Top Law Schools

Is there any harm in doing this? I will bid mainly on one market, but will probably also spread out my bids over three markets. I am not planning on double dipping offices with the same employer, if that counts for anything.

Our career services office seems to think it can increase your risk of no-offers, but if you have a genuine interest in the firm and the work they do, and in the city in general, I can't see how it can seriously hurt you. I'm running into the same problem. I have two major markets I'm bidding on, but I have a few other firms in 3 other markets (all of which I have ties to, either from previously living there or having immediate family residing there) that I am interested in. I don't feel like I'm sacrificing my options in those major markets by spending bids on the smaller cities, because I've only bid on firms I actually care about and would really want to work for. It doesn't make sense to me to blanket a market completely, interviewing somewhere I wouldn't even want to work, at the expense of forgoing a potentially great fit at a firm in a different city.

Anonymous User wrote:Our career services office seems to think it can increase your risk of no-offers, but if you have a genuine interest in the firm and the work they do, and in the city in general, I can't see how it can seriously hurt you. I'm running into the same problem. I have two major markets I'm bidding on, but I have a few other firms in 3 other markets (all of which I have ties to, either from previously living there or having immediate family residing there) that I am interested in. I don't feel like I'm sacrificing my options in those major markets by spending bids on the smaller cities, because I've only bid on firms I actually care about and would really want to work for. It doesn't make sense to me to blanket a market completely, interviewing somewhere I wouldn't even want to work, at the expense of forgoing a potentially great fit at a firm in a different city.

My career services office says the same thing about increasing the risk of no-offers. I think I'm going to triple bid though (two primaries, one secondary) and see what happens.

.

.

.

.

.

I am also bidding on three markets, but all in CA. Mainly because my first choice is a secondary market, San Diego. There are literally 5 employers that do the type of law I want to practice in the first phase of our oci from SD.

I am curious about bidding on different offices of the same firm. Some firms won't let you at our oci, but others will. There are 3 in particular that I want to bid on both SD and some other CA city (esp. the one 2 hours to the north). I am interested in a very particular type of law, so there are some firms that stick out as especially appealing.

I'm technically bidding on five markets.

Originally it was just going to be NYC, but there aren't enough firms in my range to fill up my bid sheet.

So now I am bidding mostly NYC, but also LA, Orange County, San Diego, and my home secondary market. I have connections to SoCal generally.

I wonder what people's thoughts on this are. FWIW I am top ~20% at an MVP.

What about if bidding on 2 markets might "overlap" in terms of intial OCI bids themselves? By this I mean, people at NU who bid Chi and NY might run the risk of not getting initial bids they want on either b/c they split the bids and necessarily rank firms in one city lower than others...leaving room for students who bid exclusivley on one market or the other to outbid them. This could hypothetically happen anywhere but I think NY is especially prone to this problem when against another relatively large market where the school is located (Chicago, Boston, and maybe Texas cities (UT) come to mind).

Does what I just ranted make sense? (It does in my head...) Thoughts?

Anonymous User wrote:I'm technically bidding on five markets.

Originally it was just going to be NYC, but there aren't enough firms in my range to fill up my bid sheet.

So now I am bidding mostly NYC, but also LA, Orange County, San Diego, and my home secondary market. I have connections to SoCal generally.

I wonder what people's thoughts on this are. FWIW I am top ~20% at an MVP.

Top 20% at MVP and there aren't enough firms in your range to fill your bid sheet from NY? How many bids do you all get? Better yet, are there that few firms coming from NYC to your OCI? I would think top 20% would put you at least on the radar at a ton of firms NYC or not??

animalcrkrs wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I'm technically bidding on five markets.

Originally it was just going to be NYC, but there aren't enough firms in my range to fill up my bid sheet.

So now I am bidding mostly NYC, but also LA, Orange County, San Diego, and my home secondary market. I have connections to SoCal generally.

I wonder what people's thoughts on this are. FWIW I am top ~20% at an MVP.

Top 20% at MVP and there aren't enough firms in your range to fill your bid sheet from NY? How many bids do you all get? Better yet, are there that few firms coming from NYC to your OCI? I would think top 20% would put you at least on the radar at a ton of firms NYC or not??

I would estimate there are 60-70 NYC offices at OCI and the only ones I've decided I have no shot at are WLRK, CSM, S&C, Cleary, Debevoise, STB, and Covington. So, I suppose I could fill up my entire bid sheet with NYC firms at which I have a shot, but that would be including tiny offices that only hire like 2-3 people a year instead of major SoCal players like GDC, Latham, OMM, etc. where I think I might, all things considered, have a better shot.

Anonymous User wrote:

animalcrkrs wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I'm technically bidding on five markets.

Originally it was just going to be NYC, but there aren't enough firms in my range to fill up my bid sheet.

So now I am bidding mostly NYC, but also LA, Orange County, San Diego, and my home secondary market. I have connections to SoCal generally.

I wonder what people's thoughts on this are. FWIW I am top ~20% at an MVP.

Top 20% at MVP and there aren't enough firms in your range to fill your bid sheet from NY? How many bids do you all get? Better yet, are there that few firms coming from NYC to your OCI? I would think top 20% would put you at least on the radar at a ton of firms NYC or not??

I would estimate there are 60-70 NYC offices at OCI and the only ones I've decided I have no shot at are WLRK, CSM, S&C, Cleary, Debevoise, STB, and Covington. So, I suppose I could fill up my entire bid sheet with NYC firms at which I have a shot, but that would be including tiny offices that only hire like 2-3 people a year instead of major SoCal players like GDC, Latham, OMM, etc. where I think I might, all things considered, have a better shot.

Fair enough, makes more sense now (and clearly you know your bid strategy better than I without insight)... are you doubling up across markets for the same firm or not (just curious)?

Yeah I haven't decided that, yet. For some firms I'll definitely be doing the SoCal offices (GDC/OMM/Latham) but for huge firms like Jones Day and Paul Hastings, where neither the LA nor the NYC office is really the true main office, it's a more difficult decision.

I am also debating on what firms I don't have a shot at, and can omit. I feel like I have no shot at certain firms in SF, but would have a shot in SD (think Mofo, Fish, Wilson Sonsini, Jones Day, maybe even Covington on a very, very long shot). Not sure if this reasoning is valid.

It's also hard to know whether to bid high on SD, since I doubt many people from my school would even consider bidding on SD or OC. Even LA firms are underbid. So I feel like I should bid higher on other markets than my first choice, but I also don't want to risk bidding too low and not getting interviews with SD firms....ugh.

.

NYAssociate wrote:

I've decided I have no shot at are WLRK, CSM, S&C, Cleary, Debevoise, STB, and Covington

You have no shot at Debevoise, STB, Cleary, and Covington, yet you do have a shot at DPW?

Forgot DPW.

From the numbers I've seen, Debevoise/STB/DPW/Covington are the least reachy of my reaches. But I'm still not bidding on them.

Top 20% at Penn is in reach for Cleary, STB, and Deb. So unless things are way different at M and V, not bidding on those places is stupid.

How many reaches/targets/"safeties" should we have, percentage-wise, for bids? I am around top 1/3 at MVP but I'm not sure if there are any legitimate safeties ITE. I'm also concerned that a lot of top 20%-ers will bid on more safeties, crowding us lower-ranked people out.

(If it makes any difference at all, I am going to be on secondary journals.)

I bid on three markets, probably not the smartest route in retrospect. I still got a good job, although I did not end up in the city I really would have liked to be in.

I'm thinking right now that it might make more sense to focus on two and then do non-OCI stuff for the third. The system is built to have you hedge firms, not markets.

I bid in 3 markets--San Francisco, Austin, and New Mexico--against the advice of my OCI and am super glad I did it. Got call backs in all 3 places, ended up splitting the summer between firms in two different markets. Just have a good reason for each market and practice how to respond when they ask you where else you're bidding.

markymark wrote:Top 20% at Penn is in reach for Cleary, STB, and Deb. So unless things are way different at M and V, not bidding on those places is stupid.

what about these firms for top 25-30% at CLS?

.