CA Biglaw with no ties? Forum

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shohreh

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CA Biglaw with no ties?

Post by shohreh » Thu May 19, 2022 9:51 pm

If you have no ties to California, could you land biglaw there from a school like CCN? Or would it be better to go to Berkeley (assuming cost is similar)? Is the "legal prestige" of Chicago/Columbia the same as Berkeley in California?

talons2250

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Re: CA Biglaw with no ties?

Post by talons2250 » Thu May 19, 2022 10:26 pm

shohreh wrote:
Thu May 19, 2022 9:51 pm
If you have no ties to California, could you land biglaw there from a school like CCN? Or would it be better to go to Berkeley (assuming cost is similar)? Is the "legal prestige" of Chicago/Columbia the same as Berkeley in California?
The legal prestige of Chicago/Columbia is the same as Berkeley at pretty much all biglaw firms, but especially those in California. Any biglaw firm assessing applicants from any of those schools would look at grades and possibly relevant work experience to meaningfully distinguish the candidates. It's unlikely to be the case, for example, that a California biglaw firm would dip further into the class at Chicago and/or Columbia than Berkeley for purposes of hiring. If you have no ties to California and are coming from Chicago or Columbia, then you should just have some sort of rationale prepared as to why you're interested in California that shows that you're not just trying to spend a fun summer in San Francisco after 2L. This could be anything from, "I'm interested in tech so Silicon Valley appeals to me," or "my significant other has moved to LA and I want to be with him/her/them" or even "I've always wanted to live out here."

The Lsat Airbender

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Re: CA Biglaw with no ties?

Post by The Lsat Airbender » Fri May 20, 2022 3:16 pm

In other words, firms in LA or the Bay do care about ties, but they'll accept the sorts of ties you can forge between now and OCI (cf. smaller insular markets where your interviewer might ask which high school you attended).

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