobs." is AWESOME news.

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thesealocust

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by thesealocust » Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:37 pm

vamedic, as usual, is right about everything.

For the record, I know some people who were converted from public sector goals to big firm summers via OGI. The pay check mattered, but talking with attorneys and learning what it's all about can legitimately change people's minds. The public isn't going anywhere, but this is most people's only shot at breaking into a big firm. Plenty of people do - and benefit from - a stint at a big firm first.

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vamedic03

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by vamedic03 » Thu Jun 16, 2011 12:04 am

One final thought to add about public interest and OGI. There are some firms out there that allow their associates to do 6 month rotations with public interest organizations. Usually these firms continue to pay the associate their full salary and allow them to advance with their class while giving 50 or 100% of that associate's time to the public interest group.

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thesealocust

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by thesealocust » Thu Jun 16, 2011 12:06 am

vamedic03 wrote:One final thought to add about public interest and OGI. There are some firms out there that allow their associates to do 6 month rotations with public interest organizations. Usually these firms continue to pay the associate their full salary and allow them to advance with their class while giving 50 or 100% of that associate's time to the public interest group.
Which reminds me, still other firms send summer associates on multi-week internships at public interest organizations. I can't for the life of me figure out WHY, but hey, it's not ours to question.

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bgdddymtty

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by bgdddymtty » Thu Jun 16, 2011 7:11 pm

Grades are up. The saga finally ends for me.

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esq

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by esq » Fri Jun 17, 2011 5:28 pm

I'm sorry for not throwing this out there earlier, but I have a trusty old Lenovo ThinkPad Z61t, Core 2 Duo, XP OS. It works just fine, it's wireless capable, and I've updated to '07 office, so I think that it meets all the requirements that UVA wants unless they want me to have a newer OS.

Now that I'm seeing the realities of law school debt, I'd rather not have to spend a bunch of money getting a new laptop. I also don't really care about having the flashiest, newest thing. And the way this thing takes a beating is unreal, so I was thinking that in the unlikely chance that I destroy this, I will be purchasing a cheap $400 dollar backup sometime before finals next semester but still use my old thinkpad as my #1.

My question is: in your experiences, will this set up work just fine? Or do I need to spend some money and get something more up to date?

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joeshmo39

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by joeshmo39 » Fri Jun 17, 2011 5:45 pm

esq wrote:I'm sorry for not throwing this out there earlier, but I have a trusty old Lenovo ThinkPad Z61t, Core 2 Duo, XP OS. It works just fine, it's wireless capable, and I've updated to '07 office, so I think that it meets all the requirements that UVA wants unless they want me to have a newer OS.

Now that I'm seeing the realities of law school debt, I'd rather not have to spend a bunch of money getting a new laptop. I also don't really care about having the flashiest, newest thing. And the way this thing takes a beating is unreal, so I was thinking that in the unlikely chance that I destroy this, I will be purchasing a cheap $400 dollar backup sometime before finals next semester but still use my old thinkpad as my #1.

My question is: in your experiences, will this set up work just fine? Or do I need to spend some money and get something more up to date?
I think it's fine. I ran a 1.3Ghz C2D laptop all year and I never had any trouble as far as speed. It was one of the cut down CULV ones so I'm sure your processor is faster than mine. Windows XP is pretty lean too so it won't slow you down with extra garbage. I run Windows 7, but without all the Aero bells and whistles so it looks pretty much like XP, it doesn't slow things up too much. Office 2007 is fine and Lenovo/Thinkpad's are known for being good, durable machines. I don't think you need to buy a new PC right now.

One thing I will say is that, even with XP, having 2 GBs of RAM may be a worthwhile purchase now that memory is so cheap. Newegg.com always has good prices.

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esq

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by esq » Fri Jun 17, 2011 6:08 pm

joeshmo39 wrote: I think it's fine. I ran a 1.3Ghz C2D laptop all year and I never had any trouble as far as speed. It was one of the cut down CULV ones so I'm sure your processor is faster than mine. Windows XP is pretty lean too so it won't slow you down with extra garbage. I run Windows 7, but without all the Aero bells and whistles so it looks pretty much like XP, it doesn't slow things up too much. Office 2007 is fine and Lenovo/Thinkpad's are known for being good, durable machines. I don't think you need to buy a new PC right now.

One thing I will say is that, even with XP, having 2 GBs of RAM may be a worthwhile purchase now that memory is so cheap. Newegg.com always has good prices.
Great. I guess I was just worried that my machine would be incompatible, or insufficient, for the programs that they will want me to run, but If you got by on 1.3Ghz and didn't even have 2gb ram, that's good news for me. I'm at 2&2 for processing and RAM, so it's good to hear that I should be fine with this. Thanks for the response.

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by bertstare » Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:34 pm

bgdddymtty wrote:Grades are up. The saga finally ends for me.
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paulinaporizkova

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by paulinaporizkova » Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:34 pm

Hope everyone is pleased with their grades!

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by paulinaporizkova » Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:34 pm

bertstare wrote:
bgdddymtty wrote:Grades are up. The saga finally ends for me.
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epic 4th post

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Gecko of Doom

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by Gecko of Doom » Sun Jun 19, 2011 11:39 pm

vamedic03 wrote:One final thought to add about public interest and OGI. There are some firms out there that allow their associates to do 6 month rotations with public interest organizations. Usually these firms continue to pay the associate their full salary and allow them to advance with their class while giving 50 or 100% of that associate's time to the public interest group.
I am very interested in this. What would be a good way to find out which firms have these programs?

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Doritos

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by Doritos » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:01 pm

Is it just me or is the transcript in symplicity not updating? It hasn't been refreshed since the 16th and I am missing a grade because of this. When I mass mail I sure would prefer to send a transcript with all my grades on it.

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itsirtou

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by itsirtou » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:33 pm

Doritos wrote:Is it just me or is the transcript in symplicity not updating? It hasn't been refreshed since the 16th and I am missing a grade because of this. When I mass mail I sure would prefer to send a transcript with all my grades on it.
It's not just you; mine still hasn't updated with my last two grades.

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bgdddymtty

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by bgdddymtty » Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:52 pm

itsirtou wrote:
Doritos wrote:Is it just me or is the transcript in symplicity not updating? It hasn't been refreshed since the 16th and I am missing a grade because of this. When I mass mail I sure would prefer to send a transcript with all my grades on it.
It's not just you; mine still hasn't updated with my last two grades.

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by uvahooo » Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:39 pm

bgdddymtty wrote:
itsirtou wrote:
Doritos wrote:Is it just me or is the transcript in symplicity not updating? It hasn't been refreshed since the 16th and I am missing a grade because of this. When I mass mail I sure would prefer to send a transcript with all my grades on it.
It's not just you; mine still hasn't updated with my last two grades.
mine only has 1 grade :(

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Doritos

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by Doritos » Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:52 pm

uvahooo wrote:
bgdddymtty wrote:
itsirtou wrote:
Doritos wrote:Is it just me or is the transcript in symplicity not updating? It hasn't been refreshed since the 16th and I am missing a grade because of this. When I mass mail I sure would prefer to send a transcript with all my grades on it.
It's not just you; mine still hasn't updated with my last two grades.
mine only has 1 grade :(
Why must there be multiple departments and systems to do everything? Professors submit grades, student records does whatever they do, posts it on SIS but wait, that only updates part of the system. career services has to do something or other to make the grades show up on the transcript in symplicity which explains the rankings (helpful when mailing non-OGI firms).

I remember over winter break there were stories of professors submitting grades and student records taking a week or more to post them. Now there is another week delay for grades to post to symplicity. Is it just me or is this incredibly inefficient? In this day and age why is there a multiple week delay between when Prof. X submits my grade to student records and when said grade shows up on my transcript which isn't even some elaborate document. I mean if they take the honor code seriously (ha) why not just let us fill out grades on the transcript. Or get a system that isn't so ghetto and slow. I need my SBA rep to get this system fixed immediately.

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by dailygrind » Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:00 pm

Doritos wrote:I need my SBA rep to get this system fixed immediately.
Also of utmost importance: dedicated pullup bar in North Grounds. If any SBA reps are frequenting this thread.

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Re: UVA 2L taking questions

Post by bertstare » Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:25 pm

dailygrind wrote:
Doritos wrote:I need my SBA rep to get this system fixed immediately.
Also of utmost importance: dedicated pullup bar in North Grounds. If any SBA reps are frequenting this thread.
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