No-offered summer associate. FML Forum

[TTTehehe]

You're getting solid advice here.

3L OCI, look for jobs for fall and spring, and kiss CDO and Dean's butt for hook ups. Try to clerk if possible. Use that T14 resume to your advantage.

[Agent]

As I said before, I would look into whether the no-offering firm has a neutral reference policy.

Just as an FYI: For liability reasons, most employers will white wash your employment history. They'll give factual information (worked from X date until Y date, did not receive a fulltime offer) but will otherwise in almost all circumstances be tight-lipped, or even say positive things about you.

Basically, there's a 99.9% chance you don't have to worry about a prospective employer calling your summer firm and having the summer firm rant about the typos in your memos. The fact that you were no offered will be an obstacle and raise red flags on its own, but you're not going to have all of the dirty laundry around your neck while looking for a new job.

+1.

Some firms will not disclose whether or not you received an offer if an employer calls and asks.

Some firms will give you what's called a "cold offer" or "soft offer" where you can tell future employers that you got an offer from your SA firm, with the (wink wink) understanding that you really did not.

I would not leave the SA position off your resume. It looks bad to have a gap, and it raises more suspicions than it does alleviating them.

When you do OCI again, simply say that you do not want to return to the SA firm because of any one of the reasons: (1) different market; (2) practice area; (3) firm size; (4) or a combo of all of the above.

Relax, it's not the end of the world. PM me if you want.

+1

Never tell any future interviewer you didn't get an offer. If they contact your old firm the only thing your old firm will do is confirm dates of employment and they won't make any comment on your file. Get a letter of reference from someone at the firm who liked you.

+1.

Never tell any future interviewer you didn't get an offer.

And what do you suggest to say?

Just figure something out. Plenty of ways to handle this without lying. Maybe whip out the positive letter(s) of reference at this point. Not rocket science.

[Anonymous User]

Plenty of ways to handle this without lying

*Yeah right. Easier said than done. Name three ways to do this without lying.

[Julio_El_Chavo]

Look, no one is going to be able to give you a magic phrase or method for how to discuss a no-offer in future interviews. You just have to use some basic principles in formulating your interview narrative:

1) never lie
2) never be the one to bring up negative points in your employment history
3) always couples an explanation of your no-offer with at least one positive point about what you uniquely bring to the table as a future lawyer and why you will be valuable to the interviewing firm
4) never lie

[Anonymous User]

This is helpful: http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/C ... advice.pdf

[Anonymous User]

Look, no one is going to be able to give you a magic phrase or method for how to discuss a no-offer in future interviews. You just have to use some basic principles in formulating your interview narrative:

1) never lie
2) never be the one to bring up negative points in your employment history
3) always couples an explanation of your no-offer with at least one positive point about what you uniquely bring to the table as a future lawyer and why you will be valuable to the interviewing firm
4) never lie

My SA was in a different market. From my experience, the interviewer usually looks at your resume and goes something like this "I see you worked at SA / tell me about your experience at SA." If, at the end of talking about the SA, I immediately transition with "but I would much rather work in this town and this firm for xyz reasons"... is that lying?

[Julio_El_Chavo]

Look, no one is going to be able to give you a magic phrase or method for how to discuss a no-offer in future interviews. You just have to use some basic principles in formulating your interview narrative:

1) never lie
2) never be the one to bring up negative points in your employment history
3) always couples an explanation of your no-offer with at least one positive point about what you uniquely bring to the table as a future lawyer and why you will be valuable to the interviewing firm
4) never lie

My SA was in a different market. From my experience, the interviewer usually looks at your resume and goes something like this "I see you worked at SA / tell me about your experience at SA." If, at the end of talking about the SA, I immediately transition with "but I would much rather work in this town and this firm for xyz reasons"... is that lying?

Whether or not it's lying doesn't matter. What matters is whether you look disingenuous by, in the interviewer's opinion, making it look like you got an offer but then ultimately confirming that you did not get an offer.

[sadsituationJD]

Probably a good time to start registering with the temp agencies like Lexolution, HireCounsel, Update Legal, Hudson, etc. That way you could at least maybe get on a document review project as a temp for say $20 an hour, and have something to do while you figure out an alternative/new career besides law:

--LinkRemoved--

Your legal "career" is over now, in the sense that you won't have a "career." Best you'll do is land a gig at some miserable rinky-dink boiler room for 40 K a year doing low-end tort like trip & fall, landlord/tenant, or consumer bankruptcy.

Have you considered just dropping out of law school now? Walking into the third year in this economy with no offer is essentially little more than a total waste of time, as is taking the bar exam. I'm serious. Just think of how much $$$ you'd save in tuition. It's not too late to just "throw in the towel," write off the past 2 years as a huge mistake/learning experience, and move on.

Just visit JDUnderground for a glimpse of the future that awaits you. The odds are overwhelming that you will not get another Biglaw offer, nor any decent gov't job offers. You might not want to hear it, but its the truth.

[Master Tofu]

However, since TLS is a give and take place, I'll answer the questions. My mistakes weren't too major but still mistakes: missed a deadline by a few hours, some typos and blue booking, and research accuracy issue for a weird ass assignment.

These mistakes are not the reason why you didn't get an offer. Everyone makes mistakes. You shouldn't blame yourself or lose faith in your ability because of that. Sometimes, shit happens but you've done nothing to warrant it. Just got to accept and move on. I am sure your work product is completely fine. Keep your head up and keep hustling.

[Anonymous User]

Probably a good time to start registering with the temp agencies like Lexolution, HireCounsel, Update Legal, Hudson, etc. That way you could at least maybe get on a document review project as a temp for say $20 an hour, and have something to do while you figure out an alternative/new career besides law:

--LinkRemoved--

Your legal "career" is over now, in the sense that you won't have a "career." Best you'll do is land a gig at some miserable rinky-dink boiler room for 40 K a year doing low-end tort like trip & fall, landlord/tenant, or consumer bankruptcy.

Have you considered just dropping out of law school now? Walking into the third year in this economy with no offer is essentially little more than a total waste of time, as is taking the bar exam. I'm serious. Just think of how much $$$ you'd save in tuition. It's not too late to just "throw in the towel," write off the past 2 years as a huge mistake/learning experience, and move on.

Just visit JDUnderground for a glimpse of the future that awaits you. The odds are overwhelming that you will not get another Biglaw offer, nor any decent gov't job offers. You might not want to hear it, but its the truth.

Sure, buddy. This is the most idiotic advice I have read at TLS.

[sadsituationJD]

Sure, buddy. This is the most idiotic advice I have read at TLS.

If the truth is "idiotic," then I guess you're right.

Wish in one hand and shit in the other , and see which one fills up first.

[ben4847]

Sure, buddy. This is the most idiotic advice I have read at TLS.

If the truth is "idiotic," then I guess you're right.

Wish in one hand and s--- in the other , and see which one fills up first.

Yes, but at least the wishing hand won't be full of s---.

[sadsituationJD]

Look OP, honestly be thankful you've washed out of this industry so early. Your job performance indicates that, like most rational, intelligent humans, you aren't enamored with pushing wheelbarrow-loads of boring, tedious, makework shitpaper from one side of a table to the other. Perhaps you actually have a bit of creativity, or originality, or pizazz? All of these are fatal to a career in law, esp. Biglaw (or as I call it, BigPaperPushing).

I can guarantee that you'd never work on a single "interesting" project as a lawyer, and in fact would never even work on a project that wasn't mind-numbingly boring, to the point where you'd rather committ suicide than flip thru another page of a Tri-Lateral Broker Dealer Sub-Agreement Addendum. And remember, it's 80+ hours a week of this migraine-inducing tedium.

Count your lucky stars. Perhaps you'll find something much better that you enjoy a lot more (truth be told, it would take real effort to find anything worse than law). Parsed out per hour, most self-employed plumbers and electricians do better per hour (esp. on cash jobs) than Biglaw lawyers. They just happen to enjoy insane things like ballgames, drinking beer, vacations, and having a social life, rather than working double the hours of a normal person pushing bale upon endless bale of shitpaper around some windowless office. Oh wait, they lack "prestige" lol. As if the general public has any respect or places any value whatsoever on the worthless slop cranked out by lawyers. At no point in Western history have attorneys and the legal industry been held in lower regard by Joe Everyman. With standards so low in the law, everyone has a retarded half-brother, neighbor, or other half-witted kin who have slept thru law school, slobbered on the bar'zam, and got admitted, all to make less than a janitor at some small shitlaw operation.

[flcath]

Look OP, honestly be thankful you've washed out of this industry so early. Your job performance indicates that, like most rational, intelligent humans, you aren't enamored with pushing wheelbarrow-loads of boring, tedious, makework shitpaper from one side of a table to the other. Perhaps you actually have a bit of creativity, or originality, or pizazz? All of these are fatal to a career in law, esp. Biglaw (or as I call it, BigPaperPushing).

I can guarantee that you'd never work on a single "interesting" project as a lawyer, and in fact would never even work on a project that wasn't mind-numbingly boring, to the point where you'd rather committ suicide than flip thru another page of a Tri-Lateral Broker Dealer Sub-Agreement Addendum. And remember, it's 80+ hours a week of this migraine-inducing tedium.

Count your lucky stars. Perhaps you'll find something much better that you enjoy a lot more (truth be told, it would take real effort to find anything worse than law). Parsed out per hour, most self-employed plumbers and electricians do better per hour (esp. on cash jobs) than Biglaw lawyers. They just happen to enjoy insane things like ballgames, drinking beer, vacations, and having a social life, rather than working double the hours of a normal person pushing bale upon endless bale of shitpaper around some windowless office. Oh wait, they lack "prestige" lol. As if the general public has any respect or places any value whatsoever on the worthless slop cranked out by lawyers. At no point in Western history have attorneys and the legal industry been held in lower regard by Joe Everyman. With standards so low in the law, everyone has a retarded half-brother, neighbor, or other half-witted kin who have slept thru law school, slobbered on the bar'zam, and got admitted, all to make less than a janitor at some small shitlaw operation.

Yeah, yeah. Look, no one's happy to be in law school, dude--it's not like our incredible success in life is what brought us here--but this really isn't the thread for this. Also, you should try to be funny, like that hilarious doc reviewer dude who posted here for awhile.

[Tanicius]

Look OP, honestly be thankful you've washed out of this industry so early. Your job performance indicates that, like most rational, intelligent humans, you aren't enamored with pushing wheelbarrow-loads of boring, tedious, makework shitpaper from one side of a table to the other. Perhaps you actually have a bit of creativity, or originality, or pizazz? All of these are fatal to a career in law, esp. Biglaw (or as I call it, BigPaperPushing).

I can guarantee that you'd never work on a single "interesting" project as a lawyer, and in fact would never even work on a project that wasn't mind-numbingly boring, to the point where you'd rather committ suicide than flip thru another page of a Tri-Lateral Broker Dealer Sub-Agreement Addendum. And remember, it's 80+ hours a week of this migraine-inducing tedium.

Count your lucky stars. Perhaps you'll find something much better that you enjoy a lot more (truth be told, it would take real effort to find anything worse than law). Parsed out per hour, most self-employed plumbers and electricians do better per hour (esp. on cash jobs) than Biglaw lawyers. They just happen to enjoy insane things like ballgames, drinking beer, vacations, and having a social life, rather than working double the hours of a normal person pushing bale upon endless bale of shitpaper around some windowless office. Oh wait, they lack "prestige" lol. As if the general public has any respect or places any value whatsoever on the worthless slop cranked out by lawyers. At no point in Western history have attorneys and the legal industry been held in lower regard by Joe Everyman. With standards so low in the law, everyone has a retarded half-brother, neighbor, or other half-witted kin who have slept thru law school, slobbered on the bar'zam, and got admitted, all to make less than a janitor at some small shitlaw operation.

Do you know what your problem is? You don't actually want to help anybody, and everyone here knows it.

If you wanted to help, you wouldn't be so fucking smarmy. If you wanted to help, you wouldn't have "JD" in your username like every single troll on this site. If you wanted to help, you wouldn't push your point past the point of inanity in every thread in which you bother to post. It's like when a pastor shouts in a booming voice all sermon long. People tune out. You're talking about mind numbing stuff as if you know it when you see it, and yet we're supposed to believe that you can't recognize your own crap when you write it out in threads like these? Your credibility is gone. It's been gone for so long that you only convince others to believe the opposite of whatever it is you say.

[El_Sol]

Look OP, honestly be thankful you've washed out of this industry so early. Your job performance indicates that, like most rational, intelligent humans, you aren't enamored with pushing wheelbarrow-loads of boring, tedious, makework shitpaper from one side of a table to the other. Perhaps you actually have a bit of creativity, or originality, or pizazz? All of these are fatal to a career in law, esp. Biglaw (or as I call it, BigPaperPushing).

I can guarantee that you'd never work on a single "interesting" project as a lawyer, and in fact would never even work on a project that wasn't mind-numbingly boring, to the point where you'd rather committ suicide than flip thru another page of a Tri-Lateral Broker Dealer Sub-Agreement Addendum. And remember, it's 80+ hours a week of this migraine-inducing tedium.

Count your lucky stars. Perhaps you'll find something much better that you enjoy a lot more (truth be told, it would take real effort to find anything worse than law). Parsed out per hour, most self-employed plumbers and electricians do better per hour (esp. on cash jobs) than Biglaw lawyers. They just happen to enjoy insane things like ballgames, drinking beer, vacations, and having a social life, rather than working double the hours of a normal person pushing bale upon endless bale of shitpaper around some windowless office. Oh wait, they lack "prestige" lol. As if the general public has any respect or places any value whatsoever on the worthless slop cranked out by lawyers. At no point in Western history have attorneys and the legal industry been held in lower regard by Joe Everyman. With standards so low in the law, everyone has a retarded half-brother, neighbor, or other half-witted kin who have slept thru law school, slobbered on the bar'zam, and got admitted, all to make less than a janitor at some small shitlaw operation.

Do you know what your problem is? You don't actually want to help anybody, and everyone here knows it.

If you wanted to help, you wouldn't be so fucking smarmy. If you wanted to help, you wouldn't have "JD" in your username like every single troll on this site. If you wanted to help, you wouldn't push your point past the point of inanity in every thread in which you bother to post. It's like when a pastor shouts in a booming voice all sermon long. People tune out. You're talking about mind numbing stuff as if you know it when you see it, and yet we're supposed to believe that you can't recognize your own crap when you write it out in threads like these? Your credibility is gone. It's been gone for so long that you only convince others to believe the opposite of whatever it is you say.

+1

[Anonymous User]

People get no-offered for fit reasons? Like, non-total-assholes? Their opportunity to screen for fit should be the screeners and CBs.

Tyty. My place is really big on it in the hiring process, and I just am not as charming and engaging and likable IRL as I was in the interview process.

I just worry b/c almost everyone here (and everyone young) is either very charismatic or very attractive. Not living up to that standard doesn't strike me as a 'fair' reason to no-offer, tho.

Is it not ironic that you think "fit" should be screened out at the interview stage, but then pretty much admit that you yourself are a different person in real life than in the interview process? If you gave the impression that you were very charismatic but you are really not, I fail to see how that is an "unfair" reason to no-offer. Not saying I think you will or should get no- offered, but at the end of the day fit is very important.

[Anonymous User]

Final performance review they said there is a 50/50 chance of an offer. FML. Do I just withdraw before the no offer gets to me?

[bdubs]

Final performance review they said there is a 50/50 chance of an offer. FML. Do I just withdraw before the no offer gets to me?

Now I see exactly why you're going to get no offered.

[Loose Seal]

People get no-offered for fit reasons? Like, non-total-assholes? Their opportunity to screen for fit should be the screeners and CBs.

Tyty. My place is really big on it in the hiring process, and I just am not as charming and engaging and likable IRL as I was in the interview process.

I just worry b/c almost everyone here (and everyone young) is either very charismatic or very attractive. Not living up to that standard doesn't strike me as a 'fair' reason to no-offer, tho.

Is it not ironic that you think "fit" should be screened out at the interview stage, but then pretty much admit that you yourself are a different person in real life than in the interview process? If you gave the impression that you were very charismatic but you are really not, I fail to see how that is an "unfair" reason to no-offer. Not saying I think you will or should get no- offered, but at the end of the day fit is very important.

I think that's true, and I agree that fit is a lot more important in small offices or in firms with significantly less than a 100% offer rate (by that I mean it's not just one or two outliers each summer who don't get on offer). It really depends on the personality and hiring strategy of the firm.

[chrisbru]

Final performance review they said there is a 50/50 chance of an offer. FML. Do I just withdraw before the no offer gets to me?

Isn't this better odds than you had when you did your initial screener with the firm? Chill out until you know for sure.

[traehekat]

Final performance review they said there is a 50/50 chance of an offer. FML. Do I just withdraw before the no offer gets to me?

They actually TOLD you that? Sheesh...

[Agent]

Plenty of ways to handle this without lying

*Yeah right. Easier said than done. Name three ways to do this without lying.

See Julio_El_Chavo's replies.

[ReelectClayDavis]

Final performance review they said there is a 50/50 chance of an offer. FML. Do I just withdraw before the no offer gets to me?

Wow; sorry if this is true. Is the hiring partner Anton Chigurh?

[kenji]

Final performance review they said there is a 50/50 chance of an offer. FML. Do I just withdraw before the no offer gets to me?

50% chance of a job or 0% chance of a job if you withdraw. Yeah, totally withdraw.

God, that better be troll post.