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I'm a rising 3L at a T25 Notre Dame with a ~3.5, which puts me right at top 1/3 (though ND does not rank whatsoever). I don't have an SA, mostly because my 2L grades were much better than my 1L grades.

I was never really that interested in NYC; I've spent most of my time looking at my home market and markets in my UG region. But the markets around my UG are small and/or insular, and firms in my home market are pretty much only looking at litigators right now (if they're even hiring at all). I really want to do corporate/transactional, and I recognize that NYC has (a) more jobs and (b) more transactional jobs than anywhere else.

So, first question: is it worth trying to mass mail NYC firms with my stats?

And second question: if so, what places might I be particularly competitive at, and/or what places do I have no shot at. I can mail a form letter to every firm on NALP without a problem, but are there some places worth a more personal touch? Conversely, where would sending more than a form letter be utterly futile? (I.e., I know I'm not getting WLRK or Skadden, but if there's a line dividing "no shot" and "so you're telling me I have a chance," I'd like to know where it is.)

tl;dr: I have above-average but less-than-stellar stats from Notre Dame...which NY firms do I have a fighting chance at?

It's always "worth" trying to mass mail. I find it ridiculous that people continue to ask that question. You're going into your third year, you've got no sa, no offer for permanent employment, why wouldn't you take the time to send applications to every firm you possibly could until your fingers bled?

Contact alums at firms, especially alums who are in similar practice areas to what youre interested in/from your ug/etc... Those will be your more personal CL's (to be honest, you should try to make portions of every CL personal. Take the timeto have something original for each introductory paragraph, and you can just make slight edits to your remaining paragraphs from there).

Aqualibrium wrote:It's always "worth" trying to mass mail. I find it ridiculous that people continue to ask that question. You're going into your third year, you've got no sa, no offer for permanent employment, why wouldn't you take the time to send applications to every firm you possibly could until your fingers bled?

Contact alums at firms, especially alums who are in similar practice areas to what youre interested in/from your ug/etc... Those will be your more personal CL's (to be honest, you should try to make portions of every CL personal. Take the timeto have something original for each introductory paragraph, and you can just make slight edits to your remaining paragraphs from there).

OP here, and to be clear, I assumed it would be "worth" it to mass mail NYC. I guess that first question was just to guard against the possible responses about ND being a TTT25, me having no chance, etc., etc. Only if there was a large chorus of people saying I had no chance whatsoever would I ever decide writing a form letter and doing a mail merge from NALP data was too much work.

As to my second question, yes, I'd love to make every one personal. But I do have A job this summer, so I don't have unlimited time. Even though I've been working on this stuff virtually every waking, non-working moment for the past few weeks, I don't think I'll have time to personalize every single letter. So my question is, assuming I don't have time to personalize EVERYTHING (even though I realize that would be ideal), which firms should be at the top of my list to personalize? Where can I get the most bang for the buck?

Sounds like you should just personalize as many of the lower ranked, less prestige-heavy firms as you have time for. Your follow up is going to be what makes the difference anyway.