Top Law Schools

I put together a list of all the firms that report hiring 1Ls, sorted by number of 1Ls they hired. Figured this would be useful for others like me, who aren't going to waste time applying to a ton of firms given the low odds of success, but want to maximize the chances of success with those you do apply to.

Here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub ... utput=html

These aren't sorted by location, and some firms appear more than once because of multiple offices.

If there's a decimal (4.5 1Ls hired), that just means there are 4-5 expected to be hired.

Commenting on the Southern Firms (BABC, Baker Donelson, Balch & Bingham, Burr & Forman, Butler Snow, etc.):

They all require very strong ties. Whether it's Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, or Louisville, you better be able to show a good tie to that city or you won't even get a callback. Also, a lot of these firms reserve a certain amount of 1L SA spots for diverse candidates.

HTH.

Anonymous User wrote:Commenting on the Southern Firms (BABC, Baker Donelson, Balch & Bingham, Burr & Forman, Butler Snow, etc.):

They all require very strong ties. Whether it's Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, or Louisville, you better be able to show a good tie to that city or you won't even get a callback. Also, a lot of these firms reserve a certain amount of 1L SA spots for diverse candidates.

HTH.

I'm not proclaiming this is my foolproof method of beating the system, its just meant to be a convenience for 1Ls who want to be able to see the firms that hire 1Ls at a quick glance. I've acknowledged the odds are low regardless.

Great post!

Thank you for taking the time to do that

Anonymous User wrote:Commenting on the Southern Firms (BABC, Baker Donelson, Balch & Bingham, Burr & Forman, Butler Snow, etc.):

They all require very strong ties. Whether it's Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, or Louisville, you better be able to show a good tie to that city or you won't even get a callback. Also, a lot of these firms reserve a certain amount of 1L SA spots for diverse candidates.

HTH.

Being from the South in general is enough for most of those firms.

Gibson had 6 1Ls last year rather than 2: one each in NYC, DC, SF, LA, Denver, and Dallas.

Paul, Weiss had 11; 10 in NYC, and 1 that split between NYC and Hong Kong.

MoFo had 3, but I can't figure out where they were.

It's a bit ridiculous how Texas firms dominate this list.

You should add Alston & Bird to the list. The ATL office hired 3 1Ls in 2010 and 4 in 2011. The LA, Charlotte, and NYC offices each had 1 as well in 2011 (not sure about other offices for 2010).

Anonymous User wrote:You should add Alston & Bird to the list. The ATL office hired 3 1Ls in 2010 and 4 in 2011. The LA, Charlotte, and NYC offices each had 1 as well in 2011 (not sure about other offices for 2010).

The one in LA was a diversity fellowship and was from a TTT. Yes, TTTers get 1L SAs too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX5jNnDMfxA

For the diversity hires, are those candidates that are part of some formal diversity program prior to applying for a 1L position, or do they just include on their application that they are a URM?

thegrayman wrote:For the diversity hires, are those candidates that are part of some formal diversity program prior to applying for a 1L position, or do they just include on their application that they are a URM?

Most firms have specific scholarship applications on their websites. They also send out the applications to diverse law school orgs like BLSA etc.

I think Mayer Brown Chicago has taken 1 or 2 1L's recently but I also think they were Yalies. I could be wrong.

Sidley definitely took 1L's in the past, not sure about now.

Schiff Hardin and Vedder Price Chicago are famous for taking 1L's.

Add Miller & Martin
Last summer Atlanta had ~2, Chattanooga had ~5, and Nashville had ~4

Anonymous User wrote:I think Mayer Brown Chicago has taken 1 or 2 1L's recently but I also think they were Yalies. I could be wrong.

Sidley definitely took 1L's in the past, not sure about now.

Schiff Hardin and Vedder Price Chicago are famous for taking 1L's.

Sidley was pretty unequivocal about the fact that they did not take 1Ls as of summer 2011. Since they have decreased class sizes so much since 2009 & onwards, their class fills up with 2Ls & they can't take any 1Ls. Don't know if this will hold true for summer 2012, though.

Skadden hires 1Ls. Pretty sure Latham does too. They aren't on the list?

Anonymous User wrote:Skadden hires 1Ls. Pretty sure Latham does too. They aren't on the list?

Maybe they don't report it to NALP that they've hired >0? I just went through every nalp firm that actually hires any and added them, but if it's something like 'hires 1Ls', but they report 0 for 2010 and 0 expected for 2011 I removed them from the list.

Anonymous User wrote:Gibson had 6 1Ls last year rather than 2: one each in NYC, DC, SF, LA, Denver, and Dallas.

Paul, Weiss had 11; 10 in NYC, and 1 that split between NYC and Hong Kong.

MoFo had 3, but I can't figure out where they were.

Just a correction, Gibson Dunn had 3 1Ls in NYC, not one. Not sure about the other offices.

nice