Hey T14 2Ls Forum

[Anonymous User]

Might be too late but, is it still worth doing pre-OCI if you haven’t networked very much? Should someone try to network while applying to firms pre-OCI?

No need to network now. Firms will hire 80%or more via pre-OCI. Try to network but getting the app in is more important.

It's been a long time since I did OCI, but got any cites for this figure?

Also once again, this is the problem with unnecessary anon, because people have no way to know whether you're a remotely credible source or not

As someone who just finished the process, I can vouch that pre-OCI is the name of the game now. I don’t know if the number is as high as 80% but I know that if you aren’t doing pre-OCI, you are shooting your self in the foot a bit.

This sounds right and was trending that way even many years ago. The 80% though reeks of fearmongering

Latham had to be somewhat close to 80% last year already…? I don’t think it’s fear mongering at all to say some firms will fill 80% or more before OCI. In my Davis Polk callback last year, a partner told me they filled the majority of the summer class the previous year via pre-OCI (so in 2021 recruiting for 2022).

In the end Latham NY only had 10 screener slots at Penn OCI last year for the entire class. For one of the most popular firms and OCS still discouraged pre-OCI. Malpractice. People bid it no. 1 and still didn’t get a screener and our incompetent OCS staff sent out an oopsie email to the people in that position. Rising 2Ls reading this: ignore your school, hit pre-OCI hard NOW.

[Anonymous User]

Might be too late but, is it still worth doing pre-OCI if you haven’t networked very much? Should someone try to network while applying to firms pre-OCI?

No need to network now. Firms will hire 80%or more via pre-OCI. Try to network but getting the app in is more important.

It's been a long time since I did OCI, but got any cites for this figure?

Also once again, this is the problem with unnecessary anon, because people have no way to know whether you're a remotely credible source or not

As someone who just finished the process, I can vouch that pre-OCI is the name of the game now. I don’t know if the number is as high as 80% but I know that if you aren’t doing pre-OCI, you are shooting your self in the foot a bit.

This sounds right and was trending that way even many years ago. The 80% though reeks of fearmongering

Latham had to be somewhat close to 80% last year already…? I don’t think it’s fear mongering at all to say some firms will fill 80% or more before OCI. In my Davis Polk callback last year, a partner told me they filled the majority of the summer class the previous year via pre-OCI (so in 2021 recruiting for 2022).

In the end Latham NY only had 10 screener slots at Penn OCI last year for the entire class. For one of the most popular firms and OCS still discouraged pre-OCI. Malpractice. People bid it no. 1 and still didn’t get a screener and our incompetent OCS staff sent out an oopsie email to the people in that position. Rising 2Ls reading this: ignore your school, hit pre-OCI hard NOW.

How is Penn planning on enforcing its policy? Telling the law firms they can’t participate in OCI? Too late for that, the firms can pick up people pre-OCI. And I’m sure students would be thrilled to hear Latham is blocked from OCI.

The world has changed post-Covid. The easy logistics of online interviewing and the removal of NALP restrictions on early hiring mean it’s a free for all once grades drop and the online portals open.

Students that don’t get in now are like students that wait until March to apply to law school. There are some slots left but you have unnecessarily lowered your chances.

Schools like UPenn that used to get a competitive advantage from hosting OCI earlier than other schools are now seeing the erosion of their logistical advantage. They are fighting back with newfangled policies and the students are the Guinea pigs in the process.

Students should ask themselves if they really think X law firm will report to X law school that X student applied early. And what exactly will the school do anyway?

[Anonymous User]

No need to network now. Firms will hire 80%or more via pre-OCI. Try to network but getting the app in is more important.

It's been a long time since I did OCI, but got any cites for this figure?

Also once again, this is the problem with unnecessary anon, because people have no way to know whether you're a remotely credible source or not

As someone who just finished the process, I can vouch that pre-OCI is the name of the game now. I don’t know if the number is as high as 80% but I know that if you aren’t doing pre-OCI, you are shooting your self in the foot a bit.

This sounds right and was trending that way even many years ago. The 80% though reeks of fearmongering

Latham had to be somewhat close to 80% last year already…? I don’t think it’s fear mongering at all to say some firms will fill 80% or more before OCI. In my Davis Polk callback last year, a partner told me they filled the majority of the summer class the previous year via pre-OCI (so in 2021 recruiting for 2022).

In the end Latham NY only had 10 screener slots at Penn OCI last year for the entire class. For one of the most popular firms and OCS still discouraged pre-OCI. Malpractice. People bid it no. 1 and still didn’t get a screener and our incompetent OCS staff sent out an oopsie email to the people in that position. Rising 2Ls reading this: ignore your school, hit pre-OCI hard NOW.

How is Penn planning on enforcing its policy? Telling the law firms they can’t participate in OCI? Too late for that, the firms can pick up people pre-OCI. And I’m sure students would be thrilled to hear Latham is blocked from OCI.

The world has changed post-Covid. The easy logistics of online interviewing and the removal of NALP restrictions on early hiring mean it’s a free for all once grades drop and the online portals open.

Students that don’t get in now are like students that wait until March to apply to law school. There are some slots left but you have unnecessarily lowered your chances.

Schools like UPenn that used to get a competitive advantage from hosting OCI earlier than other schools are now seeing the erosion of their logistical advantage. They are fighting back with newfangled policies and the students are the Guinea pigs in the process.

Students should ask themselves if they really think X law firm will report to X law school that X student applied early. And what exactly will the school do anyway?

Honestly, if you are able to secure something pre-OCI, does it really matter if the school finds out and stops you from doing OCI? You already have your job lined up and can just relax during OCI instead of interviewing back to back to back. There isn't too much of an incentive to wait until a school's OCI.

[Anonymous User]

No need to network now. Firms will hire 80%or more via pre-OCI. Try to network but getting the app in is more important.

It's been a long time since I did OCI, but got any cites for this figure?

Also once again, this is the problem with unnecessary anon, because people have no way to know whether you're a remotely credible source or not

As someone who just finished the process, I can vouch that pre-OCI is the name of the game now. I don’t know if the number is as high as 80% but I know that if you aren’t doing pre-OCI, you are shooting your self in the foot a bit.

This sounds right and was trending that way even many years ago. The 80% though reeks of fearmongering

Latham had to be somewhat close to 80% last year already…? I don’t think it’s fear mongering at all to say some firms will fill 80% or more before OCI. In my Davis Polk callback last year, a partner told me they filled the majority of the summer class the previous year via pre-OCI (so in 2021 recruiting for 2022).

In the end Latham NY only had 10 screener slots at Penn OCI last year for the entire class. For one of the most popular firms and OCS still discouraged pre-OCI. Malpractice. People bid it no. 1 and still didn’t get a screener and our incompetent OCS staff sent out an oopsie email to the people in that position. Rising 2Ls reading this: ignore your school, hit pre-OCI hard NOW.

How is Penn planning on enforcing its policy? Telling the law firms they can’t participate in OCI? Too late for that, the firms can pick up people pre-OCI. And I’m sure students would be thrilled to hear Latham is blocked from OCI.

The world has changed post-Covid. The easy logistics of online interviewing and the removal of NALP restrictions on early hiring mean it’s a free for all once grades drop and the online portals open.

Students that don’t get in now are like students that wait until March to apply to law school. There are some slots left but you have unnecessarily lowered your chances.

Schools like UPenn that used to get a competitive advantage from hosting OCI earlier than other schools are now seeing the erosion of their logistical advantage. They are fighting back with newfangled policies and the students are the Guinea pigs in the process.

Students should ask themselves if they really think X law firm will report to X law school that X student applied early. And what exactly will the school do anyway?

I think schools threaten to kick you out of official OCI, and there are some firms that aren’t big on pre-OCI so you don’t get to interview there. But I don’t know what firms are left that still don’t do much pre-OCI. Wachtell? Makes sense for 95% of people to just do pre-OCI anyways.

[Anonymous User]

If the odds of getting a job via pre-OCI are greater than at OCI then, even if the school is 100% certain of blocking you from OCI, you should do pre-OCI.

[dyemond]

I’m always mystified by the pre-oci prohibition—I’m not going to call up your fucking school and tell them you applied.

I don’t know about 80%, that seems high, but 50-60% for firms like Latham, STB seem about right.

[Anonymous User]

Wanted to chime in and say two things, having gone through this process recently (rising 3L now).

(1) This thread is totally correct that pre-OCI hiring is ~50% at most firms, at least in the DC lit space, which is what I'm mostly familiar with. (Fair warning: DC lit might be unrepresentative in that it is both on a slower timeline than NYC recruiting and likely weights pre-OCI slightly less.)

But that still leaves a pretty large chunk for OCI regardless of market. I'll run the risk here of sounding like a dick, but I used these forums last year, and I found a lot of advice to be inapplicable/untrue/needlessly anxiety-inducing for me. So:

(2) If you are at a T14, even a lower T14, and you are in the top 5% of your class, pre-OCI is mostly optional. Don't get me wrong, it will absolutely help, particularly with some of the elite firms and boutiques, so if you have the energy and time, you should network to the extent you can. But if August rolls around and you've done nothing, you really don't have to panic. Your grades will carry you.

I say this as someone who is at a lower T14, who had top grades, who did zero pre-OCI, and who landed interviews at every single firm I applied to through OCI, almost all of which were selective DC lit. I didn't do anything non-standard, I just dropped my resume into the system. It's unfortunate in a lot of ways, but the truth is that lot of job-seeking advice in these forums is not applicable when your GPA is high enough.

To neurotic incoming 1Ls who might be looking at this forum: if you are trying to get a job at a good law firm and have a shot at being near the top of your class grade-wise, the marginal value of every minute you spend studying for exams in the spring likely exceeds the marginal value of every minute you spend networking. Just keep that in mind.

[Anonymous User]

I’m always mystified by the pre-oci prohibition—I’m not going to call up your fucking school and tell them you applied.

I don’t know about 80%, that seems high, but 50-60% for firms like Latham, STB seem about right.

I am involved in recruiting at a top firm. What I can say is, pre-OCI is about paper credentials. If you have a good resume and a good transcript, and especially if you’re not a good interviewer, do pre-OCI. If you’re diverse, remember that your resume doesn’t have a headshot, so make sure to signal that fact on your resume.

Lottery OCI helps people who are strong interviewers. Sometimes we pass on a candidate over the summer and then get wowed by that same candidate at the screener. But some firms won’t reconsider a candidate after they pass on their materials doing pre-OCI. If a candidate has bad or mediocre grades relative to the cutoffs for their law school, and they’re able to create magic in their lottery screener, then maybe pre-OCI won’t be a good bet. But if your grades are good relative to a firm’s cutoffs at your school, you should definitely do pre-OCI.

[Anonymous User]

I’m always mystified by the pre-oci prohibition—I’m not going to call up your fucking school and tell them you applied.

I don’t know about 80%, that seems high, but 50-60% for firms like Latham, STB seem about right.

I am involved in recruiting at a top firm. What I can say is, pre-OCI is about paper credentials. If you have a good resume and a good transcript, and especially if you’re not a good interviewer, do pre-OCI. If you’re diverse, remember that your resume doesn’t have a headshot, so make sure to signal that fact on your resume.

Lottery OCI helps people who are strong interviewers. Sometimes we pass on a candidate over the summer and then get wowed by that same candidate at the screener. But some firms won’t reconsider a candidate after they pass on their materials doing pre-OCI. If a candidate has bad or mediocre grades relative to the cutoffs for their law school, and they’re able to create magic in their lottery screener, then maybe pre-OCI won’t be a good bet. But if your grades are good relative to a firm’s cutoffs at your school, you should definitely do pre-OCI.

Can you tell us more about these cutoffs and how they vary by school? I am at Penn and we get little to no information about gpa according to firm.

[Anonymous User]

Wanted to chime in and say two things, having gone through this process recently (rising 3L now).

(1) This thread is totally correct that pre-OCI hiring is ~50% at most firms, at least in the DC lit space, which is what I'm mostly familiar with. (Fair warning: DC lit might be unrepresentative in that it is both on a slower timeline than NYC recruiting and likely weights pre-OCI slightly less.)

But that still leaves a pretty large chunk for OCI regardless of market. I'll run the risk here of sounding like a dick, but I used these forums last year, and I found a lot of advice to be inapplicable/untrue/needlessly anxiety-inducing for me. So:

(2) If you are at a T14, even a lower T14, and you are in the top 5% of your class, pre-OCI is mostly optional. Don't get me wrong, it will absolutely help, particularly with some of the elite firms and boutiques, so if you have the energy and time, you should network to the extent you can. But if August rolls around and you've done nothing, you really don't have to panic. Your grades will carry you.

I say this as someone who is at a lower T14, who had top grades, who did zero pre-OCI, and who landed interviews at every single firm I applied to through OCI, almost all of which were selective DC lit. I didn't do anything non-standard, I just dropped my resume into the system. It's unfortunate in a lot of ways, but the truth is that lot of job-seeking advice in these forums is not applicable when your GPA is high enough.

To neurotic incoming 1Ls who might be looking at this forum: if you are trying to get a job at a good law firm and have a shot at being near the top of your class grade-wise, the marginal value of every minute you spend studying for exams in the spring likely exceeds the marginal value of every minute you spend networking. Just keep that in mind.

“the marginal value of every minute you spend studying for exams in the spring likely exceeds the marginal value of every minute you spend networking.”

If you otherwise wouldn’t network at all, I’d argue spending ~10 hours networking has far more marginal benefit than the equivalent time of extra studying over the course of the semester. You have survivorship bias. You can’t know in mid-spring you’ll be top of class. Bad exam days happen and studying more doesn’t necessarily guarantee an A grade. (Some classes/professors don’t click!) And anecdotally, I know top 15% ish people for whom DC lit was a bloodbath—no networking and rising 3Ls didn’t have the normal on campus happy hour events. Regardless, the advice here applies to 90-95% people at T14s. DC is very competitive even for HYS students. OCI is unpredictable, and DC is unpredictable even for well-credentialed candidates.

[Anonymous User]

I’m always mystified by the pre-oci prohibition—I’m not going to call up your fucking school and tell them you applied.

I don’t know about 80%, that seems high, but 50-60% for firms like Latham, STB seem about right.

I am involved in recruiting at a top firm. What I can say is, pre-OCI is about paper credentials. If you have a good resume and a good transcript, and especially if you’re not a good interviewer, do pre-OCI. If you’re diverse, remember that your resume doesn’t have a headshot, so make sure to signal that fact on your resume.

Lottery OCI helps people who are strong interviewers. Sometimes we pass on a candidate over the summer and then get wowed by that same candidate at the screener. But some firms won’t reconsider a candidate after they pass on their materials doing pre-OCI. If a candidate has bad or mediocre grades relative to the cutoffs for their law school, and they’re able to create magic in their lottery screener, then maybe pre-OCI won’t be a good bet. But if your grades are good relative to a firm’s cutoffs at your school, you should definitely do pre-OCI.

Can you tell us more about these cutoffs and how they vary by school? I am at Penn and we get little to no information about gpa according to firm.

No firm will give you these. It’s also not just about your school, it’s about the firm’s diversity goals. So even if Penn did give you a median callback GPA (which is data that many law schools do share with their students) that doesn’t mean a straight white male with that GPA could actually get a callback.

My advice is to be conservative. Rank large class size, not super selective firms at the top. For example, if you want to do corporate in NY, the reality is that Willkie is more likely to hire you than Wachtell.

[Anonymous User]

I’m always mystified by the pre-oci prohibition—I’m not going to call up your fucking school and tell them you applied.

I don’t know about 80%, that seems high, but 50-60% for firms like Latham, STB seem about right.

I am involved in recruiting at a top firm. What I can say is, pre-OCI is about paper credentials. If you have a good resume and a good transcript, and especially if you’re not a good interviewer, do pre-OCI. If you’re diverse, remember that your resume doesn’t have a headshot, so make sure to signal that fact on your resume.

Lottery OCI helps people who are strong interviewers. Sometimes we pass on a candidate over the summer and then get wowed by that same candidate at the screener. But some firms won’t reconsider a candidate after they pass on their materials doing pre-OCI. If a candidate has bad or mediocre grades relative to the cutoffs for their law school, and they’re able to create magic in their lottery screener, then maybe pre-OCI won’t be a good bet. But if your grades are good relative to a firm’s cutoffs at your school, you should definitely do pre-OCI.

Can you tell us more about these cutoffs and how they vary by school? I am at Penn and we get little to no information about gpa according to firm.

No firm will give you these. It’s also not just about your school, it’s about the firm’s diversity goals. So even if Penn did give you a median callback GPA (which is data that many law schools do share with their students) that doesn’t mean a straight white male with that GPA could actually get a callback.

My advice is to be conservative. Rank large class size, not super selective firms at the top. For example, if you want to do corporate in NY, the reality is that Willkie is more likely to hire you than Wachtell.

Even if firms don't give this information out, any career services office worth their salt should have GPA ranges that they have aggregated from previous years' OCIs. Granted these numbers are reflective of how students do at OCI based on their GPA, it should still give at least a bit of insight into the GPA a firm "targets".

[Anonymous User]

I’m always mystified by the pre-oci prohibition—I’m not going to call up your fucking school and tell them you applied.

I don’t know about 80%, that seems high, but 50-60% for firms like Latham, STB seem about right.

I am involved in recruiting at a top firm. What I can say is, pre-OCI is about paper credentials. If you have a good resume and a good transcript, and especially if you’re not a good interviewer, do pre-OCI. If you’re diverse, remember that your resume doesn’t have a headshot, so make sure to signal that fact on your resume.

Lottery OCI helps people who are strong interviewers. Sometimes we pass on a candidate over the summer and then get wowed by that same candidate at the screener. But some firms won’t reconsider a candidate after they pass on their materials doing pre-OCI. If a candidate has bad or mediocre grades relative to the cutoffs for their law school, and they’re able to create magic in their lottery screener, then maybe pre-OCI won’t be a good bet. But if your grades are good relative to a firm’s cutoffs at your school, you should definitely do pre-OCI.

Can you tell us more about these cutoffs and how they vary by school? I am at Penn and we get little to no information about gpa according to firm.

No firm will give you these. It’s also not just about your school, it’s about the firm’s diversity goals. So even if Penn did give you a median callback GPA (which is data that many law schools do share with their students) that doesn’t mean a straight white male with that GPA could actually get a callback.

My advice is to be conservative. Rank large class size, not super selective firms at the top. For example, if you want to do corporate in NY, the reality is that Willkie is more likely to hire you than Wachtell.

Even if firms don't give this information out, any career services office worth their salt should have GPA ranges that they have aggregated from previous years' OCIs. Granted these numbers are reflective of how students do at OCI based on their GPA, it should still give at least a bit of insight into the GPA a firm "targets".

Penn doesn’t do this in a meaningful way, hence why I was asking. we get pie charts and it’s hard to distinguish beyond roughly three tiers of firms: almost all As; mix of As and Bs; mostly Bs. That middle category is hard to parse.

[Anonymous User]

I’m always mystified by the pre-oci prohibition—I’m not going to call up your fucking school and tell them you applied.

I don’t know about 80%, that seems high, but 50-60% for firms like Latham, STB seem about right.

I am involved in recruiting at a top firm. What I can say is, pre-OCI is about paper credentials. If you have a good resume and a good transcript, and especially if you’re not a good interviewer, do pre-OCI. If you’re diverse, remember that your resume doesn’t have a headshot, so make sure to signal that fact on your resume.

Lottery OCI helps people who are strong interviewers. Sometimes we pass on a candidate over the summer and then get wowed by that same candidate at the screener. But some firms won’t reconsider a candidate after they pass on their materials doing pre-OCI. If a candidate has bad or mediocre grades relative to the cutoffs for their law school, and they’re able to create magic in their lottery screener, then maybe pre-OCI won’t be a good bet. But if your grades are good relative to a firm’s cutoffs at your school, you should definitely do pre-OCI.

Can you tell us more about these cutoffs and how they vary by school? I am at Penn and we get little to no information about gpa according to firm.

No firm will give you these. It’s also not just about your school, it’s about the firm’s diversity goals. So even if Penn did give you a median callback GPA (which is data that many law schools do share with their students) that doesn’t mean a straight white male with that GPA could actually get a callback.

My advice is to be conservative. Rank large class size, not super selective firms at the top. For example, if you want to do corporate in NY, the reality is that Willkie is more likely to hire you than Wachtell.

Even if firms don't give this information out, any career services office worth their salt should have GPA ranges that they have aggregated from previous years' OCIs. Granted these numbers are reflective of how students do at OCI based on their GPA, it should still give at least a bit of insight into the GPA a firm "targets".

Penn doesn’t do this in a meaningful way, hence why I was asking. we get pie charts and it’s hard to distinguish beyond roughly three tiers of firms: almost all As; mix of As and Bs; mostly Bs. That middle category is hard to parse.

I think if you look at NYU’s data, that will be pretty damn close. But don’t ask anyone there to email it, that’s too risky. Just hang out with them and ask to look at it on their computer.

[Anonymous User]

If you have a friend at a peer school you could probably borrow that data to better parse between firms. Vault city rankings are also a decent proxy for GPA ranges. If you need to narrow down choices between just a few firms, look up Penn grads (and peer school grads) on the firm website and note the proportion of honors etc. for your targeted practice area.

[Anonymous User]

I’m always mystified by the pre-oci prohibition—I’m not going to call up your fucking school and tell them you applied.

I don’t know about 80%, that seems high, but 50-60% for firms like Latham, STB seem about right.

I am involved in recruiting at a top firm. What I can say is, pre-OCI is about paper credentials. If you have a good resume and a good transcript, and especially if you’re not a good interviewer, do pre-OCI. If you’re diverse, remember that your resume doesn’t have a headshot, so make sure to signal that fact on your resume.

Lottery OCI helps people who are strong interviewers. Sometimes we pass on a candidate over the summer and then get wowed by that same candidate at the screener. But some firms won’t reconsider a candidate after they pass on their materials doing pre-OCI. If a candidate has bad or mediocre grades relative to the cutoffs for their law school, and they’re able to create magic in their lottery screener, then maybe pre-OCI won’t be a good bet. But if your grades are good relative to a firm’s cutoffs at your school, you should definitely do pre-OCI.

Can you tell us more about these cutoffs and how they vary by school? I am at Penn and we get little to no information about gpa according to firm.

No firm will give you these. It’s also not just about your school, it’s about the firm’s diversity goals. So even if Penn did give you a median callback GPA (which is data that many law schools do share with their students) that doesn’t mean a straight white male with that GPA could actually get a callback.

My advice is to be conservative. Rank large class size, not super selective firms at the top. For example, if you want to do corporate in NY, the reality is that Willkie is more likely to hire you than Wachtell.

Even if firms don't give this information out, any career services office worth their salt should have GPA ranges that they have aggregated from previous years' OCIs. Granted these numbers are reflective of how students do at OCI based on their GPA, it should still give at least a bit of insight into the GPA a firm "targets".

Penn doesn’t do this in a meaningful way, hence why I was asking. we get pie charts and it’s hard to distinguish beyond roughly three tiers of firms: almost all As; mix of As and Bs; mostly Bs. That middle category is hard to parse.

I think if you look at NYU’s data, that will be pretty damn close. But don’t ask anyone there to email it, that’s too risky. Just hang out with them and ask to look at it on their computer.

Not the person who asked originally, but do NOT compare NYU and Penn grades apples to apples. NYU has far more grade deflation. Think cum laude in the 3.6s vs 3.7s at graduation for NYU and Penn respectively.