UVa OGI 2011 thread Forum

[Anonymous User]

Akin Gump Houston ding via email

[Anonymous User]

Maynard Cooper snail mail ding. Brooks Pierce snail mail ding. Smith Moore Leatherwood snail mail ding. Watt Tiedar snail mail ding. williams mullen snail mail ding.

My life is awesome.

[Anonymous User]

I know a lot of people are doing callbacks and have gotten offers, but does anyone have any idea of whether our class has done better, worse, or the same as the 2012 Class? I heard from Career Services that over 60% of the students from 2012 got big law jobs last year.

[Anonymous User]

Skadden NY finally got around to sending me a rejection letter.

[Julio_El_Chavo]

I know a lot of people are doing callbacks and have gotten offers, but does anyone have any idea of whether our class has done better, worse, or the same as the 2012 Class? I heard from Career Services that over 60% of the students from 2012 got big law jobs last year.

That 60%+ biglaw number is 100% false. More than 60% of people got SOMETHING from OGI, not necessarily biglaw. Even during the best of boomtimes I don't think UVA placed 60% in biglaw.

[RVP11]

I know a lot of people are doing callbacks and have gotten offers, but does anyone have any idea of whether our class has done better, worse, or the same as the 2012 Class? I heard from Career Services that over 60% of the students from 2012 got big law jobs last year.

That 60%+ biglaw number is 100% false. More than 60% of people got SOMETHING from OGI, not necessarily biglaw. Even during the best of boomtimes I don't think UVA placed 60% in biglaw.

UVA has regularly placed 50+% into NLJ250 firms, 10+% into smaller firms (many of which still pay good money and come to OGI) and 10+% into judicial clerkships in its graduating class, so ~60% of 2Ls summering at OGI employers sounds about right, even ITE. The 60% number rings true with me - I would guess that at least 80% of my 3L friends have a big firm job lined up for after graduation.

And virtually everyone who gets a job from OGI is getting it that job in something that should be considered "BigLaw."

[Anonymous User]

Crashing this thread because I'm not UVA, but have any of you all heard from firms in Charlotte?

[Anonymous User]

Another day, another UVA article on ATL.
http://abovethelaw.com/2011/09/students ... e-airport/

[Anonymous User]

Crashing this thread because I'm not UVA, but have any of you all heard from firms in Charlotte?

I have heard of callbacks at many (probably most) of the major players in Charlotte. Time table was slower, however.

[Anonymous User]

Nice of Cahill to finally get back to me with a post-screener ding.

[oneforship]

Nice of Cahill to finally get back to me with a post-screener ding.

assholes.






too soon?

[Anonymous User]

We should invite Cahill's partners to Foxfield and they can really find out what we are really like.

[Julio_El_Chavo]

We should invite Cahill's partners to Foxfield and they can really find out what we are really like.

drunk, loud and annoying?

[oneforship]

We should invite Cahill's partners to Foxfield and they can really find out what we are really like.

drunk, loud and annoying?

speak for yourself

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone heard from Dickstein Shapiro yet (post CB)?

[Anonymous User]

anyone heard from balch & bingham?

[Anonymous User]

Patton Boggs Dallas offer!

[Anonymous User]

anyone heard from balch & bingham?

Anyone gotten any Birmingham offers?

[Anonymous User]

So, how'd OGI end up turning out for everyone?

[Anonymous User]

So, how'd OGI end up turning out for everyone?

Quite well. Having good grades correlates with OGI success but that's not really news. What surprised me was how much interviewing ability counts. How good you are at selling yourself and coming off as interesting/competent can have a huge impact.

[Anonymous User]

From people I've talked to and with my own experience, I think somewhere around top 1/3 or top 1/4 basically opens the door to whatever you want (in NYC that is) and then it's about fit from there. Obviously a few places are more grade selective like a SullCrom, but most places seem to rather have a friendly 3.48 than an awkward 3.7.

It's somewhat of a sliding scale between grades and interview ability, but I think that interview ability/fit is weighted more once you've reach the abovementioned threshold.

[Anonymous User]

From people I've talked to and with my own experience, I think somewhere around top 1/3 or top 1/4 basically opens the door to whatever you want (in NYC that is) and then it's about fit from there. Obviously a few places are more grade selective like a SullCrom, but most places seem to rather have a friendly 3.48 than an awkward 3.7.

It's somewhat of a sliding scale between grades and interview ability, but I think that interview ability/fit is weighted more once you've reach the abovementioned threshold.

I think this is more or less true, though I'm not positive I'd for sure rather be a friendly 3.48 than a mildly awkward 3.7. The importance of the interview was the one thing that struck me as most surprising, however.

Also: because UVA is a 70% preselect stage, a ton of your screeners will be decided upon without you being able to explain anything. There were a bunch of people on here that had a 3.59 (around top 15%) and were looking for corporate in NY. I was one of them, but did somewhat worse in the preselect stage than the others did. I think it's important, to the degree you are able, to attempt to construct a resume/cover letter that is relatively cohesive in terms of pointing what you are looking for.

This can even mean stuff like journals and spring electives. My resume basically pointed in 4 different directions, which I think hurt me somewhat in getting preselects and in the screener stage -- I was asked multiple times what I wanted to do, exactly, because I pointed in too many different directions. I took more litigation-focused courses for my spring electives for no particular reason, and did not do the Law & Business journal. If I had to do it over, I would have taken Corporations and perhaps another somewhat related course, and joined the Law & Business journal. I was asked a surprising number of times to tell them what courses I was taking in this fall. Three firms were explicitly relieved when I told them my transactional-heavy schedule, saying that it was a good thing I was focusing a little more on corporate-type classes.

I also would have played up any possibly relevant experiences I had that might have inferred corporate-type work, which I did not do. My prior experiences really pointed in a non-law direction, which did not help me. Over 50% of screeners directly asked me why I had gone to law school in light of my prior interests/experiences.

People will try to tell you that journal and course selection are completely immaterial. Perhaps they are generally right. But if you are coming straight from UG like I was, and you want to do corporate, I would try as hard as you could to present a resume and transcript that point in that sole direction as best you can. As I said, at the preselect stage, an employer is going to have your resume and transcript, and that's it (a handful will ask for a cover letter and/or writing sample, but not a significant number). There is no chance to explain yourself at this stage. You are at the whim of the party or parties reading your resume, and if they think you are a law firm flight risk, as was implied to me in a number of screeners, or are mostly directionless, you might not fare quite as well in terms of preselects as others.

Nevertheless, it ultimately won't kill your chances of a solid job by itself, provided you have good grades. Despite my trouble at the preselect stage, I still ended up with a number of great offers. It's less of an issue once you get in the room, provided that you have reasonable explanations for your choices. I had a crisp and extremely logical 2 minute explanation for my decision to come to law school, which entailed somewhat abandoning my prior pursuits. A handful of interviewers explicitly told me that it was a great answer, and made perfect sense. I got callbacks from all of these screeners. But you don't get that opportunity at the preselect stage.

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone think that OCS will change the format of Pre-Select/Lottery/Alternates next year? Not sure if this was better than 2012's set-up.

[5ky]

Does anyone think that OCS will change the format of Pre-Select/Lottery/Alternates next year? Not sure if this was better than 2012's set-up.

They seem to tinker with it every year, but with the numbers this year was spitting out, being pretty good, I'd doubt they would change it too much.

[Anonymous User]

Officially no offered. Although I have a prestigious Honors Program at a govenrment agency.

How hard is it to get 3L employment? Any 3ls currently know?