ITT: Interviewers tell you common instant ding OCI mistakes Forum

[Neal Patrick Harris]

Lol, I am shocked a V20 associate is capable of writing something so stupid, but I guess it makes sense since most of these firms don't let associates do any actual work until the 4th or 5th year.

OP here, do not understand the vitriol, even with my comment towards v20s, all I am doing is sharing factual data with you on how things work.

:lol:

[Leprechaun]

40% of candidates- grades don't meet cutoff (most firms have these, in retrospect it really makes me sad the awesome people you meet that you cannot give offers, a lot of the best candidates I meet cannot be called back ?

Why do you even interview these candidates if they are ineligible for a callback from the beginning? That seems highly inefficient to me and I'm curious as to why that is in practice.

[Old Gregg]

40% of candidates- grades don't meet cutoff (most firms have these, in retrospect it really makes me sad the awesome people you meet that you cannot give offers, a lot of the best candidates I meet cannot be called back ?

Why do you even interview these candidates if they are ineligible for a callback from the beginning? That seems highly inefficient to me and I'm curious as to why that is in practice.

At a lot of T14s, screeners are given by lottery system in the form of students bidding on firms...

[Leprechaun]

At a lot of T14s, screeners are given by lottery system in the form of students bidding on firms...

Understood now. Thanks.

[ScottRiqui]

40% of candidates- grades don't meet cutoff (most firms have these, in retrospect it really makes me sad the awesome people you meet that you cannot give offers, a lot of the best candidates I meet cannot be called back ?

Why do you even interview these candidates if they are ineligible for a callback from the beginning? That seems highly inefficient to me and I'm curious as to why that is in practice.

At a lot of T14s, screeners are given by lottery system in the form of students bidding on firms...

I would think that if 40% of a particular firm's screeners are going to candidates that they literally CANNOT give callbacks to per their grade cutoff, that they'd make the cutoff public so as to avoid wasting their time (and the candidates' bids). If the policy is hard-and-fast, why play "hide the ball"?

[KidStuddi]

Why do you even interview these candidates if they are ineligible for a callback from the beginning? That seems highly inefficient to me and I'm curious as to why that is in practice.

At a lot of T14s, screeners are given by lottery system in the form of students bidding on firms...

I would think that if 40% of a particular firm's screeners are going to candidates that they literally CANNOT give callbacks to per their grade cutoff, that they'd make the cutoff public so as to avoid wasting their time (and the candidates' bids). If the policy is hard-and-fast, why play "hide the ball"?

Many firms do post specific GPA cutoffs, but they go often go ignored. A median / below median student at a school with a lottery OCI has nothing to lose by submitting bids and hoping to be exception to the rule.

[Anonymous User]

Lol, I am shocked a V20 associate is capable of writing something so stupid, but I guess it makes sense since most of these firms don't let associates do any actual work until the 4th or 5th year.

OP here, do not understand the vitriol, even with my comment towards v20s, all I am doing is sharing factual data with you on how things work.

I am confused again. I am not sure if this is a 2L or whatever but I'll state it again. The top law firms have the most cost insensitive clients. Because of this, they can have their associates do grunt doc review work that clients at other firms simply wont pay for anyone but a paralegal to do. Therefore, the first two or three years at a V20 is similar to paralegal jobs at most lower ranked firms.

Whenever I interact with a counterpart at a V20, it is always someone 2-3 years my senior because the people on my level are usually not permitted to pick up the phone or type out emails because their teams on matters are twice the size at lower ranked firms. That has been my factual experience dealing with the firms, the V20 counterpart is usually doing the assembly tasks we leave to our paralegals or our secretaries and the V20 bills tend to be twice what ours are. Anyway, I'm done debating this point, I can only relay my experiences working with these firms.

[Charger]

Lol, I am shocked a V20 associate is capable of writing something so stupid, but I guess it makes sense since most of these firms don't let associates do any actual work until the 4th or 5th year.

OP here, do not understand the vitriol, even with my comment towards v20s, all I am doing is sharing factual data with you on how things work.

I am confused again. I am not sure if this is a 2L or whatever but I'll state it again. The top law firms have the most cost insensitive clients. Because of this, they can have their associates do grunt doc review work that clients at other firms simply wont pay for anyone but a paralegal to do. Therefore, the first two or three years at a V20 is similar to paralegal jobs at most lower ranked firms.

Whenever I interact with a counterpart at a V20, it is always someone 2-3 years my senior because the people on my level are usually not permitted to pick up the phone or type out emails because their teams on matters are twice the size at lower ranked firms. That has been my factual experience dealing with the firms, the V20 counterpart is usually doing the assembly tasks we leave to our paralegals or our secretaries and the V20 bills tend to be twice what ours are. Anyway, I'm done debating this point, I can only relay my experiences working with these firms.

But how does this impair their ability to conduct an OCI interview in relation to you? It doesn't. That's why people can't take you seriously, even if what you say as an OCI interviewer is a good data point.

[Anonymous User]

Why do you even interview these candidates if they are ineligible for a callback from the beginning? That seems highly inefficient to me and I'm curious as to why that is in practice.

At a lot of T14s, screeners are given by lottery system in the form of students bidding on firms...

I would think that if 40% of a particular firm's screeners are going to candidates that they literally CANNOT give callbacks to per their grade cutoff, that they'd make the cutoff public so as to avoid wasting their time (and the candidates' bids). If the policy is hard-and-fast, why play "hide the ball"?

Many firms do post specific GPA cutoffs, but they go often go ignored. A median / below median student at a school with a lottery OCI has nothing to lose by submitting bids and hoping to be exception to the rule.

I think most schools explicitly do not allow specific GPA requests. Even if not so, it makes a firm look pretty douchey to say that up front and is more of a process behind closed doors.

Let me say that GPA cutoffs are real. My firm prohibits calling people back below a certain GPA. There are no exceptions, if you have a GPA below the cutoff at my firm, you are finished before you start interviewing. Period. One of the fun things about OCI is you cannot look at the candidates transcript until the interview. I think its douchey to look at grades in front of the interviewee, but its kind of really sad when I connect very well with someone, look at their GPA during the break, and am forced to discard their materials.

As I said, it's really stupid, but this is 'what goes on.

[Anonymous User]

Lol, I am shocked a V20 associate is capable of writing something so stupid, but I guess it makes sense since most of these firms don't let associates do any actual work until the 4th or 5th year.

OP here, do not understand the vitriol, even with my comment towards v20s, all I am doing is sharing factual data with you on how things work.

I am confused again. I am not sure if this is a 2L or whatever but I'll state it again. The top law firms have the most cost insensitive clients. Because of this, they can have their associates do grunt doc review work that clients at other firms simply wont pay for anyone but a paralegal to do. Therefore, the first two or three years at a V20 is similar to paralegal jobs at most lower ranked firms.

Whenever I interact with a counterpart at a V20, it is always someone 2-3 years my senior because the people on my level are usually not permitted to pick up the phone or type out emails because their teams on matters are twice the size at lower ranked firms. That has been my factual experience dealing with the firms, the V20 counterpart is usually doing the assembly tasks we leave to our paralegals or our secretaries and the V20 bills tend to be twice what ours are. Anyway, I'm done debating this point, I can only relay my experiences working with these firms.

But how does this impair their ability to conduct an OCI interview in relation to you? It doesn't. That's why people can't take you seriously, even if what you say as an OCI interviewer is a good data point.

You are leaving out the part where he called me stupid for dinging people for using law school classes as the primary reason behind picking a practice. You are right that it was incorrect to respond by making the same exact comment to his point. In any case, I think we both view each other's views as stupid because our firms are looking for different things. My firm looks for candidates who will stay for a while with demonstrated interest in certain practice areas. His firm is looking for people to do the lower level doc review work and then attrition out to prestigious clerkships and in house gigs after 2-3 years (this is why people go to these places, nobody actually goes for a career). If I was a V20 interviewer, I would probably go all GPA personality and just look for the gunners who seemed to have the highest pain tolerance for the two years they stay. We at least want the type who can make it 5 with hopefully a slightly better lifestyle.

In that way you can take my advice with a grain of salt. Sweatshops want people who will sweat. Lifestyle firms want demonstrated interest and commitment. Prestigious lit firms want moot court and law review. I guess everything probably could have been avoided and the thread would have been more productive with that caveat.

[Anonymous User]

You are leaving out the part where he called me stupid for dinging people for using law school classes as the primary reason behind picking a practice. You are right that it was incorrect to respond by making the same exact comment to his point. In any case, I think we both view each other's views as stupid because our firms are looking for different things. My firm looks for candidates who will stay for a while with demonstrated interest in certain practice areas. His firm is looking for people to do the lower level doc review work and then attrition out to prestigious clerkships and in house gigs after 2-3 years (this is why people go to these places, nobody actually goes for a career). If I was a V20 interviewer, I would probably go all GPA personality and just look for the gunners who seemed to have the highest pain tolerance for the two years they stay. We at least want the type who can make it 5 with hopefully a slightly better lifestyle.

In that way you can take my advice with a grain of salt. Sweatshops want people who will sweat. Lifestyle firms want demonstrated interest and commitment. Prestigious lit firms want moot court and law review. I guess everything probably could have been avoided and the thread would have been more productive with that caveat.

At my v10, some associates are running middle-market cases as third/fourth years (big decisions generally signed off on by partners, but associates on the phone, submitting motions, doing depositions, sending contracts to the other side, etc). The fact that they work more hours than a lifestyle firm means they get experience faster. You're right that on the giant cases associates are doing less, but it's wrong to assume that we do less on all deals. In fact, it's my impression that smaller firms are more likely to put more senior partners on middle-market deals because those are the "big" deals for them.

What you're saying may be more true at the monolith firms (ie DLA) but I don't think it's necessarily true at all v20s. It's also not true for all practice areas (some lend themselves to more junior experience early on).

[Anonymous User]

Why do you even interview these candidates if they are ineligible for a callback from the beginning? That seems highly inefficient to me and I'm curious as to why that is in practice.

At a lot of T14s, screeners are given by lottery system in the form of students bidding on firms...

I would think that if 40% of a particular firm's screeners are going to candidates that they literally CANNOT give callbacks to per their grade cutoff, that they'd make the cutoff public so as to avoid wasting their time (and the candidates' bids). If the policy is hard-and-fast, why play "hide the ball"?

Many firms do post specific GPA cutoffs, but they go often go ignored. A median / below median student at a school with a lottery OCI has nothing to lose by submitting bids and hoping to be exception to the rule.

The problem with these is that some firm outside the V100 both in reputation and in known selectivity will post that they want top 10% at CCN when we all know they will dig well into median

[Anonymous User]

You are leaving out the part where he called me stupid for dinging people for using law school classes as the primary reason behind picking a practice. You are right that it was incorrect to respond by making the same exact comment to his point. In any case, I think we both view each other's views as stupid because our firms are looking for different things. My firm looks for candidates who will stay for a while with demonstrated interest in certain practice areas. His firm is looking for people to do the lower level doc review work and then attrition out to prestigious clerkships and in house gigs after 2-3 years (this is why people go to these places, nobody actually goes for a career). If I was a V20 interviewer, I would probably go all GPA personality and just look for the gunners who seemed to have the highest pain tolerance for the two years they stay. We at least want the type who can make it 5 with hopefully a slightly better lifestyle.

In that way you can take my advice with a grain of salt. Sweatshops want people who will sweat. Lifestyle firms want demonstrated interest and commitment. Prestigious lit firms want moot court and law review. I guess everything probably could have been avoided and the thread would have been more productive with that caveat.

At my v10, some associates are running middle-market cases as third/fourth years (big decisions generally signed off on by partners, but associates on the phone, submitting motions, doing depositions, sending contracts to the other side, etc). The fact that they work more hours than a lifestyle firm means they get experience faster. You're right that on the giant cases associates are doing less, but it's wrong to assume that we do less on all deals. In fact, it's my impression that smaller firms are more likely to put more senior partners on middle-market deals because those are the "big" deals for them.

What you're saying may be more true at the monolith firms (ie DLA) but I don't think it's necessarily true at all v20s. It's also not true for all practice areas (some lend themselves to more junior experience early on).

I did everything you described at the end of my first year. This is my whole point.

[sinfiery]

Any benefit to memorizing latest deal off of chambers website to drop in conversation during screener?


Seems like bad idea b/c can't talk coherently about it at all

[Anonymous User]

I actually didn't realize there were big firms that don't even pretend to care about the world/do a tiny amount of pro bono work. The more you know...

Our CSO specifically tells us not to talk about pro bono until you get an offer. They list it along with vacation time, sick pay, and raises as things not to talk about until after the offer comes.

[GoCats56]

I actually didn't realize there were big firms that don't even pretend to care about the world/do a tiny amount of pro bono work. The more you know...

Our CSO specifically tells us not to talk about pro bono until you get an offer. They list it along with vacation time, sick pay, and raises as things not to talk about until after the offer comes.

You do yourself a huge disservice if you don't do more research into the firm's attitude on pro bono before the interview. To use the most obvious example, Jenner & Block will practically autoding you for NOT mentioning pro bono. Every firm is different and there is no way to make a blanket policy on whether/when to ask about it.

For litigation positions especially, a lot of firms count on pro bono to get their associates more intense experience before they have the same responsibility on billable matters. A number of large DC firms, for example, partner with a PDs office in Maryland, and that's how a lot of associates get their initial opportunity to first-chair a trial. Gauging a firm's supportiveness of pro bono as a training tool is pretty critical if you're looking to get early experience as a litigator.

[Mal Reynolds]

Jenner is probably a bad example because that's the only firm I'm heard where you should mention pro bono. Exception that proves the rule.

[ymmv]

At a lot of T14s, screeners are given by lottery system in the form of students bidding on firms...

I would think that if 40% of a particular firm's screeners are going to candidates that they literally CANNOT give callbacks to per their grade cutoff, that they'd make the cutoff public so as to avoid wasting their time (and the candidates' bids). If the policy is hard-and-fast, why play "hide the ball"?

Many firms do post specific GPA cutoffs, but they go often go ignored. A median / below median student at a school with a lottery OCI has nothing to lose by submitting bids and hoping to be exception to the rule.

The problem with these is that some firm outside the V100 both in reputation and in known selectivity will post that they want top 10% at CCN when we all know they will dig well into median

Yup. All we really have to go on as students is what past students at the same school with similar grades were able to get, given how boldly and hilariously firms lie about their GPA cutoffs.

[sf_39]

Regarding more elite firms, student predictably always go with what is most prestigious and we have the experience to know that. Unless you have a reason for us to think otherwise, we are going to protect ourselves by offering the next candidate down the line rather than keeping the offer open for 30 days and then having to go back to someone everyone else passed on. It's a two way street and we are realistic, we know you will pick the v10 over us unless you have your reasons.

You complain that students are prestige-whores (not saying they're not), yet you probably have tight grade cutoffs (whether you adhere to them or not) that limit you to mostly candidates that will be at least in some part desirable by top firms, which is in a way, being prestige-whores on your part as well.

[Holly Golightly]

Also a lot of firms' GPA cutoffs are absolutely not hard find fast. Many firms give the same "cutoffs" to every school but are much more willing to go deeper in the class depending on the school in question.

[bk1]

Jenner is probably a bad example because that's the only firm I'm heard where you should mention pro bono. Exception that proves the rule.

I interviewed with one of their pro bono committee partner chairs and he seemed to give 0 fucks in response to me mentioning pro bono (the only interview I ever did and I only did it because he was the committee chair). Might have had more to do with it being a 6pm interview and him seeming to give 0 fucks about me in general.

I agree that generally you're best off not mentioning pro bono with most firms. There's not much to gain with it and it could hurt you (mostly in the sense that it's something hard for the interviewer to talk about if they don't personally particularly care about it and thus that makes the interview go poorly).

[Yukos]

V20 associates get so little responsibility. Everyone knows the stories of senior Williams & Connolly associates stuck on menial doc review.

[Mal Reynolds]

Jenner is probably a bad example because that's the only firm I'm heard where you should mention pro bono. Exception that proves the rule.

I interviewed with one of their pro bono committee partner chairs and he seemed to give 0 fucks in response to me mentioning pro bono (the only interview I ever did and I only did it because he was the committee chair). Might have had more to do with it being a 6pm interview and him seeming to give 0 fucks about me in general.

I agree that generally you're best off not mentioning pro bono with most firms. There's not much to gain with it and it could hurt you (mostly in the sense that it's something hard for the interviewer to talk about if they don't personally particularly care about it and thus that makes the interview go poorly).

Haha yeah maybe it was a 6pm interview. I'm wary of mentioning it but I've heard both that you should and shouldn't.

[El Pollito]

Also chances are your interview don't give a fuuuck about pro bono, so the question isn't going to generate much conversation.

[bk1]

Also chances are your interview don't give a fuuuck about pro bono, so the question isn't going to generate much conversation.

This is what I was trying to say only better put.