Spoke with CSOs at two different T14 (one at a T6) Forum

[Anonymous User]

It is funny I am the poster going to bat for this position because I am usually the one arguing with BruceWayne about his Eeyore opinions that there is no difference between CCN and the rest of the T-14, but it is absolutely not true that the "vast majority" of median or slightly below median students get an offer. Let's use your statistic that 20% of people receive no offer and assume that the grade distribution of the people doing EIW mirrors the class. Even if the 20% who don't get offers were perfectly spread throughout the grade distribution, that would only be 80% of medianish kids getting offers, which is a questionable "vast majority" in my book. But of course a disproportionate number of the kids who land offers have high grades. Sure, sometimes a top third kid who is a terrible interviewer strikes out. But top 5% kids, even with terrible personalities, usually get at least S&C (LOL) or something. Thus, the offer rate for above median, especially way above median, is going to be 90%+, thereby dropping the offer rate for the medianish kids. You are right to some extent that this decrease is offset by the fact that a disproportionate number of kids who get no offers are in the bottom third.

But it is not a perfect cutoff line where the top 80% participating are the kids with offers while the bottom 20% participating walk away with nothing. A couple factors make it so some bottom of the class kids land offers and some medianish kids don't. The first one is dumb luck, which plays a bigger role than we realize. The second is the impact of WE, URM, interviewing ability, bidding, markets targeted, etc. The last is that firms do not draw as fine distinctions between a 3.28, a 3.17, and a 3.06 as law students think. The other factors start to play a bigger role. A kid without top grades is effectively shut out of many firms whether he has a 3.28 or a 2.9. The 3.28, the 3.17, the 3.06, and the 2.9 all go on to fight over the same type of unselective firms who may have a very forgiving cut off (maybe the 2.9 gets thrown out), but for the others, all the other factors come into play. At the end of the day, 3.06 and 3.17 may get offers while 3.28 does not.

I've been going on way too long about this, but I stick with my original estimate that if 80-90% get offers, a medianish kid has maybe a 30% chance of striking out, and that has been true throughout the bad economy. Thus, I don't think a T6 below median striking out means that this year is worse than last, especially since it is all anecdotal as IAFG has been pointing out over and over again.

Based on OCS data, your chances of getting an offer decrease as your grades decrease in a fairly logarithmic fashion. If we assume half of the bottom 20% strikes out, a quarter of the next 20% strikes out, and noone in the top 20% strikes out (which are estimates very, very generous to your argument), the remaining 40% (which includes 10% below median and 30% above median) stand an 87.5% chance of getting an offer, which constitutes a vast majority to me.

That said, these are all made-up numbers and flawed assumptions on both your side and mine. I agree that median NYU students aren't safe and that many of them will strike out. Let's move past mostly semantic differences and get to the real point-- this hiring period at the very least doesn't seem significantly better than last year's and is probably worse.

[Anonymous User]

This year seems to have accelerated the trend of flight to perceived quality with decreased hiring outside the T14, even in the usual 10%-15% range. Also, it seems that many of the people who struck out or almost struck out in the T14 were focusing on non-NYC markets. For those who were T14, struck out and were focused on NYC (or another plausible market pair, like UChi & Chi or Berk & CA), is there something on your resume or interview that particularly hurt you? Were you expressing interest in narrower practice areas (L&E, Media, Trade) or were you missing some key thing firms might care about such as journal, 1L summer in a legal job, or 2L courses that actually apply to bigfirms (like, is your schedule all human rights policy courses and communist economic thought as opposed to corporations and a litigation clinic)?

Yep, agree with the bolded and I think this is not new this year but has been the case ever since big law hiring started to retract (although the not taking, say, top 10% Fordham is new this year if true). At my summer firm, V50 NYC headquarters, hiring only from the T14, really the T10, has been the new normal ITE. Our summer class of around 40 had one Brooklyn, two Fordham, one Georgetown, and a couple NW. Everyone else was T10. The junior associate classes had similar makeups. Senior associates commented on how different it was from when the firm regularly had associates from all the NYC area schools (Fordham, Cardozo, Brooklyn, St John's, Hofstra, Rutgers) in addition to the usual suspects of the T14.

Not all firms behaved the way my summer firm did, but on the whole it seems like big law hiring at non-T14s has generally taken a bigger hit ITE relatively than big law hiring within the T14 - eg, down 40% at Fordham versus down 20% at CLS. Awhile ago someone posted an article from the NLJ about whether obsession with prestige was "choking the ties" of the legal profession, and in the comments one person on a big law hiring committee said they liked to go with T14 because it is safer. If an HLS alum associate flames out, no one blames the recruiters or the hiring committee. This is not a good justification or one I would support, but I guess it gives some insight into what the hiring committee may be thinking.

I attend one of the bolded schools and it is pretty bad this year. While its expected most of the grads from these schools would struggle to find jobs, the top 10% + LR kids were usually fine. This is not the case this year. I know of maybe 5 kids or so with an offer. All I can do is hope the economy is better next year, keep my grads up and maybe snag one of those elusive 3L gigs...

[manofjustice]

Which do you attend?

[Anonymous User]

I also looked at the NALP prospective summer class guide several weeks ago and it's mad depressing. All prospective 2013 classes were either the same size or smaller than 2012 classes, and the trend up to this point had been increases since 2009 SA classes. Check it out if you want - it's enlightening.

Where would one check this out?

[manofjustice]

Well, if I don't get a job as a lawyer, maybe I can finally start up that business...

[manofjustice]

So, I got an email today. The subject line was "CONGRATULATIONS!" The email was from some address "@skadden.com" It was so funny because I was JUST thinking how cool it would be to summer there. Opened it up, and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1kApnsayeQ

[Anonymous User]

This year seems to have accelerated the trend of flight to perceived quality with decreased hiring outside the T14, even in the usual 10%-15% range. Also, it seems that many of the people who struck out or almost struck out in the T14 were focusing on non-NYC markets. For those who were T14, struck out and were focused on NYC (or another plausible market pair, like UChi & Chi or Berk & CA), is there something on your resume or interview that particularly hurt you? Were you expressing interest in narrower practice areas (L&E, Media, Trade) or were you missing some key thing firms might care about such as journal, 1L summer in a legal job, or 2L courses that actually apply to bigfirms (like, is your schedule all human rights policy courses and communist economic thought as opposed to corporations and a litigation clinic)?

Yep, agree with the bolded and I think this is not new this year but has been the case ever since big law hiring started to retract (although the not taking, say, top 10% Fordham is new this year if true). At my summer firm, V50 NYC headquarters, hiring only from the T14, really the T10, has been the new normal ITE. Our summer class of around 40 had one Brooklyn, two Fordham, one Georgetown, and a couple NW. Everyone else was T10. The junior associate classes had similar makeups. Senior associates commented on how different it was from when the firm regularly had associates from all the NYC area schools (Fordham, Cardozo, Brooklyn, St John's, Hofstra, Rutgers) in addition to the usual suspects of the T14.

Not all firms behaved the way my summer firm did, but on the whole it seems like big law hiring at non-T14s has generally taken a bigger hit ITE relatively than big law hiring within the T14 - eg, down 40% at Fordham versus down 20% at CLS. Awhile ago someone posted an article from the NLJ about whether obsession with prestige was "choking the ties" of the legal profession, and in the comments one person on a big law hiring committee said they liked to go with T14 because it is safer. If an HLS alum associate flames out, no one blames the recruiters or the hiring committee. This is not a good justification or one I would support, but I guess it gives some insight into what the hiring committee may be thinking.

I attend one of the bolded schools and it is pretty bad this year. While its expected most of the grads from these schools would struggle to find jobs, the top 10% + LR kids were usually fine. This is not the case this year. I know of maybe 5 kids or so with an offer. All I can do is hope the economy is better next year, keep my grads up and maybe snag one of those elusive 3L gigs...

Different anon here at BLS and I can concur that yield is bad, but seems to have picked up from last year. I know the V15 firm I'm going to increased the (very small) number of offers this year and a couple of other firms have as well.