T40 Top10% Luckless Summer Job Search Forum

[Anonymous User]

(oops meant to make this an anonymous post the first time around)

I am a 1L at a T40 school in the south. Academically, I'm in the top 10%, right on the verge of the top 5%. All my ties are in the midwest - I grew up there and went to very prestigious undergrad there - though I spent all my summers working in DC. I came to school in the south because I have an interest in living and in practicing in the southeast. I've gotten about 6 on campus interviews with southern/SE region firms. Though I still need to allow for time to hear back, I know some people who are starting to get callbacks whose stats are not as good mine. Every school has asked about my midwestern ties and why I'm going to school/wanting to practice here and I've given genuine reasons, though they still seem skeptical. Does the fact that I haven't received a callback within a week mean I won't get one? I know they told us to allow 2-3 weeks and a callback could still come. What I'm really concerned about is this:

1) If by chance I don't get any callbacks, does this situation bode poorly for my entire future of wanting to work in the south?

2) would i be better off transfering to a t14/20 in the south like duke or vandy? even if i wouldn't necessarily be in the top 10 at those schools?

3) should i transfer to another school and forget the south entirely given my background?

I never imagined being in the top 10% and not having any offers yet...

[General Tso]

your school does spring OCI for 1Ls?

I wouldn't stress about it too much...very few 1Ls get any meaningful work experience.

Transferring is probably a good option. I think top 33% at a better school is probably more of a sure thing than top 10% at a lower T1. I dunno..ask Aberzombie what he thinks.. he is the resident Tulane expert.

[20160810]

I wouldn't make too many conclusions based on Spring OCI/1L job search. Ties are definitely more important in the South than in other reasons, but if you're the right sort of person and you've got the right grades, this won't kill you. The odds are you're going to have a much easier time finding something in 2L OCI when there are a lot more employers and they're looking to hire people for real. Post-1L SA jobs are often just "diversity fellowships" for people the firm has no intention of hiring permanently. That said, as a rule of thumb, if you have the chance to transfer to a T14, do it.

[xyzbca]

(oops meant to make this an anonymous post the first time around)

I am a 1L at a T40 school in the south. Academically, I'm in the top 10%, right on the verge of the top 5%. All my ties are in the midwest - I grew up there and went to very prestigious undergrad there - though I spent all my summers working in DC. I came to school in the south because I have an interest in living and in practicing in the southeast. I've gotten about 6 on campus interviews with southern/SE region firms. Though I still need to allow for time to hear back, I know some people who are starting to get callbacks whose stats are not as good mine. Every school has asked about my midwestern ties and why I'm going to school/wanting to practice here and I've given genuine reasons, though they still seem skeptical. Does the fact that I haven't received a callback within a week mean I won't get one? I know they told us to allow 2-3 weeks and a callback could still come. What I'm really concerned about is this:

1) If by chance I don't get any callbacks, does this situation bode poorly for my entire future of wanting to work in the south?

2) would i be better off transfering to a t14/20 in the south like duke or vandy? even if i wouldn't necessarily be in the top 10 at those schools?

3) should i transfer to another school and forget the south entirely given my background?

I never imagined being in the top 10% and not having any offers yet...

Without outing yourself can you tell us what you mean by midwest? I spent some time in the deep south. Depending on what region you grew up in you might be seen as an outsider. Also without outing yourself, can you give us a general feel to your answers expressing an interest in the south? On the turnaround between an on campus interview and a receiving a call back, nobody knows for certain. I had a big firm take over a month to schedule a CB. Another firm told me it would take three weeks to hear back from them and they called me within 48 hours to schedule a CB.

To answer your listed questions:

1) Maybe. It is nearly impossible for you to be able to tell what is or isn't working in an interview. It could be the issue with regional ties or there may be something else that you aren't realizing could be a problem. Did you do any mock interviews at your school? What kind of feedback did you get from those?

2) As long as you can participate in OCI I would encourage you to transfer.

3) More information is needed to evaluate this issue. How badly do you want to be in the south, why do you want to be in the south, etc....

As far as being in the top 10% with no offers, I wouldn't worry about too much. Generously assuming you had ~ 10 firms at your OCI and each is looking to take two 1L's from your class and also assuming 300 students in your class, 10 students in the top 10% are going to be without offers.

[Green Crayons]

midwest ... you might will be seen as an outsider.

Yup.

You're going to have to stress why you love the south, why you love that particular state in general, why you love that particular city in general, and why you have ties that will keep you there beyond "I like this place, it's pretty cool."

[CanadianWolf]

It is important to know which law school you are currently attending. A Top 40 law school in the South may be Alabama, in which case your situation is understandable & you may want to consider transferring to Duke or Virginia. But if your current law school is Georgia, then your situation may be due more to the economy & the fact that you are a 1L , in my opinion. In short, without more detailed information any advice offered may be little more than well-intentioned guesses.

[Aberzombie1892]

OP is most likely at Alabama.

1. If he/she was at Georgia, they would say "T30" (we know how this works).

2. If he/she was at Georgia, they would probably be more successful (just because of the larger legal market there).

[mez06]

No. I actually think OP is at Wake Forest. You should transfer. Though I do think your stats there would eventually land you a job, you'd be better off transferring to a higher ranked school in the south.

[Anonymous User]

How about the same subject line but change the "1L" to "2L transfer" and know that your situation could be worse, lol.

[Anonymous User]

How about the same subject line but change the "1L" to "2L transfer" and know that your situation could be worse, lol.

Range of schools?

There are other jobs outside of firm jobs, you just have to put in a log more leg work and decide beforehand 1) what you want, 2) what you are willing to do to get what you want, and 3) what you are willing to settle for if you don't get what you want.

[Anonymous User]

How about the same subject line but change the "1L" to "2L transfer" and know that your situation could be worse, lol.

Range of schools?

There are other jobs outside of firm jobs, you just have to put in a log more leg work and decide beforehand 1) what you want, 2) what you are willing to do to get what you want, and 3) what you are willing to settle for if you don't get what you want.

Thanks. However, I suck and can't seem to decide.......I want a jerb, that's all I know, haha.

[ndirish2010]

Was thinking Bama, but Wake might be correct.

[General Tso]

I am still thinking Tulane. OP said he was from a different region and Tulane tends to attract a national student body.

[Anonymous User]

1) If by chance I don't get any callbacks, does this situation bode poorly for my entire future of wanting to work in the south?

2) would i be better off transfering to a t14/20 in the south like duke or vandy? even if i wouldn't necessarily be in the top 10 at those schools?

So, the other posters ITT know a lot more about 1L firm jobs than I do.

I will say this: If for some reason you think that your geographic ties are the sole thing dragging you down and that transferring to a school like Duke would help at all, you're terribly mistaken. I don't know about Vandy and its relationship to TN, but Duke students can have a very tough time getting jobs in NC because employers seem to look at us very, very skeptically. I've been told this numerous times by career staff here and I anticipate it being one of the toughest parts of my job search. (I'm also from the midwest and interested in staying in Raleigh/the South generally). Employers simply look at the numbers and when 95% of your fellow students are here for 3 years and bouncing off to NYC (*shudder*), you have to do an exceptional job at proving you're not part of that 95%.

It's kind of sad, really, because I have absolutely zero interest in heading anywhere north of DC, and really the only reason I'd go to DC is for DOJ honors.

(posting anonymously so I don't out myself)

[olderlawyer]

I have practiced in the South for 35 years and I can give you some thoughts on opportunities in markets other than those like Atlanta, Houston and Dallas which approach the same hiring practices as large firms in all the rest of the country. People in the South are pretty insular, I'm afraid, and they've been burned--I remember my firm (at the time the largest in my medium-sized city) hiring someone from another Southern state who stayed for about a month and went home because he felt homesick and excluded from the social situation, and that nearly killed all out-of-area recruiting for years. So with a weak economy and a tendency to hire their own, there is definitely an obstacle to your search.

Having said all of that, in some ways it's easier to get a job in the South because I think there are lots of opportunities to network and to hit the right people at the right time, not necessarily during any recruiting season, because firms in the South aren't necessarily on any national "schedule" for hiring. I'd blanket the towns you're interested in with PAPER or at least e-mail, and I'd try to meet someone you can get to mentor you, some lawyer to whom you can explain the predicament and who will make some phone calls for you. You just never know.

And if you went to Notre Dame and are now at Tulane, you are in a good connections situation and should mine the alumni for help. You should mine your alumni connections anyway...that's a good way to get that mentor I suggested.

Best of luck and do not give up or get discouraged. You could get hired the week before exams if you happen to hit the right people that week in the right situation.

[Omerta]

OP, I think you might be underestimating the general randomness of the 1L market. Are you seriously allowing 1L OCI to dictate your feelings about your prospects? 1L firm jobs are a horrible measuring stick for your success because they're so random. It's really "feel based" especially in the South. If you like where you are, then stay there. Your success, or lack thereof, in 1L OCI is almost complete statistical noise.

My school/stats/southern connections are better than yours and I've only landed two firm interviews, does that mean I should transfer and that I'll never get a job in the South? No, it means the 1L firm market is volatile, competitive, and ridiculously subjective. It's very much a personality matching thing. Things are still fairly early and maybe 2% of the class will get a paying firm job.