Top Law Schools

...and I hadn't really expected to do well enough to really benefit from/have a chance at OCI, but here I am, so I have some stupid questions.

First, for personal reasons, I am only interested in working in the area local to my school, which is a small city in a small state with its own small market. According to NALP, the firms around here are only expected to take on about 3 2Ls this year. Is that normal? I read a lot on TLS about firms with summer classes consisting of 30+ 2Ls. Is that only for NYC offices? (There are biglaw firms with offices in my city, but those offices apparently only expect to take on 2-3 SAs...) It makes me nervous to see that last year some of these firms took on 2 summer associates and then only made 1 offer...

This is a total OCI N00B question, but are these firms only interested in candidates with a demonstrated interest in corporate/business/litigation? Would these firms be less inclined to hire a student with a wider interest range? Sure, I think corporate and business law is cool, but I also really like criminal law, torts, public interest law, etc. (I am aware that these interests will not be fulfilled while working for these firms.)

(p.s. anonymous because classmates know my SN, but don't know my class rank...)

If you want to do PI or criminal or torts you might be able to do some of those pro-bono. At the same time, if that's your real interest you may want to reevaluate whether or not you really want to be at a big firm.

That said, if you're in a small city, 2-3 SAs isn't surprising. The only place that have 30+ SAs are offices that have 100+ attorneys already in them, which usually means NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston, LA and SF to some extent. Other firms with large offices are going to be hit or miss and largely depend on whether or not its a satellite office or the home office in your city.

Aston2412 wrote:If you want to do PI or criminal or torts you might be able to do some of those pro-bono. At the same time, if that's your real interest you may want to reevaluate whether or not you really want to be at a big firm.

That said, if you're in a small city, 2-3 SAs isn't surprising. The only place that have 30+ SAs are offices that have 100+ attorneys already in them, which usually means NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston, LA and SF to some extent. Other firms with large offices are going to be hit or miss and largely depend on whether or not its a satellite office or the home office in your city.

I'm a summer associate in a "secondary market" with a summer class of over 40. I know of at least 1 other with over 40 and two other firms with over 20.

I said that "usually" means those cities. Home offices in secondary markets will tend to have a large number of SAs because that's the nerve center of the firm (maybe even its only location) and has the most attorneys.

A lot of firms in secondary markets, i.e. "large regional firms" will only hire a handful of SAs. In my hometown, which is nearly 1 million people, most of the big firms only hired 10 or so SAs when the economy was booming. In a downmarket, 2-3 SAs would be normal. The number of SAs should tell you that there is no guarantee that you will get picked up by one of the firms even with your class rank.

If you want to get hired your best bet is to express interest in the firm's strongest practice areas.

OP here... maybe I should have been clearer about the size of the market- my city has about 125,000 people. So it's probably not even a tertiary market. Anyway, it sounds like 2-3 2L summer associates isn't unusual. Thanks.

Anonymous User wrote:

Aston2412 wrote:If you want to do PI or criminal or torts you might be able to do some of those pro-bono. At the same time, if that's your real interest you may want to reevaluate whether or not you really want to be at a big firm.

That said, if you're in a small city, 2-3 SAs isn't surprising. The only place that have 30+ SAs are offices that have 100+ attorneys already in them, which usually means NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston, LA and SF to some extent. Other firms with large offices are going to be hit or miss and largely depend on whether or not its a satellite office or the home office in your city.

I'm a summer associate in a "secondary market" with a summer class of over 40. I know of at least 1 other with over 40 and two other firms with over 20.

Care to name the market?