HLS EIP 2014 Forum

[wert3813]

With 8H/2P, do my grades matter? As in, would they be fine at pretty much every firm and the callback/offer process would just come down to interviewing?

This is an impressively negative take on an extraordinarily impressive set of grades.

[Anonymous User]

As in, what firms did I not get that I wanted?

Yes

Covington, Sidley, and Hogan in DC. Nothing really in NYC (only bid on six or seven firms).

[Anonymous User]

Is there a chart or something that outlines how many Hs you need for a firm?

[ph14]

Is there a chart or something that outlines how many Hs you need for a firm?

https://www.law.harvard.edu/current/car ... index.html

Grades Number of Selective Firms on Your Bid List
1 or more LPs and mostly Ps Up to 5 highly selective firms on your bid list of 25-35 firms. All other firms on your list should be less selective; region, office size, and other relevant market factors should be considered. Make an appointment with an OCS advisor.
Mostly Ps Up to 7-8 highly selective firms on your bid list of 25-35 firms. Region, office size, and other relevant market factors should be carefully considered.
Mix of Ps and Hs (3 - 4 Hs) More evenly split your bids between highly selective and other firms on your bid list of 20-30 firms.
More than 5 - 6 Hs and no LPs Bid list can be focused on more highly selective firms but have a few target firms on your bid list of 15-25 firms

[Anonymous User]

Thanks, I meant more specific with specific firms

Is there a chart or something that outlines how many Hs you need for a firm?

https://www.law.harvard.edu/current/car ... index.html

Grades Number of Selective Firms on Your Bid List
1 or more LPs and mostly Ps Up to 5 highly selective firms on your bid list of 25-35 firms. All other firms on your list should be less selective; region, office size, and other relevant market factors should be considered. Make an appointment with an OCS advisor.
Mostly Ps Up to 7-8 highly selective firms on your bid list of 25-35 firms. Region, office size, and other relevant market factors should be carefully considered.
Mix of Ps and Hs (3 - 4 Hs) More evenly split your bids between highly selective and other firms on your bid list of 20-30 firms.
More than 5 - 6 Hs and no LPs Bid list can be focused on more highly selective firms but have a few target firms on your bid list of 15-25 firms

[Anonymous User]

How much do employers care that a DS you got was in a sort of flaky seminar class?

[ph14]

Thanks, I meant more specific with specific firms

Is there a chart or something that outlines how many Hs you need for a firm?

https://www.law.harvard.edu/current/car ... index.html

Grades Number of Selective Firms on Your Bid List
1 or more LPs and mostly Ps Up to 5 highly selective firms on your bid list of 25-35 firms. All other firms on your list should be less selective; region, office size, and other relevant market factors should be considered. Make an appointment with an OCS advisor.
Mostly Ps Up to 7-8 highly selective firms on your bid list of 25-35 firms. Region, office size, and other relevant market factors should be carefully considered.
Mix of Ps and Hs (3 - 4 Hs) More evenly split your bids between highly selective and other firms on your bid list of 20-30 firms.
More than 5 - 6 Hs and no LPs Bid list can be focused on more highly selective firms but have a few target firms on your bid list of 15-25 firms

I know what you meant. As far as i'm aware that's it, though.

[Anonymous User]

5H/5P and only want NYC. If I'm going all-in with NYC (so have plenty of bids to spend in the region), I suppose it's worthwhile to bid even at firms like WLRK? Prefer lit -- is applying to Quinn off the table? Is Quinn NYC less competitive than Quinn DC or LA?

No ties, no particularly relevant WE, etc. Okay-ish interview skills.

[094320]

..

[wert3813]

I'm gonna put my name on this so that if people want to discount this because I'm a 1L they can. I almost didn't because roughly half my section knows who I am on here so my name is actually on this stuff, but fair is fair.

I love TLS. My friends sometimes give me a hard time about posting on here because, rightly, there is almost no benefit and some downside in terms of stuff you say being around forever. I also believe upper-classmen and recent grads are a tremendous resource. I think they almost certainly know more about this stuff than us 1Ls. I have PM'ed plenty of the upperclassmen for advice about this type of stuff. That said:

Advice and speculation about markets and cutoffs needs to be discounted heavily. Like even more than you would normally discount anonymous advice on the internet.

I'm gonna unfairly pick on this post for a minute:

Also wanting DC but grades are not nearly as good. 4H/6P. K-JD. I think I'm a pretty good interviewer FWIW.

Thanks so much in advance for anyone's help. I'll try to repay the favor as much as possible.

Your grades should be fine. It'll come down to your interviewing. I would stay away from Covington and W&C (and you'll definitely have a lower chance at Hogan, Gibson, Wilmer, A&P, Kirkland, etc. - don't waste too many bids on these firms, just pick the ones you especially like) . Look for firms that have relatively larger class sizes but lower grade cutoffs. A couple that spring to mind are Wiley, Steptoe, Crowell, and maybe Cleary. I would also sprinkle in maybe 8-10 NYC bids.

I think this is bad advice. I don't know it's bad advice, but unless those at Covington who know this info pretty commonly share it with summers and/or associates (which happens at firms for time to time), there are very few people on Earth who know the quality of this advice. Those who have been through EIP only have one complete data set. Furthermore, even that doesn't allow you to do anything other than say I know firm X will offer a callback to someone with Y Hs. Even if you know your friend's grades, and I don't mean "good" or "decent" or knowing half their grades, and knew their various outcomes, you would have to know so many outcomes to have any sort of statistically significant knowledge.

That said, one can see how the EIP could lend people to thinking they know more than they do. It's natural to assume you didn't get interest because your grades were too low (especially because this may often be the case). It's natural to take a ton of different pieces of infomation from friends and feel like you have the whole picture.

Specifically regarding why I think the DC advice is bad advice, I met with OCS this semester and asked incredibly specific questions about the DC market. Based on that I took away that 4 H's should put every firm in DC in play except W&C. I was given the impression that perhaps 5-6 are preferred for Gibson and Covington, but that it was not required. I was straight told that if you had a couple H's and avoided LP's getting a DC firm job was very attainable. I asked at a firm like Venable or a firm like A&P, Sidley, or Akin. I was told the latter. If I had 4 H's I would go to the 2013 EIP data and I would bid the firms in DC that gave out the most offers last year other than W&C (this is going to correspond with biggest class sizes but if you want to be complete get both). That will give you the best chance to be successful.

Covington & Burling LLP
Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton
Kirkland & Ellis
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
5. WilmerHale
Wiley Rein
Steptoe & Johnson
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
mayer brown llp
10. Latham & Watkins
hogan lovells
O'Melveny & Myers
Arnold & Porter
Jones Day
15. White & Case
King & Spalding
Ropes & Gray
Jenner & Block
Sullivan & Cromwell
20. Bingham McCutchen
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
Miller & Chevalier Chartered
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
Crowell & Moring
25. Allen & Overy
Baker Botts
Hughes Hubbard & Reed
sidley austin llp
Goodwin Procter
30. Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP
Morrison & Foerster

31 Firms. This gives you the firms that made 329 of the 371 DC offers to Harvard students last year. Adjust to include firms not included you really like or exclude firms you don't like. include 4 massive NYC firms if you want to feel safe. You're above median at HLS. If you don't get a job with this bid list, the problem isn't the bid list. Don't exclude firms like K&E, Wilmer, etc.; they have big classes for DC and you have zero evidence your grades are not squarely in their range (let alone that they would preclude you).

Anyway this became a full rant. Apologies. I don't mean for this to suggest that I want less anecdotes or advice, although I'm sure it does (I really actually don't; I just want people to understand how 2Ls and 3Ls can go through the process and not know that much about cutoffs or markets). It would be uber helpful if people were willing to post what they know to be true about cutoffs. Definitively. I.e. answering the dude who earlier asked if anyone knows firms who will take people with an LP. People on here can definitively know that Joe & John offers callbacks to people with 2 Hs and the definitiveness of the information is obviously very helpful when making a bid list. I obviously understand if people aren't super quick to want to share that information.

TL/DR: Wert kinda went on a dueshebag rant tonight. It was poorly written and has so many typos. He claims if you ask OCS very specific questions you can get some decent information.

[wert3813]

5H/5P and only want NYC. If I'm going all-in with NYC (so have plenty of bids to spend in the region), I suppose it's worthwhile to bid even at firms like WLRK? Prefer lit -- is applying to Quinn off the table? Is Quinn NYC less competitive than Quinn DC or LA?

No ties, no particularly relevant WE, etc. Okay-ish interview skills.

5 H's is above Quinn's cut. Perhaps by a fairly decent margin.

[Anonymous User]

Graduated 3L here. The thing that concerns me about OCS is that they don't have a full picture either. They know what the firms tell them, and they know the beg. and endpoint data from students--the student's bid list, # of screeners, and where they end up. But there's a lot of inbetween for individual students and most don't report back to OCS about that. Also, there are major shifts that have happened because of the economy. My general observation is that OCS seems to know what they're doing re: NYC, but tend to be shooting far more into the dark re: markets like SF/SV than makes me comfortable. I don't blame them--if students won't report back, what exactly are they to do? At the same time, that's unnerving.

That said, wert is right to suggest that you push back on the advice-giver to ask what they are basing their advice on. I actually know relatively well the full cycles of several students for SF/SV: I know the actual grades, general bid list (I can't remember these things perfectly), callback offers, and ultimate offers of several students from the year above me, my year and the year below me. For example, I know someone who ultimately graduated Magna who got shut out of SF/SV but did rather well in NYC, yet I also know someone with 2Hs who got a pretty good firm in SV. That, combined with my knowledge of general resume background & grades of other, leads me to be able to say: SF/SV is a holistic place; have a back-up market.

[wert3813]

Interviews that lead to CBs

2012 2013
Boston 43% 47%
NYC 46% 45%
DC 36% 35%
SoCal 31% 30%

Not sure Boston actually had more potential in 2013. Goodwin changed there cb process to allow them to do more, but they didn't give more offers.

[wert3813]

Graduated 3L here. The thing that concerns me about OCS is that they don't have a full picture either. They know what the firms tell them, and they know the beg. and endpoint data from students--the student's bid list, # of screeners, and where they end up. But there's a lot of inbetween for individual students and most don't report back to OCS about that. Also, there are major shifts that have happened because of the economy. My general observation is that OCS seems to know what they're doing re: NYC, but tend to be shooting far more into the dark re: markets like SF/SV than makes me comfortable. I don't blame them--if students won't report back, what exactly are they to do? At the same time, that's unnerving.

That said, wert is right to suggest that you push back on the advice-giver to ask what they are basing their advice on. I actually know relatively well the full cycles of several students for SF/SV: I know the actual grades, general bid list (I can't remember these things perfectly), callback offers, and ultimate offers of several students from the year above me, my year and the year below me. For example, I know someone who ultimately graduated Magna who got shut out of SF/SV but did rather well in NYC, yet I also know someone with 2Hs who got a pretty good firm in SV. That, combined with my knowledge of general resume background & grades of other, leads me to be able to say: SF/SV is a holistic place; have a back-up market.

OCS ought to have enough data for firm cutoffs and averages, but either way your point is well taken. Please continue to give advice.

[Anonymous User]

OCS ought to have enough data for firm cutoffs and averages, but either way your point is well taken. Please continue to give advice.

I always wondered about this. They certainly don't release it and when you try to weasel that sort of information out of them, it doesn't tend to work. I hypothesize that it might just be that the point of our grading system was mostly achieved. In NYC, as long as your grades are above a certain point, it comes down to the other things with a low bar, unless your grades are truly excellent, in which case the bar for the other things is even lower. Small markets are weird and holistic. Basically, that the NYC market is like NYU Law School re: admissions, places like SV are like Yale, and places like DC & LA are like Harvard. Except here it's your law school grades instead of LSAT+ GPA.

[wert3813]

OCS ought to have enough data for firm cutoffs and averages, but either way your point is well taken. Please continue to give advice.

I always wondered about this. They certainly don't release it and when you try to weasel that sort of information out of them, it doesn't tend to work. I hypothesize that it might just be that the point of our grading system was mostly achieved. In NYC, as long as your grades are above a certain point, it comes down to the other things with a low bar, unless your grades are truly excellent, in which case the bar for the other things is even lower. Small markets are weird and holistic. Basically, that the NYC market is like NYU Law School re: admissions, places like SV are like Yale, and places like DC & LA are like Harvard. Except here it's your law school grades instead of LSAT+ GPA.

I mean we don't even know what median is. Someone said that OCS has said it's three. Then that's echo chambered. It's sorta laughable when you think about it. To your other point my guess is OCS knows this stuff but doesn't share because employers being in the dark is a benefit. To that end if you have an LP you really should take OCS' advice and nag them to help you make your bidlist. Ask about specific firms. I would imagine they are way more inclined to share that information or at least make sure your bid list incorporates that information.

[Anonymous User]

OCS ought to have enough data for firm cutoffs and averages, but either way your point is well taken. Please continue to give advice.

I always wondered about this. They certainly don't release it and when you try to weasel that sort of information out of them, it doesn't tend to work. I hypothesize that it might just be that the point of our grading system was mostly achieved. In NYC, as long as your grades are above a certain point, it comes down to the other things with a low bar, unless your grades are truly excellent, in which case the bar for the other things is even lower. Small markets are weird and holistic. Basically, that the NYC market is like NYU Law School re: admissions, places like SV are like Yale, and places like DC & LA are like Harvard. Except here it's your law school grades instead of LSAT+ GPA.

Just because I want to make sure any prospective applicants aren't scared off of LA, I would note that, generally speaking, DC and SF are more selective markets than LA (which is probably in turn more selective than NY).

[wert3813]

OCS ought to have enough data for firm cutoffs and averages, but either way your point is well taken. Please continue to give advice.

I always wondered about this. They certainly don't release it and when you try to weasel that sort of information out of them, it doesn't tend to work. I hypothesize that it might just be that the point of our grading system was mostly achieved. In NYC, as long as your grades are above a certain point, it comes down to the other things with a low bar, unless your grades are truly excellent, in which case the bar for the other things is even lower. Small markets are weird and holistic. Basically, that the NYC market is like NYU Law School re: admissions, places like SV are like Yale, and places like DC & LA are like Harvard. Except here it's your law school grades instead of LSAT+ GPA.

Just because I want to make sure any prospective applicants aren't scared off of LA, I would note that, generally speaking, DC and SF are more selective markets than LA (which is probably in turn more selective than NY).

If someone doesn't have the grades for Munger/Irell/Gibson (w/e the hell those are) though the amount of 2013 slots gets really small really quickly.

[Anonymous User]

Also if you didn't see, the EIP statistics from prior years are up (password protected): https://www.law.harvard.edu/current/car ... index.html

How on earth were there only 19 LA/OC accepts last year???

[Anonymous User]

OCS ought to have enough data for firm cutoffs and averages, but either way your point is well taken. Please continue to give advice.

I always wondered about this. They certainly don't release it and when you try to weasel that sort of information out of them, it doesn't tend to work. I hypothesize that it might just be that the point of our grading system was mostly achieved. In NYC, as long as your grades are above a certain point, it comes down to the other things with a low bar, unless your grades are truly excellent, in which case the bar for the other things is even lower. Small markets are weird and holistic. Basically, that the NYC market is like NYU Law School re: admissions, places like SV are like Yale, and places like DC & LA are like Harvard. Except here it's your law school grades instead of LSAT+ GPA.

Just because I want to make sure any prospective applicants aren't scared off of LA, I would note that, generally speaking, DC and SF are more selective markets than LA (which is probably in turn more selective than NY).

If someone doesn't have the grades for Munger/Irell/Gibson (w/e the hell those are) though the amount of 2013 slots gets really small really quickly.

91 offers to HLS students last year. 32 of those were from Munger, Irell, and Gibson. 1 more offer if you include Orange County. 94 offers to HLS students in 2012 (2 more if you include Sheppard, Mullin Century City, which is for some reason not just included as LA, though other Century City firms are; 2 more if you count Orange County firms)). 19 of those were from Munger, Irell, and Gibson (1 more if you are counting Orange County).

[Anonymous User]

Also if you didn't see, the EIP statistics from prior years are up (password protected): https://www.law.harvard.edu/current/car ... index.html

How on earth were there only 19 LA/OC accepts last year???

That's kind of surprising. Probably due to mainly self-selection. The majority of HLS students want NY or DC.

[Anonymous User]

I always wondered about this. They certainly don't release it and when you try to weasel that sort of information out of them, it doesn't tend to work. I hypothesize that it might just be that the point of our grading system was mostly achieved. In NYC, as long as your grades are above a certain point, it comes down to the other things with a low bar, unless your grades are truly excellent, in which case the bar for the other things is even lower. Small markets are weird and holistic. Basically, that the NYC market is like NYU Law School re: admissions, places like SV are like Yale, and places like DC & LA are like Harvard. Except here it's your law school grades instead of LSAT+ GPA.

Just because I want to make sure any prospective applicants aren't scared off of LA, I would note that, generally speaking, DC and SF are more selective markets than LA (which is probably in turn more selective than NY).

If someone doesn't have the grades for Munger/Irell/Gibson (w/e the hell those are) though the amount of 2013 slots gets really small really quickly.

91 offers to HLS students last year. 32 of those were from Munger, Irell, and Gibson. 1 more offer if you include Orange County. 94 offers to HLS students in 2012 (2 more if you include Sheppard, Mullin Century City, which is for some reason not just included as LA, though other Century City firms are; 2 more if you count Orange County firms)). 19 of those were from Munger, Irell, and Gibson (1 more if you are counting Orange County).

My count is 98, including OC firms. Any idea how many are multiple offers? And Munger had the highest number of bids, at 56. Looks like around 40 at least semi-serious LA folks. 20 firms had 25+ bids. 438 total acceptances overall.

[Anonymous User]

My count is 98, including OC firms. Any idea how many are multiple offers? And Munger had the highest number of bids, at 56. Looks like around 40 at least semi-serious LA folks. 20 firms had 25+ bids. 438 total acceptances overall.

I just did a really quick =sum on Excel on the firms with the LA location and glanced at Orange County, so I would not be surprised if your count is more accurate.

[Anonymous User]

Also if you didn't see, the EIP statistics from prior years are up (password protected): https://www.law.harvard.edu/current/car ... index.html

How on earth were there only 19 LA/OC accepts last year???

That's kind of surprising. Probably due to mainly self-selection. The majority of HLS students want NY or DC.

Previous years were all around 30.

[Anonymous User]

Also re: LA, the number of at least semi-serious applicants seems to have been SLIGHTLY less in previous years (except for a weird 75 person blip for Munger in 2010), and the number of offers was roughly equivalent (around 90-95 each year).