UChicago OCI 2013 Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm a transfer student from a 15-20 school, top 15%, wrote on to law review, work experience, and strong chicago ties. With that lower class rank but solid other factors, are there any firms that are completely off the table? Anything else I should know? Focusing on Chicago but also looking at DC and California.

Congrats onto writing onto Law Review! It's been a couple years since a transfer has done that. I think that the top DC firms (e.g. W&C and Covington) are probably out. The top Cali firms (e.g. Irell and Munger) also are probably going to be out. In terms of Chicago, no firms are completely off the table.

He means LR at his old school. Not out for us.

[Anonymous User]

random ? have K&E designations come out?

1L K&E came out yesterday.

[Anonymous User]

178.5, bidding Chi and NY. 1 year "scholarly" WE.

Not bidding WLRK, Cravath, Covington, W&C, or DPW.

Will bid S&C, Cleary, Skadden, FF, Gibson Dunn, WSGR, Kirkland, Jenner, Mayer, and Sidley.

Thoughts? Is S&C a wasted bid? Would WilmerHale (NY) be attainable? (Woo said something about Wilmer preferring 179+)

[Anonymous User]

random ? have K&E designations come out?

1L K&E came out yesterday.

2L K&E came out yesterday, too.

[Anonymous User]

178.5, bidding Chi and NY. 1 year "scholarly" WE.

Not bidding WLRK, Cravath, Covington, W&C, or DPW.

Will bid S&C, Cleary, Skadden, FF, Gibson Dunn, WSGR, Kirkland, Jenner, Mayer, and Sidley.

Thoughts? Is S&C a wasted bid? Would WilmerHale (NY) be attainable? (Woo said something about Wilmer preferring 179+)

Caveat, rising 2L, but reasonably well-informed.

DPW might be a better fit for that bid than S&C. Both are "selective," but DPW is much more a grades/personality sliding scale once you clear their cutoff. S&C is mostly grades, and they took a number of high GPAs this year (179+). I don't think either is a wasted bid though, just reaches.

[Anonymous User]

Emma, thank you for the help.

180 average here. Multiple years of WE. Want CA and only CA. Solid CA ties. Didn't do write-on. Questions:

1. Is MTO or Gibson Dunn out of the question since LR isn't happening?
2. Are there any CA firms that I need to rank particularly high due to popularity? Thinking OMM, MOFO, etc.

Similar position but looking at a different market. Can anyone speak to how much it hurts to not be on law review (or any journal) if you've got a high GPA?

[Emma.]

Emma, thank you for the help.

180 average here. Multiple years of WE. Want CA and only CA. Solid CA ties. Didn't do write-on. Questions:

1. Is MTO or Gibson Dunn out of the question since LR isn't happening?
2. Are there any CA firms that I need to rank particularly high due to popularity? Thinking OMM, MOFO, etc.

Similar position but looking at a different market. Can anyone speak to how much it hurts to not be on law review (or any journal) if you've got a high GPA?

IMO the only place it really hurts you is with the top tier litigation firms that pretty much expect and demand their incoming associates get a clerkship. I was mostly looking at transactional work and one of my interviewers actually asked me if it was too late to drop LR, since his opinion was that LR is a total waste of time.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard from Law Review today?

[Anonymous User]

Incoming Transfer from Illinois top 5-7%, Law Review invite (from Illinois), two book awards from substantive classes, as well as minor work experience.

Looking at the Chicago and New York markets (have family and have lived in IL all my life). Any bidding advice? Thanks

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard from Law Review today?

Yes.

[Anonymous User]

Does legal forum have any benefits whatsoever during the OCI process?

[badaboom61]

Does legal forum have any benefits whatsoever during the OCI process?

Secondary journals seem to have a marginal benefit with at least some law firms. It's not nearly as big a boost as law review, and it's pretty difficult to say what the actual "boost" is.

The risk averse path is to do the journal, since there might be some benefit at some law firm and you'd much rather have that potential boost than a potentially higher risk of strikeout. The only downside is that then you have to be on a journal. Personally I value the outcome of "not striking out" enough that I think it's worth it.

Also, being on a journal will give you a much more noticeable boost if you want to apply to clerkships next year. And if you do strike out at OCI, you will very glad that preserved this option by being on a journal.

[Anonymous User]

If you haven't gotten a call from a journal yet, is it safe to assume you're not on one?

[Anonymous User]

Does legal forum have any benefits whatsoever during the OCI process?

Secondary journals seem to have a marginal benefit with at least some law firms. It's not nearly as big a boost as law review, and it's pretty difficult to say what the actual "boost" is.

The risk averse path is to do the journal, since there might be some benefit at some law firm and you'd much rather have that potential boost than a potentially higher risk of strikeout. The only downside is that then you have to be on a journal. Personally I value the outcome of "not striking out" enough that I think it's worth it.

Also, being on a journal will give you a much more noticeable boost if you want to apply to clerkships next year. And if you do strike out at OCI, you will very glad that preserved this option by being on a journal.

Yeah, from what I understand secondary journals are definitely worthwhile for clerkships. From there I'm sure there's some value, but not going to matter much unless you're targeting something like MTO, Susman, Covington, ect.

[Anonymous User]

What is the sense everyone gets about the competitiveness of journal selection? Does virtually everyone who wants a journal get on? Or are the secondaries more selective?

[Anonymous User]

What is the sense everyone gets about the competitiveness of journal selection? Does virtually everyone who wants a journal get on? Or are the secondaries more selective?

~75 people (36 LR, ~20 per secondary) get journals. Many more journal competitions than this are turned in, I think its often in the range of 100 - 120 (although maybe more, I don't know exact numbers). This would imply that 30-40% or so of people who do the writing competition don't get a journal.

How many of those 30-40% half-assed the writing competition is a pretty good question. I'm going to guess that of those who actually put a meaningful effort into the competition, the number who get journals is very high, although still less than 100%.

[Anonymous User]

If you haven't gotten a call from a journal yet, is it safe to assume you're not on one?

Not necessarily. They sometimes spread calls out over multiple days.

[Anonymous User]

If we have heard from secondary journals, does that guarantee that we are not going to receive a law review invite? If not, and we accept a secondary journal, will we no longer be considered for law review? I'm a little confused about how exactly this whole thing works.

[Anonymous User]

If we have heard from secondary journals, does that guarantee that we are not going to receive a law review invite? If not, and we accept a secondary journal, will we no longer be considered for law review? I'm a little confused about how exactly this whole thing works.

I think that it guarantee's you are not getting a LR invite. LR invites went out in the morning. Secondary's started in the afternoon/evening. I think the secondary's wait on LR before calling. Also, considering the masthead for LR comes out Monday, it's safe to assume you didn't get LR.

[Anonymous User]

Does legal forum have any benefits whatsoever during the OCI process?

Secondary journals seem to have a marginal benefit with at least some law firms. It's not nearly as big a boost as law review, and it's pretty difficult to say what the actual "boost" is.

The risk averse path is to do the journal, since there might be some benefit at some law firm and you'd much rather have that potential boost than a potentially higher risk of strikeout. The only downside is that then you have to be on a journal. Personally I value the outcome of "not striking out" enough that I think it's worth it.

Also, being on a journal will give you a much more noticeable boost if you want to apply to clerkships next year. And if you do strike out at OCI, you will very glad that preserved this option by being on a journal.

Yeah, from what I understand secondary journals are definitely worthwhile for clerkships. From there I'm sure there's some value, but not going to matter much unless you're targeting something like MTO, Susman, Covington, ect.

Not sure this is true. I worked for an Appellate Judge my 1L summer. He said judges are split between "those that care about journal" and "those that don't." And for those that do, they care about law review (and sometimes, to a lesser extent, the board of a good secondary). My understanding is that Secondary is a marginal help for clerkships and somewhat helpful for OCI (for particular firms). Is it worth the time for people to do it? No. But law students are risk adverse and need that prestige, so there you go.

[Anonymous User]

Word is there's another round of LR calls coming out Monday. Hang in there fellas.

[Anonymous User]

Also, considering the masthead for LR comes out Monday, it's safe to assume you didn't get LR.

Word is there's another round of LR calls coming out Monday. Hang in there fellas.

Well, this is confusing.

[Anonymous User]

Also, considering the masthead for LR comes out Monday, it's safe to assume you didn't get LR.

Word is there's another round of LR calls coming out Monday. Hang in there fellas.

Well, this is confusing.

I don't mean to create false hope. This is just what I heard.

[Anonymous User]

Does legal forum have any benefits whatsoever during the OCI process?

Secondary journals seem to have a marginal benefit with at least some law firms. It's not nearly as big a boost as law review, and it's pretty difficult to say what the actual "boost" is.

The risk averse path is to do the journal, since there might be some benefit at some law firm and you'd much rather have that potential boost than a potentially higher risk of strikeout. The only downside is that then you have to be on a journal. Personally I value the outcome of "not striking out" enough that I think it's worth it.

Also, being on a journal will give you a much more noticeable boost if you want to apply to clerkships next year. And if you do strike out at OCI, you will very glad that preserved this option by being on a journal.

As with anything it's firm dependent. I got laughed out of my MTO interview by not being on a journal. The first question from my Jenner DC interviewer, who was a Forum EIC, was "Why aren't you on a journal?" That said I know 3 people on secondaries who struck out.

[Anonymous User]

Also, considering the masthead for LR comes out Monday, it's safe to assume you didn't get LR.

Word is there's another round of LR calls coming out Monday. Hang in there fellas.

Well, this is confusing.

I don't mean to create false hope. This is just what I heard.

That seems really odd. We had to tell our journals whether or not we were in by 5 pm today.