UVA NY Big law prospects? Forum

[suralin]

the odds are 100% out of uva if done right. u just need to eat a lot of protein, lift weights and then move to ny. you will be a big lawyer in new york.

60% of the time the odds are 100%

[Borg]

My goal is transparency and realistic expectations. T14s are not interchangeable, and they should not be regarded as such. If someone wants to reasonably anticipate working in NYC big law from median, they shouldn't look outside the ivy league, Chicago, Standford, and NYU.

Your inflated perspective of Penn is not realistic. It's a good school, and if you want a job at Dechert or some other pretty good firm in the tri-state area, Penn is a fine place to go. But to pretend that it's the same as going to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, or NYU in terms of big firm prospects is not reasonable. It outperforms Michigan and UVA a little bit I think, but your insistence on it being a peer to those others just makes you look insecure.

[IAFG]

the odds are 100% out of uva if done right. u just need to eat a lot of protein, lift weights and then move to ny. you will be a big lawyer in new york.

fuck admissions consulting, what i need to get into is OCI consulting

[uvabro]

the odds are 100% out of uva if done right. u just need to eat a lot of protein, lift weights and then move to ny. you will be a big lawyer in new york.

fuck admissions consulting, what i need to get into is OCI consulting

id pay for that. people seem to like me a lot except for when i try to be liked. then i'm awkward.

[IAFG]

funnily enough OCS at my school suggested i might want to do something like that but it seems slimy to me, esp since rayiner and i do it for free now

[thesealocust]

UVA's NYC placement is better than any non top 14. It's worse than Columbia, NYU, Penn and probably Cornell. If you pull a 3.4 you'll get it if you can interview and don't bid foolishly. If you pull a 3.3 you have a decent shot at NYC. Not great but decent. If you land below 3.3 you're going to be in serious trouble. If you get below a 3.2 you can basically forget about it.

FYI 3.4 is top 1/3 3.3 is median and below 3.2 is bottom 1/3

I agree with this.

[uvabro]

UVA's NYC placement is better than any non top 14. It's worse than Columbia, NYU, Penn and probably Cornell. If you pull a 3.4 you'll get it if you can interview and don't bid foolishly. If you pull a 3.3 you have a decent shot at NYC. Not great but decent. If you land below 3.3 you're going to be in serious trouble. If you get below a 3.2 you can basically forget about it.

FYI 3.4 is top 1/3 3.3 is median and below 3.2 is bottom 1/3

I agree with this.

goddamn i'm nervous about grades.

[thesealocust]

UVA's NYC placement is better than any non top 14. It's worse than Columbia, NYU, Penn and probably Cornell. If you pull a 3.4 you'll get it if you can interview and don't bid foolishly. If you pull a 3.3 you have a decent shot at NYC. Not great but decent. If you land below 3.3 you're going to be in serious trouble. If you get below a 3.2 you can basically forget about it.

FYI 3.4 is top 1/3 3.3 is median and below 3.2 is bottom 1/3

I agree with this.

goddamn i'm nervous about grades.

Get off TLS and drink scotch / play video games / hang out with friends / drink scotch. Then drink some scotch.

[thesealocust]

funnily enough OCS at my school suggested i might want to do something like that but it seems slimy to me, esp since rayiner and i do it for free now

...you know, this could be a fairly lucrative side gig. We could round up some other people and throw in some law school tutoring, maybe some LSAT tutoring... On the flip side, it would involve a lot of interacting with law students, which would suck.

Firms have GPA cutoffs. For UVA, I know my firm's cutoff is a solid 3.4. We absolutely will not call back any UVA 2L who doesn't have at least a 3.4. Take that FWIW. I wouldn't be surprised if other firms have similar cutoffs.

This is something that a lot of posters very high on top 14's like to brush under the rug. School name means nothing once you're below a school's cutoff. Big firms have VERY hard cutoffs that they absolutely will not go below. And I'm talking if you're below the cutoff your resume goes straight to the trash. Interviewing and bidding techniques simply don't matter when you're below a big firm's cutoff.

BW is absolutely correct that some firms have hard GPA floors. On the flip side, many firms do not. Your odds of getting a V5 type firm gig at median from UVA are low, but I know people who have done it (and without glaring trump cards like family connections). I also know people with top 10% grades who either came close or actually did strike out looking for big firms.

Grades are extremely important, but never the whole picture.

[uvabro]

LOL. If what it took for Big Law was having the psychological stability of a rock, I'd be set. I never get "stressed" like sweating or need alcohol. I just read your stuff, reflect and realize what I just did was pretty important to my future. I am drinking scotch, but only because I have free time, and I drink in high moderation to keep fit body and mind.

[uvabro]

funnily enough OCS at my school suggested i might want to do something like that but it seems slimy to me, esp since rayiner and i do it for free now

I can see that but Monet didn't get paid for his first picture I bet.

Also, there's probably a service difference. Like when I LSAT tutored, sometimes I'd like students as people and I'd let them buy me a beer if they offered and I'd show them how to do logic games for free. But if it was something that took real thinking, like would burn me out if I did it for over 4 hours a day, then I'd charge. The more personalized the attention, and less just saying what you know, the more you shouldn't feel bad getting $.

I mean if you worked retail and no one came into the store one day, would you feel like you were stealing from the owner? If you were a good person you'd suggest fewer hours. That is what this is. The client is your owner. That was always my approach to it. Once you get a decent reputation, you can then have the option of picking who is your owner so you don't have to meet the unrealistic dreams of dicks.

You guys don't see this on TLS because everyone here even the low scorers are self motivated. They are not the norm. Most people would never go on TLS. There are sociological reasons for this, but it's basically that most people see the LSAT as a slight hurdle to getting their legal career off the ground. When their friends are going to the TTT, they feel they have to go to that school and can't wait a year to maybe get into a great school with more $.

I am only a 1L, and I don't know why the legal economy is shit. But I do know that most people looking to apply to law school would make shity lawyers. They do whatever their clueless friends tell them to which is to just get any law degree at any cost, and they'll be set because then they'll be a lawyer and they'll have this great new status.

Social status for men is a huge thing, and they don't just quit. The issue is what they'll do with the new status? For these simple step thinkers, they'll just be in heavy debt and jobless. They aren't seeing the big picture.

Since learning I wanted to be an attorney, I've realized so much about it is getting the best ammo you can numbers wise, get into the best school and figure out how to use this stuff to make real arguments.

I think these Jersey-Boy types of students I'd meet had a very much - just need to get into any school starting a 133 and have 2 weeks, they'd get a 150 with me, want to get drunk with me, id try to convince them to retake, get asked to leave the bar and they pursue their plan at the TTT in state. You people are as common as they are common. That's why it's appalling some of us don't get jobs and some of them do.

[suralin]

funnily enough OCS at my school suggested i might want to do something like that but it seems slimy to me, esp since rayiner and i do it for free now

I can see that but Monet didn't get paid for his first picture I bet.

Also, there's probably a service difference. Like when I LSAT tutored, sometimes I'd like students as people and I'd let them buy me a beer if they offered and I'd show them how to do logic games for free. But if it was something that took real thinking, like would burn me out if I did it for over 4 hours a day, then I'd charge. The more personalized the attention, and less just saying what you know, the more you shouldn't feel bad getting $.

I mean if you worked retail and no one came into the store one day, would you feel like you were stealing from the owner? If you were a good person you'd suggest fewer hours. That is what this is. The client is your owner. That was always my approach to it. Once you get a decent reputation, you can then have the option of picking who is your owner so you don't have to meet the unrealistic dreams of dicks.

You guys don't see this on TLS because everyone here even the low scorers are self motivated. They are not the norm. Most people would never go on TLS. There are sociological reasons for this, but it's basically that most people see the LSAT as a slight hurdle to getting their legal career off the ground. When their friends are going to the TTT, they feel they have to go to that school and can't wait a year to maybe get into a great school with more $.

I am only a 1L, and I don't know why the legal economy is shit. But I do know that most people looking to apply to law school would make shity lawyers. They do whatever their clueless friends tell them to which is to just get any law degree at any cost, and they'll be set because then they'll be a lawyer and they'll have this great new status.

Social status for men is a huge thing, and they don't just quit. The issue is what they'll do with the new status? For these simple step thinkers, they'll just be in heavy debt and jobless. They aren't seeing the big picture.

Since learning I wanted to be an attorney, I've realized so much about it is getting the best ammo you can numbers wise, get into the best school and figure out how to use this stuff to make real arguments.

I think these Jersey-Boy types of students I'd meet had a very much - just need to get into any school starting a 133 and have 2 weeks, they'd get a 150 with me, want to get drunk with me, id try to convince them to retake, get asked to leave the bar and they pursue their plan at the TTT in state. You people are as common as they are common. That's why it's appalling some of us don't get jobs and some of them do.

Pretty tangential, but fun to read.

Also, I wouldn't call myself self-motivated, but I guess I am--at least relative to many people--just by virtue of being on this site.

[BruceWayne]

funnily enough OCS at my school suggested i might want to do something like that but it seems slimy to me, esp since rayiner and i do it for free now

...you know, this could be a fairly lucrative side gig. We could round up some other people and throw in some law school tutoring, maybe some LSAT tutoring... On the flip side, it would involve a lot of interacting with law students, which would suck.

Firms have GPA cutoffs. For UVA, I know my firm's cutoff is a solid 3.4. We absolutely will not call back any UVA 2L who doesn't have at least a 3.4. Take that FWIW. I wouldn't be surprised if other firms have similar cutoffs.

This is something that a lot of posters very high on top 14's like to brush under the rug. School name means nothing once you're below a school's cutoff. Big firms have VERY hard cutoffs that they absolutely will not go below. And I'm talking if you're below the cutoff your resume goes straight to the trash. Interviewing and bidding techniques simply don't matter when you're below a big firm's cutoff.

BW is absolutely correct that some firms have hard GPA floors. On the flip side, many firms do not. Your odds of getting a V5 type firm gig at median from UVA are low, but I know people who have done it (and without glaring trump cards like family connections). I also know people with top 10% grades who either came close or actually did strike out looking for big firms.

Grades are extremely important, but never the whole picture.

I'm sorry but all firms have hard GPA cutoffs. The issue with this website is just that posters like to act like certain GPAs don't exist and thus that, because of this, for all intents and purposes firms don't have hard GPA cutoffs. Bottom 1/3 is a hard cutoff for many firms; and bottom 10 percent for all the remaining. It works exactly like the guy currently working at a firm said. Firms have very specific hard and fast cutoffs below which you WILL NOT be considered. Frankly, when it comes to big firms, grades are 100 percent sufficient to prevent you from being hired.

[84651846190]

I'm sorry but all firms have hard GPA cutoffs. The issue with this website is just that posters like to act like certain GPAs don't exist and thus that, because of this, for all intents and purposes firms don't have hard GPA cutoffs. Bottom 1/3 is a hard cutoff for many firms; and bottom 10 percent for all the remaining. It works exactly like the guy currently working at a firm said. Firms have very specific hard and fast cutoffs below which you WILL NOT be considered. Frankly, when it comes to big firms, grades are 100 percent sufficient to prevent you from being hired.

Granted, this only applies to *entry level* hiring. We have partners at my firm who went to schools barely in the top100 and graduated with no honors and they make more money than the majority of my Coif/LR classmates will probably ever make.

[suralin]

I'm sorry but all firms have hard GPA cutoffs. The issue with this website is just that posters like to act like certain GPAs don't exist and thus that, because of this, for all intents and purposes firms don't have hard GPA cutoffs. Bottom 1/3 is a hard cutoff for many firms; and bottom 10 percent for all the remaining. It works exactly like the guy currently working at a firm said. Firms have very specific hard and fast cutoffs below which you WILL NOT be considered. Frankly, when it comes to big firms, grades are 100 percent sufficient to prevent you from being hired.

Granted, this only applies to *entry level* hiring. We have partners at my firm who went to schools barely in the top100 and graduated with no honors and they make more money than the majority of my Coif/LR classmates will probably ever make.

Damn boomers.

[BruceWayne]

I'm sorry but all firms have hard GPA cutoffs. The issue with this website is just that posters like to act like certain GPAs don't exist and thus that, because of this, for all intents and purposes firms don't have hard GPA cutoffs. Bottom 1/3 is a hard cutoff for many firms; and bottom 10 percent for all the remaining. It works exactly like the guy currently working at a firm said. Firms have very specific hard and fast cutoffs below which you WILL NOT be considered. Frankly, when it comes to big firms, grades are 100 percent sufficient to prevent you from being hired.

Granted, this only applies to *entry level* hiring. We have partners at my firm who went to schools barely in the top100 and graduated with no honors and they make more money than the majority of my Coif/LR classmates will probably ever make.

Yeah I was talking entry level hiring only. From what I've seen and what was explained to me at the firm I summered at hiring attorneys with more than 5 years of W/E is about bringing in clients/big books of business.

[uvabro]

Not very shocking a school in the south will not place as well as schools closer to the north. Most people who can go to UVa can get Fordham with money, many can get UPenn and some NYU. A better comparison is comparing it to Duke.

[Aberzombie1892]

My goal is transparency and realistic expectations. T14s are not interchangeable, and they should not be regarded as such. If someone wants to reasonably anticipate working in NYC big law from median, they shouldn't look outside the ivy league, Chicago, Standford, and NYU.

Your inflated perspective of Penn is not realistic. It's a good school, and if you want a job at Dechert or some other pretty good firm in the tri-state area, Penn is a fine place to go. But to pretend that it's the same as going to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, or NYU in terms of big firm prospects is not reasonable. It outperforms Michigan and UVA a little bit I think, but your insistence on it being a peer to those others just makes you look insecure.

Penn's placement rivals Columbia and Chicago, and it has done so for quite awhile. I'm not sure where you're getting your placement data from, but I assure you it must not be what everyone else is using.

On tls.com, posters focus on NLJ firms and federal clerkships when discussing placement. That's because those two types of employment are considered to be universally desirable, and it's upon that placement data that Penn is consistently a Columbia/Chicago peer.

[Borg]

My goal is transparency and realistic expectations. T14s are not interchangeable, and they should not be regarded as such. If someone wants to reasonably anticipate working in NYC big law from median, they shouldn't look outside the ivy league, Chicago, Standford, and NYU.

Your inflated perspective of Penn is not realistic. It's a good school, and if you want a job at Dechert or some other pretty good firm in the tri-state area, Penn is a fine place to go. But to pretend that it's the same as going to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, or NYU in terms of big firm prospects is not reasonable. It outperforms Michigan and UVA a little bit I think, but your insistence on it being a peer to those others just makes you look insecure.

Penn's placement rivals Columbia and Chicago, and it has done so for quite awhile. I'm not sure where you're getting your placement data from, but I assure you it must not be what everyone else is using.

On tls.com, posters focus on NLJ firms and federal clerkships when discussing placement. That's because those two types of employment are considered to be universally desirable, and it's upon that placement data that Penn is consistently a Columbia/Chicago peer.

No, Penn doesn't really rival the schools above it unless you blindly follow the raw statistic. Those numbers don't tell you anything about which firms people are going to, and Penn is the only school with students who actually want to be in Philadelphia so they get a boost from locking down that market. Like I said, Penn will get tons of people jobs at Dechert, other Philly firms, and mid-range firms, but Columbia and NYU vastly outpace them outside of Philly. Davis Polk, for example, has 108 Columbia grads, 107 NYU grads, and a mere 26 Penn grads. Cleary has 62 CLS, 153 NYU, and 28 from Penn. The rest of the elite are similar.

If you're going to argue that the advantage only matters at the top few elite firms, let's continue on down and look at a couple of middle range Vault firms that are historically among the best of their home states. MoFo has 56 CLS, 61 NYU, and 31 Penn. Vinson & Elkins has 27 Columbia, 19 NYU, and 14 Penn.

You can't argue that Penn is an "equal" to CCN when all you can show is that its grads get jobs in large firms without regard to which firms those are. Yes, it's good to have a job, but it's much better to have a job in a firm that is very highly regarded like any of those that I've listed. CCN evidently have an easier time placing students into any of those firms. I think Penn has better employment numbers than, say, Michigan, but that doesn't mean it's an equal to the schools above it.

[hume85]

funnily enough OCS at my school suggested i might want to do something like that but it seems slimy to me, esp since rayiner and i do it for free now

I'd shoot you and Rayiner a gift if you two gave me solid advice come OCI of 2014. If I got Biglaw, it would be a pretty nice gift.

[JWalker]

My goal is transparency and realistic expectations. T14s are not interchangeable, and they should not be regarded as such. If someone wants to reasonably anticipate working in NYC big law from median, they shouldn't look outside the ivy league, Chicago, Standford, and NYU.

Your inflated perspective of Penn is not realistic. It's a good school, and if you want a job at Dechert or some other pretty good firm in the tri-state area, Penn is a fine place to go. But to pretend that it's the same as going to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, or NYU in terms of big firm prospects is not reasonable. It outperforms Michigan and UVA a little bit I think, but your insistence on it being a peer to those others just makes you look insecure.

Penn's placement rivals Columbia and Chicago, and it has done so for quite awhile. I'm not sure where you're getting your placement data from, but I assure you it must not be what everyone else is using.

On tls.com, posters focus on NLJ firms and federal clerkships when discussing placement. That's because those two types of employment are considered to be universally desirable, and it's upon that placement data that Penn is consistently a Columbia/Chicago peer.

You sure have a lot to say about Penn and T14 placement for someone who doesn't go to a T14 school.

[Wahoos]

That's the nature of this message board. Some people have genuine advice. Most have just read things on here, and then have repeated it, or some variation of it, thousands of times to other people. Bizarre

[suralin]

My goal is transparency and realistic expectations. T14s are not interchangeable, and they should not be regarded as such. If someone wants to reasonably anticipate working in NYC big law from median, they shouldn't look outside the ivy league, Chicago, Standford, and NYU.

Your inflated perspective of Penn is not realistic. It's a good school, and if you want a job at Dechert or some other pretty good firm in the tri-state area, Penn is a fine place to go. But to pretend that it's the same as going to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, or NYU in terms of big firm prospects is not reasonable. It outperforms Michigan and UVA a little bit I think, but your insistence on it being a peer to those others just makes you look insecure.

Penn's placement rivals Columbia and Chicago, and it has done so for quite awhile. I'm not sure where you're getting your placement data from, but I assure you it must not be what everyone else is using.

On tls.com, posters focus on NLJ firms and federal clerkships when discussing placement. That's because those two types of employment are considered to be universally desirable, and it's upon that placement data that Penn is consistently a Columbia/Chicago peer.

You sure have a lot to say about Penn and T14 placement for someone who doesn't go to a T14 school.

lol wut