What the hell is going on Forum

[Anonymous User]

I have some dings and a lot of no responses. A couple of people I did screeners with reached out to tell me to hang tight. So that does fit with your theory.

[Anonymous User]

Too lazy to read through this egregiously long thread full of anecdata, but I can confirm that at least DPW, STB, and CSM are planning to cut the size of their summer classes for 2017.

Source: conversations between recruiting and associates/presentations by recruiting

This is true for cravath. Our yield was very high last summer, resulting in a very big 2016 summer class. The firm wants a smaller class next summer, more in line with our normal numbers. Also, we apparently extended 25 offers pre OCI, many of which were accepted. I would expect yield to be similarly high this summer, if not higher, so offers may indeed be harder to come by.

DPW told associates that it's shooting for 120ish this year whereas last year we had 150ish. Recruiting also said it generally plans to call back less to achieve this instead of calling back the same and offering less.

We had a ton of pre-OCI callbacks but respected schools' OCS' that stipulated no pre-OCI interviews (Penn and HLS at least I think).

Just wanted to clarify, I am a 2l at one of the schools mentioned and know of multiple people in my class that had DPW callbacks pre-OCI.

[Anonymous User]

My sense is that overall hiring is not being cut back materially (certainly nothing like the 2009 bloodbath). Firms that had larger summer programs in 2016 than targeted because of higher than normal yield will look to cut back to their normal size, but I don't view that as generally reducing hiring overall.

Assuming overall hiring is not being cut back, the explosion of pre-OCI offers this year shouldn't change success rates in the long run, but it may be introducing some distortions in the process. From the firm's perspective, if they have a bunch of pre-OCI offers outstanding (which they may if they're honoring the NALP rule that requires pre-OCI offers to remain outstanding for at least 28 days from the first day of OCI), they will rationally be conservative initially about the number of callbacks they give from OCI. However, it would also be rational for a firm to keep more of a waitlist than usual, given that students holding pre-OCI offers may decline callbacks at a higher than normal rate.

One question I have is whether those of you who have few or no callbacks to date have actually received rejections from most of the OCI firms you interviewed with, or if you just haven't heard from many of them yet. If the latter, that would be consistent with the waitlist theory.

The pre-OCI offer phenomenon may also mess up the firms' ability to predict yield. If firms give callbacks and offers on the basis of their historical yield, some may end up with smaller summer classes than they were targeting, which may result in openings down the road for people who struck out in OCI. There's always a little of this, but if pre-OCI offers mess up a lot of firms' yield predictions, there may be more of it than usual.

Note that the foregoing is speculative, but we don't have historical experience with the level of pre-OCI offers that we've seen this year, which makes it harder to predict how things are going to shake out.

This theory sounds right to me. I had 20+ screeners, but have only actually been dinged by two firms. Also, I wonder if some of the west coast firms are especially slow. I'm at an east coast t14 and I haven't heard anything about cbs from CA firms, and several of my friends bid there.

[Anonymous User]

My sense is that overall hiring is not being cut back materially (certainly nothing like the 2009 bloodbath). Firms that had larger summer programs in 2016 than targeted because of higher than normal yield will look to cut back to their normal size, but I don't view that as generally reducing hiring overall.

Assuming overall hiring is not being cut back, the explosion of pre-OCI offers this year shouldn't change success rates in the long run, but it may be introducing some distortions in the process. From the firm's perspective, if they have a bunch of pre-OCI offers outstanding (which they may if they're honoring the NALP rule that requires pre-OCI offers to remain outstanding for at least 28 days from the first day of OCI), they will rationally be conservative initially about the number of callbacks they give from OCI. However, it would also be rational for a firm to keep more of a waitlist than usual, given that students holding pre-OCI offers may decline callbacks at a higher than normal rate.

One question I have is whether those of you who have few or no callbacks to date have actually received rejections from most of the OCI firms you interviewed with, or if you just haven't heard from many of them yet. If the latter, that would be consistent with the waitlist theory.

The pre-OCI offer phenomenon may also mess up the firms' ability to predict yield. If firms give callbacks and offers on the basis of their historical yield, some may end up with smaller summer classes than they were targeting, which may result in openings down the road for people who struck out in OCI. There's always a little of this, but if pre-OCI offers mess up a lot of firms' yield predictions, there may be more of it than usual.

Note that the foregoing is speculative, but we don't have historical experience with the level of pre-OCI offers that we've seen this year, which makes it harder to predict how things are going to shake out.

This theory sounds right to me. I had 20+ screeners, but have only actually been dinged by two firms. Also, I wonder if some of the west coast firms are especially slow. I'm at an east coast t14 and I haven't heard anything about cbs from CA firms, and several of my friends bid there.

+1

I had around 20 screeners and have been dinged by a few but haven't heard from most. Also I think this whole pre-OCI offer situation has been more severe in CA because class sizes are smaller in comparison to NY and DC classes.

[Anonymous User]

Just keep on mass mailing. Don't forget firms in your hometown. The T-14 brand + ties to the region goes far. I was below median at T-14. One CB no offer. The offer came from cold-emailing alums. It is hard to compete at EIW when the interviewer has interviewed 6 students that have done better than you. Still reach out even if you got rejected at EIW. Maybe 2-3 alums I spoke with got in "through the cracks" and they get some kind of rush/joy from helping others do the same thing. Also people tend to forget their college connections, if someone went to law school where you went to undergrad reach out! Same with people that did undergrad where you go to law school!

[Anonymous User]

Cooley Seattle dinged me, but radio silence from all the other seattle/sf firms.

[Anonymous User]

Assuming overall hiring is not being cut back, the explosion of pre-OCI offers this year shouldn't change success rates in the long run, but it may be introducing some distortions in the process.

Perhaps I am dating myself but I think pre-OCI has been in play for several years. I say this because as a 1L shortly after entering LS (top half T14) I received an unsolicited interview followed by an SA offer from a V firm (before my first grades had been officially released). At the time I thought that the firm had managed to get a peek at my grades and that I must have scored sensationally ― nope, after my grades were released I saw that they were, at best, OK. I was aware that others (1 and 2L) were called way prior to OCI.

With this in mind maybe pre-OCI has been in play for a quite a while (but just not publicized).

[sims1]

Pre-OCI recruiting has definitely gone up in the last few years (at least at top V firms). As other people have said--firms aren't drastically reducing class sizes, timing of CB's might just come a bit later because of a different yield timing (firms need to wait for people to reject their offer).

Source: went through pre-OCI recruiting with a few firms and recruiting/partners said pre-OCI interviews were increasing.

[Anonymous User]

Cooley Seattle dinged me, but radio silence from all the other seattle/sf firms.

Yeah Cooley was the only OCI Seattle firm (silence from Wilson/Cozen/Perkins) to ding me. Also had screeners with Foster Pepper and DWT outside OCI with silence. The DWT person did warn me it would be a while before they got back to me, but that was a couple weeks ago.

ETA: also very little response from SF firms, a lot of dings from Penn's regionals but Latham/Sidley/Hogan/Baker Botts/HP are silent.

[Anonymous User]

I'll add to the anecdata that as someone with a 4.0 at mid T14 who is literally an Aspie I did fairly poorly. I think there were a good chunk of my interviews that went well without a cb as well.

[cjw564]

I'll add to the anecdata that as someone with a 4.0 at mid T14 who is literally an Aspie I did fairly poorly. I think there were a good chunk of my interviews that went well without a cb as well.

Did you interview with sullcrom? They usually auto-offer all the ppl at your grade range regardless of interviews.

[Anonymous User]

I'll add to the anecdata that as someone with a 4.0 at mid T14 who is literally an Aspie I did fairly poorly. I think there were a good chunk of my interviews that went well without a cb as well.

Did you interview with sullcrom? They usually auto-offer all the ppl at your grade range regardless of interviews.

Yeah I did and have a CB with them tomorrow actually. Really encouraged by all the 90%+ callback:offer rates I've seen.

[Anonymous User]

this is probably not the best place to ask this but i don't want to out myself. Is anybody going to the Latham NY happy hour tomorrow and if yes, what are you planning on wearing?

[Anonymous User]

this is probably not the best place to ask this but i don't want to out myself. Is anybody going to the Latham NY happy hour tomorrow and if yes, what are you planning on wearing?

I had the same question. Full suit can't be right, right?

[Anonymous User]

Jacket without tie is a good choice.

[Anonymous User]

this is probably not the best place to ask this but i don't want to out myself. Is anybody going to the Latham NY happy hour tomorrow and if yes, what are you planning on wearing?

I had the same question. Full suit can't be right, right?

Can't ever go wrong with a full suit.

[Anonymous User]

this is probably not the best place to ask this but i don't want to out myself. Is anybody going to the Latham NY happy hour tomorrow and if yes, what are you planning on wearing?

I had the same question. Full suit can't be right, right?

Can't ever go wrong with a full suit.

full suit would be ridiculous imo - Latham is business casual. Im thinking even a jacket would be too much.

Im stuck between khakis/button down and slacks/a nicer dress shirt

[Anonymous User]

Ask your CSO to ask Latham's recruiting office. Sometimes these events are business even though the firm is business casual.

[El Pollito]

business formal would be ridiculous for a happy hour

just wear nice non-suit pants with a nice non-suit blazer over a button up + no tie

[Anonymous User]

I went to this last year and the most common candidate outfit was suit without tie. If it's in the first floor cocktail bar again this year, that's what you should wear.

[Anonymous User]

Even if everyone is wearing suits without ties, no one will give a shit if you show up in khakis and a button down.

[Anonymous User]

Made a Poll. Would love to see everyone vote!

[crumb cake]

I'm not doing OCI this year but maybe there is less hiring due to the 180k salary increase? It makes sense that firms would hire a few less lawyers.

[Anonymous User]

Yeesh, voting speaking for itself.

[Anonymous User]

Yeesh, voting speaking for itself.

To be honest I think 4 is a pretty low bottom. That is still very strike-outable and for many of us (myself included) who got more than 4 but expected to still do a lot better based on grades etc.