Penn OCI 2015 (C/O 2017) Forum

[Nelson]

That said I would definitely recommend having at least a few big New York safeties no matter how good your grades and regional ties are.

I second the NYC advice for everyone. You would be well advised to bid on at least 5-10 big NYC firms (depending on grades) no matter how much you hate NYC just to give yourself peace of mind.

It's pretty tough to bid a significant number of firms in more than 2-3 markets at OCI given the geographic distribution of who comes to campus. Just don't put too many eggs in the DC basket unless you have excellent grades.

[Anonymous User]

How did people around median fair in the DC market last year? Anecdotal experience welcome.

[Anonymous User]

That said I would definitely recommend having at least a few big New York safeties no matter how good your grades and regional ties are.

I second the NYC advice for everyone. You would be well advised to bid on at least 5-10 big NYC firms (depending on grades) no matter how much you hate NYC just to give yourself peace of mind.

It's pretty tough to bid a significant number of firms in more than 2-3 markets at OCI given the geographic distribution of who comes to campus. Just don't put too many eggs in the DC basket unless you have excellent grades.

Can I ask what is meant by "excellent" grades in order to be safe bidding heavily in DC?

[Anonymous User]

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[Anonymous User]

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[Nelson]

To poster above me, the choice of firms looks mostly OK but you should leave off some of those reaches or move them way down. You are significantly below median and have basically no shot at Skadden, Cravath, etc. and you can get them in the late 20s anyway.

I would also look more at the number of slots in optimizing your bids. Cadwalader for example has a huge number of slots so you can get them lower down. Whereas something like A&O is way too low. Paul Hastings also needs to move up.

Can I ask what is meant by "excellent" grades in order to be safe bidding heavily in DC?

I would say you're "safe" bidding all or almost all DC if you have 0-2 B range grades. But in general, I would recommend everyone to bid at least 10 of their top 20 slots on NYC at least for the peace of mind. NYC summer classes are an order of magnitude bigger than DC.

[Anonymous User]

Hey all,

I'm still pretty confused about this process and was wondering approximately where the following grades would put me: A+ (BS elective), A, B+, B+, B+, B+, B, and H in LPS. 3 yrs WE, decent undergrad, and I'm from CA but am targeting NY (I have some ties to the area). Interested in litigation. What kinds of firms would be considered reaches, and what are some target firms?

Thanks so much!

[Anonymous User]

To all the rising 2Ls, posting on TLS or going to CPP for bid list review is not likely to get you substantial feedback. Bidding is an exercise in strategy -- go through the spreadsheet of rising 3Ls that was provided to you, find one who is at one of your target firms in your target cities (maybe even one who is on a journal you'd like to join as a prestigious journal is never a minus in your application), reach out to them (even if you have had no prior contact with them whatsoever), and have them help you. OCI is an important and stressful time for everyone and preparation is important. Most of you will not be very familiar with this process so make use of past wisdom.

Instead of trying to research firms on your own, talking with many current summers will yield much insight: everyone has their own experiences with interviewing and callbacks. They were in your shoes a year ago and talking with them will get you privy to the nitty gritty of law firms.

[Anonymous User]

go through the spreadsheet of rising 3Ls that was provided to you, find one who is at one of your target firms in your target cities

Can anyone tell me where this is?

Also, is there any way for us to find alums in the firms we're targeting? (assuming there are no 3Ls there now) There's an alumni directory but I don't think we have access to it. The only other option I can think of is Linkedin.

[Anonymous User]

Penn Law CPP -- current students -- recruting season resources. To find current alums, go through each website and manually search. But your response rate with alums is probably going to be YMMV.

[jumpin munkey]

Feel free to PM me if you want to talk about OCI or bidding. I'm a rising 3L who bid on a decent split between DC and New York. Nelson (and OutCold, who is around) were very helpful to me last year.

[jumpin munkey]

Hey all,

I'm still pretty confused about this process and was wondering approximately where the following grades would put me: A+ (BS elective), A, B+, B+, B+, B+, B, and H in LPS. 3 yrs WE, decent undergrad, and I'm from CA but am targeting NY (I have some ties to the area). Interested in litigation. What kinds of firms would be considered reaches, and what are some target firms?

Thanks so much!

You're above median and sound like you have a pretty good profile for getting several offers if you bid smart. I would probably load up the top of your bidlist with popular firms like Milbank, Fried Frank, White and Case, Skadden, Kaye Scholer, and so forth. Kirkland, Weil, Jones Day, Allen and Overy probably fall into that group. I think Paul Weiss (and probably Skadden) would be a reach but you should definitely bid it, and places like Simpson, Debevoise, and Cleary are certainly not sure things either. But these are all easily worth interviewing with. (If you make Law Review and are a decent interviewer, I'd be surprised if you didn't get a couple offers from those 5 firms.) Except for Skadden, these can go lower because I imagine these firms still have a lot of interview slots and are a little less popular than the first grouping because they're more selective. Really, I imagine you're in fine shape for NYC generally and should just try to organize your list so as to nab interviews with basically everything outside the V5 and Boies.

[redwallabbey]

Hey all,

I'm still pretty confused about this process and was wondering approximately where the following grades would put me: A+ (BS elective), A, B+, B+, B+, B+, B, and H in LPS. 3 yrs WE, decent undergrad, and I'm from CA but am targeting NY (I have some ties to the area). Interested in litigation. What kinds of firms would be considered reaches, and what are some target firms?

Thanks so much!

You're above median and sound like you have a pretty good profile for getting several offers if you bid smart. I would probably load up the top of your bidlist with popular firms like Milbank, Fried Frank, White and Case, Skadden, Kaye Scholer, and so forth. Kirkland, Weil, Jones Day, Allen and Overy probably fall into that group. I think Paul Weiss (and probably Skadden) would be a reach but you should definitely bid it, and places like Simpson, Debevoise, and Cleary are certainly not sure things either. But these are all easily worth interviewing with. (If you make Law Review and are a decent interviewer, I'd be surprised if you didn't get a couple offers from those 5 firms.) Except for Skadden, these can go lower because I imagine these firms still have a lot of interview slots and are a little less popular than the first grouping because they're more selective. Really, I imagine you're in fine shape for NYC generally and should just try to organize your list so as to nab interviews with basically everything outside the V5 and Boies.

There are a core group of litigation-heavy NY vault firms. Obviously Paul, Weiss and Kirkland are among that group.
I would tend to stay away from Magic Circle firms; it might be person-specific, but my impression was that you're doing London work in a New York office. Your grades are such that you can afford to be somewhat selective, but you're not really competitive for the tippy-top of the Vault rankings.
I would say PW, Kirkland, Debevoise (unlikely), Skadden, Latham, Gibson, Boies, and Quinn.

[Anonymous User]

Do the writing competition results typically come out before bid lists are due?

[Nelson]

Do the writing competition results typically come out before bid lists are due?

No. Journal results come out just before the start of OCI.

[Anonymous User]

3.33 GPA, no B-, prob no journal, but 2+ years WE, non-URM
Wants NYC preferably transactional, and Philly but with limited ties so not wasting too many bids. I've also left open a few slots for firms you guys point out that I forgot. They are sorted almost entirely by bid success rate right now and grade selectivity, so don't worry TOO much about order as its not final (but hopefully a close approximation), but what you guys think so far?

*snip* will repost when I get it finalized for review. Thx.

[Anonymous User]

Your ordering doesn't make much sense. If you're just listing firms you'd like to interview with - that isn't very useful.

[Anonymous User]

What are some solid New York litigation firms for those of us at median or slightly below?

[Anonymous User]

The level of sloth ITT is overwhelming. Do your homework first, then come here for the comments you won't get from CP&P.

[Anonymous User]

Also with a 3.33 there is no reason you shouldn't be doing a journal.

[eternalrest]

Seriously, you need to do a journal. If you don't have one it will either 1) come up in the interview; or 2) not come up in the interview, but leave every interviewer wondering (assuming) if you are lazy.

[ymmv]

Seriously, you need to do a journal. If you don't have one it will either 1) come up in the interview; or 2) not come up in the interview, but leave every interviewer wondering (assuming) if you are lazy.

I doubt this. I did plenty of interviews before journal results and wasn't asked about it once.

[eternalrest]

Seriously, you need to do a journal. If you don't have one it will either 1) come up in the interview; or 2) not come up in the interview, but leave every interviewer wondering (assuming) if you are lazy.

I doubt this. I did plenty of interviews before journal results and wasn't asked about it once.

I think the before journal results is key. If the OCI interviewer does 20 interviews in a day, and you are the one person without a journal, I think that's some cause for concern. Everything you do in law school is just a signaling mechanism for employers. If you don't have a journal and don't have a legitimate reason for not doing one, then I think the signal you're sending is that you're lazy and not willing to jump through the admittedly stupid hoop that is membership on a law journal.

Of course, membership on a journal is just one factor in your chances of getting a job, and I don't mean to say that it is impossible to get a job through OCI without journal. But why take the chance/make it harder on yourself? Just suck it up, do a journal for a year (like almost everyone else) and enjoy not stressing about finding a job.

[Nelson]

The only journal that matters is Law Review. The others you should do if you want, I think it can actually be interesting, but the job impact is minimal. Grades are what matters.

[Anonymous User]

Are there any statistics on how many people get jobs at OCI? My meeting with CPP has me stressing and sad.