Tip of the Day: There are no safety firms. Not for anyone. Forum

[thesealocust]

Examine the part of your brain that houses this concept, and confront it with the truth that it should not exist. Extinguish it from your lexicon and your planning. Consider whether vestiges of prior elaborate application regimes - such as to law school and college - may be subtly influencing your expectations about what this application process will entail, despite significant systematic differences.

The concept of safety firms doesn't exist - and a step further, it is not allowed to exist. No more of that.

It's an entirely different paradigm. When applying to schools, you have huge numbers of applicants applying for overlapping and fungible positions at schools which, sadly, could more or less be ranked ordinally based on long term career prospects. That's not even close to true with firms.

Let's say you're top 10% at NYU. You're hot shit, you're looking to spread some bids around. Are there safety firms for you? No. Less selective firms see MORE applicants, and no firm wants to feel like it's being courted as a backup. Strong credentials will serve you well and you will likely get offers from many firms - of whatever calibre - that you look at, but you just can't look at it like there are safety schools. The numbers are too constrained for that to be a realistic hiring regime for law firms. Every interview and every impression counts, and there is tons of chaos to the system that make each person's job hunt unique and varied far beyond adding up grade points and comparing them to vault rankings.

So if you're bidding on firms, feel free to include a mix of firms that are more and less grade conscious, but don't for a second think that because you have a 3.6 you'll walk on at the firm that usually hires a median of 3.4. It's not the way the process works, and it will hurt your strategy if you expect it to.

I'm glad we had this talk TLS.

Forever yours,

Thesealocust