Berkeley/UCLA/Columbia for California Job Market Forum

[jbagelboy]

I think you can get LA firms from median at CLS. The only firms that are very picky for grades and that would look for someone with at least top 20% are Gibson Dunn, Irell (& Hueston Hennigan), Munger Tolles, and probably S&C. Latham is selective but not that selective.

Latham LA has a 100% honors to offer ratio. I would call them selective. I would also include OMM, although I admit their grade threshold is lower than I thought. The problem is these are the biggest summer classes in LA. I think outside of these firms it's really only Sidley and Skadden that have sizeable summer programs?

I agree that Latham is selective (I think I said that verbatim) but I don't think they require more than Stone, which for 1Ls is more like 35-40%, not 20%. Same with O'Melveny. Top 20% is like a 3.6.

Honestly I don't know the relative size of all of the summer programs; I think Sheppard Mullin also has a fairly large class and firms like Orrick/Akin Gump/Jones Day/Morrison Foerster are all non-grade-selective at CLS and take a number of summers. Quinn, K&E, Proskauer, Wilson Sonsini, all of these firms take summers in LA and probably look for honors but not top 20%. I agree that class size is an issue and that presents certain advantages to UCLA and USC students since the firms want to maintain relationships with those schools.

[jbagelboy]

I do not think LA and SF are equivalent. Putting aside GDC, most firms are more grade selective in their SF offices than their LA offices because they have smaller class sizes. And ties are probably even more important.

The advise I would give someone in constructing their CLS bid list will not be phrased the same way as comparing attending UCLA to attending CLS. I'm telling you that a SoCal law firm will look for higher grades from a UCLA student than a CLS student. I am not suggesting that it's good bidding strategy for CLS students to select all California firms without strong grades (or even with them).

Fair enough. I personally question how much of a bump (or if there is any bump) CLS would give him in Socal but there's no way either of us would be able to say for sure whether the bump would be big enough to justify the increase in cost. I lean towards no, but reasonable people can disagree.

Oh I definitely think money plays a huge role here. Never denied that. On the value judgment, we probably agree. I don't think sticker or close to it is justified at CLS if you can go to UCLA for free or near free. I'm just saying as an objective matter you don't have to do as well at CLS to get an offer at a large firm in LA (and this doesn't even rule out getting an offer at an NY firm with an LA presence and moving offices or lateraling, which is a lot easier to do than striking out as median at UCLA and trying to move up from a small firm).

[dabigchina]

Top 20% is like a 3.6.

Slight derail: 3.6 is top 20%? Isn't it closer to top 15%. Backdoor Kent is 3.72 and that's like top 5% for 1Ls.

[jbagelboy]

Top 20% is like a 3.6.

Slight derail: 3.6 is top 20%? Isn't it closer to top 15%. Backdoor Kent is 3.72 and that's like top 5% for 1Ls.

I don't know. I don't think anyone knows.