Top Law Schools

Would prefer to stay within market paying firms in NYC.

yours to lose, maybe not with G

DallasCowboy wrote:yours to lose, maybe not with G

It's not G. Thanks.

Very good shot at V25, and decent shot at V10. Make sure to get interviews with Skadden, K&E NY, Weil, Paul Weiss, Debevoise, etc, as these are your reachy-targets/targets. Don't forget the safeties, but also don't forget the reaches. CSM, S&C, DPW, STB, and Cleary are all worth bids. Killing the interviews will be crucial. Do not under-bid. Once you're in the grade range for V10, which you are, bidding there is actually safer because with each bid you're applying for 100+ SA spots.

DallasCowboy wrote:yours to lose, maybe not with G

That cannot be right. Top 20% at G has to still be in great shape for OCI.

rayiner wrote:Very good shot at V25, and decent shot at V10. Make sure to get interviews with Skadden, K&E NY, Weil, Paul Weiss, Debevoise, etc, as these are your reachy-targets/targets. Don't forget the safeties, but also don't forget the reaches. CSM, S&C, DPW, STB, and Cleary are all worth bids. Killing the interviews will be crucial. Do not under-bid. Once you're in the grade range for V10, which you are, bidding there is actually safer because with each bid you're applying for 100+ SA spots.

Is V10 "target" for top 20% from DNCG? What about from MVP? Same, top 1/4, top 1/3?

.

Anonymous User wrote:

rayiner wrote:Very good shot at V25, and decent shot at V10. Make sure to get interviews with Skadden, K&E NY, Weil, Paul Weiss, Debevoise, etc, as these are your reachy-targets/targets. Don't forget the safeties, but also don't forget the reaches. CSM, S&C, DPW, STB, and Cleary are all worth bids. Killing the interviews will be crucial. Do not under-bid. Once you're in the grade range for V10, which you are, bidding there is actually safer because with each bid you're applying for 100+ SA spots.

Is V10 "target" for top 20% from DNCG? What about from MVP? Same, top 1/4, top 1/3?

You cannot be serious. Unless it's P, then maybe. MVPDCNG are all in the same tier.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

rayiner wrote:Very good shot at V25, and decent shot at V10. Make sure to get interviews with Skadden, K&E NY, Weil, Paul Weiss, Debevoise, etc, as these are your reachy-targets/targets. Don't forget the safeties, but also don't forget the reaches. CSM, S&C, DPW, STB, and Cleary are all worth bids. Killing the interviews will be crucial. Do not under-bid. Once you're in the grade range for V10, which you are, bidding there is actually safer because with each bid you're applying for 100+ SA spots.

Is V10 "target" for top 20% from DNCG? What about from MVP? Same, top 1/4, top 1/3?

You cannot be serious. Unless it's P, then maybe. MVPDCNG are all in the same tier.

K. But what about the original question - top 20% from those schools usually a decent bet to land at least one of the less selective V10s? I am trying to figure out my bid list myself.

Anonymous User wrote:

rayiner wrote:Very good shot at V25, and decent shot at V10. Make sure to get interviews with Skadden, K&E NY, Weil, Paul Weiss, Debevoise, etc, as these are your reachy-targets/targets. Don't forget the safeties, but also don't forget the reaches. CSM, S&C, DPW, STB, and Cleary are all worth bids. Killing the interviews will be crucial. Do not under-bid. Once you're in the grade range for V10, which you are, bidding there is actually safer because with each bid you're applying for 100+ SA spots.

Is V10 "target" for top 20% from DNCG? What about from MVP? Same, top 1/4, top 1/3?

For someone at the top 20% mark at MVDNC, the set of V10+Latham/Debevoise/Paul Weiss/Shearman contains a solid set of targets and reaches. Even out to the top 1/3, I'd say this grouping of firms represents a reasonable play, though CSM/S&C probably fall out of the running at that point and the targets become reach-ier.

I think Penn has special pull in NYC, so I'd be more aggressive from there. I think if you're anything above median at Penn then Skadden, K&E, and Weil are reasonably in play, and Cleary/STB are reasonable reaches. Remember, the V15-ish NYC firms are getting back up to boom-levels of hiring. Since they're competing with each other, they've needed to start digging deeper into the classes. We're not quite at the point where V10's are regularly going below median at CCNP, like they used to, but we're also not at C/O 2011 where Skadden had ~30 SA's and hired only from the top 10%.

DallasCowboy wrote:yours to lose, maybe not with G

False

DallasCowboy wrote:yours to lose, maybe not with G

Definitely false. Yes, GULC has lower NLJ250 numbers but that is mostly due to class size. If you have top grades you will be competitive when stack against other lower T14 students.

It's not like partners are sitting around going "Top 20% at Duke? Absolutely. Top 20% at GULC? LOLNO totally different ballgame"

DouglasDevelopment wrote:

DallasCowboy wrote:yours to lose, maybe not with G

It's not like partners are sitting around going "Top 20% at Duke? Absolutely. Top 20% at GULC? LOLNO totally different ballgame"

1) This is definitely true;
2) Top 20% at GULC is clearly secure for big law assuming proper execution;
3) Huge class size affects top 20% too. A firm might consider a single top 20% at GULC the same as a single top 20% at Duke, but it'll have three times as many applications from the former and probably won't allocate three times as many callback slots. There's a real disadvantage to being so huge as to have half a dozen people in the top 1%.

rayiner wrote:

DouglasDevelopment wrote:

DallasCowboy wrote:yours to lose, maybe not with G

It's not like partners are sitting around going "Top 20% at Duke? Absolutely. Top 20% at GULC? LOLNO totally different ballgame"

1) This is definitely true;
2) Top 20% at GULC is clearly secure for big law assuming proper execution;
3) Huge class size affects top 20% too. A firm might consider a single top 20% at GULC the same as a single top 20% at Duke, but it'll have three times as many applications from the former and probably won't allocate three times as many callback slots. There's a real disadvantage to being so huge as to have half a dozen people in the top 1%.

Just out of curiousity, for Duke, what is the general consensus on the cut off point for a decent shot at biglaw?

I know of non-urms with a 3.2 (median is supposedly 3.3) at V25-100. IPsecure with whatever. Other than that, I think you have a realistic shot for a southern 6-figure firm with a 3.anything.

And wrt GULC, I wasn't trying to bash, I just do not know since I go to Duke. Our small class and wide distribution geographically really helps. Interview well and you can get a job like everyone I know did.

3) Huge class size affects top 20% too. A firm might consider a single top 20% at GULC the same as a single top 20% at Duke, but it'll have three times as many applications from the former and probably won't allocate three times as many callback slots. There's a real disadvantage to being so huge as to have half a dozen people in the top 1%.

(GULCer here.) You may have more applications, but there's still a set number of screeners each firm allows (some of the big ones only do 20 interviews, e.g., Arnold & Porter -- unless that changed this year), so it's not like they're required to meet with 3x as many people anyway. The firms know how to work this and anyone in the Top 20% should be fairly set for getting a job as long as you can interview well and bid properly. Like every school, of course, not everyone does that...

chipchip wrote:

3) Huge class size affects top 20% too. A firm might consider a single top 20% at GULC the same as a single top 20% at Duke, but it'll have three times as many applications from the former and probably won't allocate three times as many callback slots. There's a real disadvantage to being so huge as to have half a dozen people in the top 1%.

(GULCer here.) You may have more applications, but there's still a set number of screeners each firm allows (some of the big ones only do 20 interviews, e.g., Arnold & Porter -- unless that changed this year), so it's not like they're required to meet with 3x as many people anyway. The firms know how to work this and anyone in the Top 20% should be fairly set for getting a job as long as you can interview well and bid properly. Like every school, of course, not everyone does that...

I don't disagree that top 20% at GULC is big law secure. My point was that the large class size doesn't just affect placement for the bottom of the class, but at the top 20% mark too.

For example, top 20% at DNC has a pretty decent shot at V10. However, I know for a fact that the V10 firms do not hire 2-3x as many GULC kids as DNC kids. The SA classes at places like S&C or DPW have a similar number of Duke, NU, etc, associates as GULC ones. So with more people competing for the same number of spots, I wouldn't be as confident in getting a V10 job from top 20% at GULC.

DallasCowboy wrote:I know of non-urms with a 3.2 (median is supposedly 3.3) at V25-100. IPsecure with whatever. Other than that, I think you have a realistic shot for a southern 6-figure firm with a 3.anything.

And wrt GULC, I wasn't trying to bash, I just do not know since I go to Duke. Our small class and wide distribution geographically really helps. Interview well and you can get a job like everyone I know did.

As a warning, although I don't go to Duke, I do go to UVA and I know people who went to Duke; but "realistic shot for a Southern firm with 3. anything" doesn't apply to Atlanta. It should hold for the rest of the South though. And I'm not saying it's impossible to get an Atlanta firm job with a with a "3. anything" but it's going to be hella difficult if that 3.anything is median or below. And I mean hella difficult.

Agree about Atlanta. I forget that's even an option these days.