Cook County ASA Class of 2013 Forum

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone who accepted an offer heard anything further from the office?

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone who accepted an offer heard anything further from the office?

Not yet. I'm guessing they just want us to focus on the bar and then move from there. I do have to tell them I'm moving back to Michigan shortly before the bar though, just in case they need to send something via snail mail.

[Anonymous User]

As a now 2L who is working in the Cook County system, I am thinking about interning with the State's Attorney next summer - I'm sorry to intervene, but I was just curious as to how many of you, who have received offers, clerked with the office beforehand? I've heard mixed opinions on how advantageous it is to clerk there before applying for a position.

[Anonymous User]

As a now 2L who is working in the Cook County system, I am thinking about interning with the State's Attorney next summer - I'm sorry to intervene, but I was just curious as to how many of you, who have received offers, clerked with the office beforehand? I've heard mixed opinions on how advantageous it is to clerk there before applying for a position.

Extremely advantageous. If you live or go to school anywhere near Chicago, I would actually put it in the "necessary" category. If you're at all thinking about applying, you should clerk. Even if you end up not applying, it will still be a valuable experience to clerk there when you have your 711 license. You can do some bench trials and motions and it will look great on your resume.

I think they have been recruiting out-of-state a little bit more recently, but my understanding is that effort has been focused more on URMs? Maybe someone else can verify?

And for your data-collection purposes, I clerked for the office in law school.

[Anonymous User]

As a now 2L who is working in the Cook County system, I am thinking about interning with the State's Attorney next summer - I'm sorry to intervene, but I was just curious as to how many of you, who have received offers, clerked with the office beforehand? I've heard mixed opinions on how advantageous it is to clerk there before applying for a position.

I never clerked for the office, and I'm from out of state, if that helps.

ETA: I am from the Midwest.

[Anonymous User]

So I just finished the next essay assignment that we're going to turn in, and I checked it with the model answer, which was pretty close to what I had down. I'm going to take the model answer, re-word it a bit, and submit it for grading to see what I get. I'm pretty sure they're going to fail me, but I just want to know if they're actually grading these things objectively, or if they're merely glancing over it and giving failing scores to "scare" us into studying harder.

[Anonymous User]

That is a great idea. I am the person that failed my first barbri torts essay and I felt bad about it, but then I let it go. I had a different conclusion than the model answer, but I should have received some points for the correct law and good analysis. I think the graders barely look at the essays. Please let me know what happens with you model answer experiment.

[Anonymous User]

That is a great idea. I am the person that failed my first barbri torts essay and I felt bad about it, but then I let it go. I had a different conclusion than the model answer, but I should have received some points for the correct law and good analysis. I think the graders barely look at the essays. Please let me know what happens with you model answer experiment.

Will do. I got a 1 on my essay, and it was about 80% of the model answer, so I had a feeling a game was being played. They probably want us to sign up for their essay class, but I'm not about to shell out another $200 bucks when 1) I have to move cross country next month, 2) I graduated from law school with a pretty good GPA, 3) the bar exam is about minimum competency, and 4) Illinois has a 90% passage rate for 1st time takers. If you still feel bad, there's a thread on TLS that talks about how Baribri purposely low-balls you on the exams:

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=186629

[Anonymous User]

Hey thanks for the link. I did pay the $200 for the essay advantage class and I can tell you that it was a complete waste of time and money. (I also received a 1 on my first essay.) I just submitted by second essay and I will keep you posted. Good luck with your move. I plan on moving in October. I think we start in November.

[Anonymous User]

Hey thanks for the link. I did pay the $200 for the essay advantage class and I can tell you that it was a complete waste of time and money. (I also received a 1 on my first essay.) I just submitted by second essay and I will keep you posted. Good luck with your move. I plan on moving in October. I think we start in November.

Thanks. If you don't mind me asking, what exactly did they teach in that workshop that was supposed to give you an advantage? It seemed to me that the essay workshop in the regular course was good enough to clue us in on how they expect us to answer a question.

[Anonymous User]

As a now 2L who is working in the Cook County system, I am thinking about interning with the State's Attorney next summer - I'm sorry to intervene, but I was just curious as to how many of you, who have received offers, clerked with the office beforehand? I've heard mixed opinions on how advantageous it is to clerk there before applying for a position.

I did not clerk for Cook County, but I did clerk for Lake County. I went to school out of state, but I am from Chicago. I heard that it is very advantageous to clerk for Cook County, and I believe it. There are exceptions though, and I'm probably one of them. I did intern there during my senior year of undergrad at UIC though.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks. If you don't mind me asking, what exactly did they teach in that workshop that was supposed to give you an advantage? It seemed to me that the essay workshop in the regular course was good enough to clue us in on how they expect us to answer a question.[/quote]

Hey thanks for the link. I did pay the $200 for the essay advantage class and I can tell you that it was a complete waste of time and money. (I also received a 1 on my first essay.) I just submitted by second essay and I will keep you posted. Good luck with your move. I plan on moving in October. I think we start in November.

I can honestly say Barbri did not teach much that was different from the regular essay workshop. They spent more time discussing issue statements and format but that is about it. The biggest advantage is that they give you another book which shows how often certain subjects have been tested on the MEE. It is also an abbreviated outline which focuses only on key points to memorize. I also get to submit three additional graded essays. That is about it!

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone want to have a get-together after the bar exam on the 31st in Chicago? I know this is a bit premature considering we still have to wait for results and everything, and there's still studying to do, but it would be a pretty good opportunity to decompress and to meet one another. Its understandable if people want to keep their anonymity on TLS, and this is just a friendly suggestion to save the date if you want to.

[Anonymous User]

Lol, so what exactly happens if we don't pass the July bar? Get deferred to next year? Just curious. Bar studying blows.

[Anonymous User]

Quick question as to how viable a candidate I would be for 2014.

Top 10% at Chicago TT and an internship with a prosecutor's office out of state. Litigation clerking experience but in other subject areas. Took evidence but have not taken crim pro. Am I dead in the water?

[Anonymous User]

Quick question as to how viable a candidate I would be for 2014.

Top 10% at Chicago TT and an internship with a prosecutor's office out of state. Litigation clerking experience but in other subject areas. Took evidence but have not taken crim pro. Am I dead in the water?

It's not too late to intern with Cook.

[Anonymous User]

Lol, so what exactly happens if we don't pass the July bar? Get deferred to next year? Just curious. Bar studying blows.

I believe they move on to the wait list.

[Anonymous User]

I agree this bar stuff does blow. The only thing that keeps me going is that if I don't study, I might lose my dream job. Illinois has pretty high pass rate, so think positive thoughts everyone!

[Anonymous User]

From WBEZ:

The president’s office also revealed Thursday that the county must come up with $18 million to end the current fiscal year in the black. Preckwinkle said her office will eliminate 20 percent of the vacant positions in her office, and urged other elected officials to do the same.

That request didn’t sit well with Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, whose office said they need all the bodies they can get.

“We have approximately 20 Assistant State's Attorney positions that are technically vacant at the moment, but we have extended job offers to law students for all of those positions already and will be filling those sorely-needed attorney positions over the summer and into the fall,” said Alvarez spokeswoman Sally Daly.

hmmm...

[Anonymous User]

From WBEZ:

The president’s office also revealed Thursday that the county must come up with $18 million to end the current fiscal year in the black. Preckwinkle said her office will eliminate 20 percent of the vacant positions in her office, and urged other elected officials to do the same.

That request didn’t sit well with Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, whose office said they need all the bodies they can get.

“We have approximately 20 Assistant State's Attorney positions that are technically vacant at the moment, but we have extended job offers to law students for all of those positions already and will be filling those sorely-needed attorney positions over the summer and into the fall,” said Alvarez spokeswoman Sally Daly.

hmmm...

You've got to be fucking kidding me...

[Anonymous User]

This is terrible. I hope we are not cut!

[Anonymous User]

Anita has been decent about standing up to Toni so far. There's not a lot of fat to trim in the SAO - it's really been running lean and mean lately. Toni always puts the screws to Anita because the SAO is such a big chunk of the County budget and Toni has more of a "criminals are just misunderstood" mindset, but Anita really put her foot down after having to lay off 25 ASAs and a majority of the support staff a few years back. I think she'll fight for us if it came down to it.

In fact, glancing quickly at the 2014 Preliminary Budget (LinkRemoved), it looks like our 2014 allocation may actually increase by about $2 million dollars. I think the County got a huge grant from ObamaCare that helped a lot.

Deep breaths everyone. I think we'll be OK.

[Anonymous User]

Anita has been decent about standing up to Toni so far. There's not a lot of fat to trim in the SAO - it's really been running lean and mean lately. Toni always puts the screws to Anita because the SAO is such a big chunk of the County budget and Toni has more of a "criminals are just misunderstood" mindset, but Anita really put her foot down after having to lay off 25 ASAs and a majority of the support staff a few years back. I think she'll fight for us if it came down to it.

In fact, glancing quickly at the 2014 Preliminary Budget (LinkRemoved), it looks like our 2014 allocation may actually increase by about $2 million dollars. I think the County got a huge grant from ObamaCare that helped a lot.

Deep breaths everyone. I think we'll be OK.

I would hope so; it cheaper to hire us than it is to retain some people who may want to retire or move on. I noticed that she said that she had 20 vacant positions that she's already filled by extending offers to us, so it doesn't really make sense for the president to try to trim fat at the SAO's office, considering the workload and the increasing violence in the city.

[Anonymous User]

I just got my commercial paper essay back and got a 4 on it, but it seemed that the grader that I got was nowhere near as angry as the first one, because he made comments in notes on the side of the essay instead of WRITING IN ALL CAPS ON THE DOCUMENT AND TELLING ME HOW STUPID I AM, which is a welcome relief.

[Anonymous User]

Hey Awesome! Great job. I still have not got mine back but I will as soon as I get my score. Congrats your hard work is paying off!