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these are some firms I'm thinking about bidding on. what targets/"safeties" should I add? what should I get rid of? which firms should I avoid for economic/Lathamy reasons?

Weil
Kirkland
Debevoise
Sidley
Jones Day
Ropes + Gray
Milibank
Akin
Goodwin Proctor
Dewey
Dechert
Schlute Roth
Hughes Hubbard
Kramer Levin
Skadden/Simpson Thatcher/Cleary (I'm probably going to pick only one of these as a reach)
Paul Weiss
Arnold + Porter
MoFo
Willkie Farr
Allen and Overy
Proskauer
O'Melveny + Myers
Paul Hastings
Fried Frank

You can go ahead and include all three of Simpson/Skadden/Cleary.

What are your priorities? Without that it's impossible to answer.

Based on your list alone: Why no S&C/DPW/Cravath/Skadden?

NewHere wrote:What are your priorities? Without that it's impossible to answer.

Based on your list alone: Why no S&C/DPW/Cravath/Skadden?

New York is my geographical priority. In terms of practice type, I'm interested in litigation and corporate, but I'd like to have the option of trying out several different practice areas.

I thought I'd be wasting bids with S&C/DPW/Cravath.

Have heard bad things about the state of Paul Hastings re; Lathamy.

MoFo is a strange place. You should see if it is somewhere that you would fit in before you use up a bid on somewhere you won't fit in.

I would include Skadden, Cravath et al.

I'd add Greenberg Traurig.

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NYAssociate wrote:

NewHere wrote:What are your priorities? Without that it's impossible to answer.

Based on your list alone: Why no S&C/DPW/Cravath/Skadden?

DPW is worth it from top third, probably. S&C, Skadden, and Cravath probably not. DPW because they still boast a 70+ SA class. Not Skadden or Cravath because their SA classes are lower than 30, so they are probably even harder to get. Not S&C because they're the most grade conscious of the three.

what about for ccn top 15%ish? all those firms worth a bid in that case?

I can say for a fact that most of the CCN class currently at S&C, DPW, Cravath, Cleary, Simpson etc are non-law review... I can only assume at least a good portion of their grades are also not significantly better than yours.
Do you give off a particularly bad first impression? Are you just THAT pessimistic about this summer's prospects? If you want to do biglaw in NYC, I would put all of those somewhere on my bid list unless you dislike that particular firm for a reason.

Your main consideration should be how many spots are availible for interviews. At CLS last year, Cravath had walk-in openings because no one bid them, and despite not giving many offers, they still interviewed a ton of people. So, some of these firms I would not put at the top of my list, but I would certainly include them somewhere in the T15 picks just to make sure I have a shot.

You are in a much better position than you think. It's far from a done deal that those firms will offer you a callback, but you've got at least a 25% shot to get a callback at each of those firms. Why not give it a shot? (And please tell me that's not your actual order of prefs.... otherwise, you have some ordering issues too).

(By saying top third, I assume you're at CLS... NYU/Chicago may be slightly lower odds, esp for Cravath)

yeah i'm not sure, but i have a feeling that it's going to be easier for you to get a DPW callback than dechert. unless there's something about dechert you really like, i bet the interviewer will know it's a safety interview

M51 wrote:I can say for a fact that most of the CCN class currently at S&C, DPW, Cravath, Cleary, Simpson etc are non-law review... I can only assume at least a good portion of their grades are also not significantly better than yours.
Do you give off a particularly bad first impression? Are you just THAT pessimistic about this summer's prospects? If you want to do biglaw in NYC, I would put all of those somewhere on my bid list unless you dislike that particular firm for a reason.

Your main consideration should be how many spots are availible for interviews. At CLS last year, Cravath had walk-in openings because no one bid them, and despite not giving many offers, they still interviewed a ton of people. So, some of these firms I would not put at the top of my list, but I would certainly include them somewhere in the T15 picks just to make sure I have a shot.

You are in a much better position than you think. It's far from a done deal that those firms will offer you a callback, but you've got at least a 25% shot to get a callback at each of those firms. Why not give it a shot? (And please tell me that's not your actual order of prefs.... otherwise, you have some ordering issues too).

(By saying top third, I assume you're at CLS... NYU/Chicago may be slightly lower odds, esp for Cravath)

Thanks for all the info.

I was just that pessimistic about this summer's prospects... but I'm glad I might be wrong.

That's not my order of preferences; I want to get a final list of 30 firms before I order them. It's just a list of firms I've been considering.

M51 wrote:So, some of these firms I would not put at the top of my list, but I would certainly include them somewhere in the T15 picks just to make sure I have a shot.

M51 - how far down the bid list do you start getting more likely to not get a screener than to get one?

I know it depends greatly how popular a firm is, how high other people rank it, etc., but do you have a general idea? I'm figuring people get almsot all of their top 5 picks, and probably relatively few of their 25-30s, but what about 15 or 20 or so?

OP - sorry for the threadjack. I think your bid list looks fine, but agree you can be slightly more aggressive.

imchuckbass58 wrote:

M51 wrote:So, some of these firms I would not put at the top of my list, but I would certainly include them somewhere in the T15 picks just to make sure I have a shot.

M51 - how far down the bid list do you start getting more likely to not get a screener than to get one?

I know it depends greatly how popular a firm is, how high other people rank it, etc., but do you have a general idea? I'm figuring people get almsot all of their top 5 picks, and probably relatively few of their 25-30s, but what about 15 or 20 or so?

OP - sorry for the threadjack. I think your bid list looks fine, but agree you can be slightly more aggressive.

no problem, I'm interested in your question as well.

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Cravath is increasing it's class size to 80 for the summer of 2011.

Anonymous User wrote:Cravath is increasing it's class size to 80 for the summer of 2011.

I am just curious, but where did you get this info?

NYAssociate wrote:Regarding having lower chances at the V5, esp Cravath, if from nyu/chi, m51 is just incorrect. Especially if he's using this year as data. AFAIK NYU outplaced cls at almost every v5 (if you count offers, not placements). M51 might point out that there are no NYU kids at cravath this year, but there were definitely more nyu offers from cravath this year. No one accepted (AFAIK from my buddies at NYU). Chicago has too many variables to make an adequate comparison.

Hence, I said "maybe", as I had no idea what the situation is like there. I guess I should have added that it may be better than CLS too (which would actually further my point). The Cravath thing was pure speculation, but I don't think a school endears itself to a firm by stiffing all their offers.

imchuckbass58 wrote: M51 - how far down the bid list do you start getting more likely to not get a screener than to get one?

I know it depends greatly how popular a firm is, how high other people rank it, etc., but do you have a general idea? I'm figuring people get almsot all of their top 5 picks, and probably relatively few of their 25-30s, but what about 15 or 20 or so?

OP - sorry for the threadjack. I think your bid list looks fine, but agree you can be slightly more aggressive.

I didn't get anything I preffed past 20, and anything past 7 was spotty. Then again, this year has to be better, and in retrospect I bid poorly. Should have put more "safety" firms higher. I just bid by pref, not strategically. I think if you reach, target, target, safety, reach, target, target, safety etc you should be fine (and adjust for how many interview slots that firm gave out last year).

One thing that was helpful was looking at the practice areas on the firm's website. Mak sure they actually do what you want to do if you know what you want to do, and if you don't know what you want to do, make sure the firm has a lot of options (i.e. don't do a litigation boutique if you're considering corporate at all; make sure the firm has an IP group if you're interested in at least trying it out, etc)

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Just curious, how many offers did Cravath give to NYU students last year? According to my EIP chart CLS students received 12 offers and 9 of those accepted. I can't believe more than 12 NYU students turned down Cravath, if so that firm must have a really bad rep at NYU.

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Conceivable, yes. Likely, no.

Until you post specific information, I still can't believe Cravath's reputation is so bad among NYU students that 13+ of them turned it down.

And those numbers you posted actually strengthen my point. Among students with the grades to get hired by V10 (minus Wachtell) at CLS, probably 50 people in the whole class, anywhere from 9-15 accepted offers, except for SullCrom with 5. That's a pretty even distribution. If you assume the same number had multiple V10 offers at NYU, it's odd that they would all select out of one firm. Not impossible, certainly improbable.

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NYAssociate wrote:AFAIK, there are multiple firms in the V10 out of which NYU students selected out. The distribution was pretty amazing this year (or disappointing, depending on whose perspective you take). Correspondingly, there are significantly more NYU students at other V10s (and V10-like firms).

Would you be willing to share which firms NYU students seemed to prefer or not prefer? I'm not looking for numbers - just a general sense. I'm curious.

spondee wrote:

NYAssociate wrote:AFAIK, there are multiple firms in the V10 out of which NYU students selected out. The distribution was pretty amazing this year (or disappointing, depending on whose perspective you take). Correspondingly, there are significantly more NYU students at other V10s (and V10-like firms).

Would you be willing to share which firms NYU students seemed to prefer or not prefer? I'm not looking for numbers - just a general sense. I'm curious.

I would, but I can't. It pains me to have to do this.

You can do a fair amount of deduction if you read autoadmit. Certain firms have certain reputations at certain schools. This year, NYU apparently loved Davis Polk and Debevoise (and I mention those two because I believe their class demographics can be found in other locations).