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3L in the process of gathering names of firms to mass mail and alumni at said firms to network with . . .

How do I deal with a firm I'm not qualified for? For example, at OCI, it's easy to see a firm's GPA cutoff. And the very fact that a firm is at OCI shows it is willing to at least talk to people from my school. But when contacting a firm outside of OCI, this information is more difficult to find. I have a decent GPA from a decent (but non-T14) school, but surely my school and/or GPA fall outside of the target range for a lot of firms out there.

Should I just throw caution into the wind and not care if I could never get an interview with Firm X during OCI? Or, before contacting anyone there, do I need to spend time looking at attorney bios and the like for Firm X to find out if I'm even in the ballpark for hiring?

If you apply for a firm you aren't qualified for either (a) you will be rejected or (b) hail marry interview, maybe callback. If you aren't qualified a CB almost assurdly won't happen. but what are they going to do, call up all the other law firms and say "hey, I know we bill at $400 per hour but I want to tell you about this median kid who decided to apply. he is perfectly average and thought he had the right to apply!! THE NERVE!! BLACKLIST HIM FOREVER!!!!!"

ergh, wait. that said, if you are spending money on stamps to apply to firms you know you are not qualified for, don't bother. but if you think you are marginally qualified, I see no downside to spending a letter or email.

OP here...

gwuorbust wrote:If you apply for a firm you aren't qualified for either (a) you will be rejected or (b) hail marry interview, maybe callback. If you aren't qualified a CB almost assurdly won't happen. but what are they going to do, call up all the other law firms and say "hey, I know we bill at $400 per hour but I want to tell you about this median kid who decided to apply. he is perfectly average and thought he had the right to apply!! THE NERVE!! BLACKLIST HIM FOREVER!!!!!"

Agreed, and I wrote something similar, but deleted it to be more concise. I don't care if a recruiter instantly roundfiles my resume. I'm more curious about networking with attorneys at such a firm. Wouldn't it put the attorney in an awkward place if I at some point ask them to help get my resume in the "interview" pile? This is the main component of my concern.

gwuorbust wrote:ergh, wait. that said, if you are spending money on stamps to apply to firms you know you are not qualified for, don't bother. but if you think you are marginally qualified, I see no downside to spending a letter or email.

This is a concern too, but I figured I'd see just how many pieces of mail I was going to send out. A lot of firms are only taking resumes submitted online. If I end up with only have 100 firms to paper mail, I probably won't care about the wasted stamps.

Also, FWIW, I'm only looking at firms in the Southeast, South, and Texas. I'm sure there are firms out of my reach, particularly in like Dallas and Atlanta. But I don't think it will be as much as a problem as it would if I were looking at, say, NY, Chi, Philly, and Boston.

You're trying to land a 160k a year job and you're worried about the cost of stamps?

I think the credited response here is "suck it up!"

If you land the job you can send stamps made of gold.