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Non-URM, a couple of years professional work experience, definitely below median first semester grades, significantly above median second semester grades. I am guessing overall I am a little above median.

Interested in NY first and LA second (I have lots of LA ties and some NY as well though I hear for NY ties don't matter).

Career services is very vague on bidding strategy (what else is new) and they told me eliminate firms on Vault's 25 "most selective" list but keep a few for reaches. And I've done that but:

1. Not sure if that only applies to the home office of those firms or all offices.
2. There is a still huge list of firms coming to OCI and I'm not sure how to eliminate more and prioritize my bids. No definite preference for litigation v. transactional.

Advice?

Lets put it another way - for NY offices - are there any of these I should not bid on:

Baker & Hostetler
Cadwalader
Cleary
Cooley
Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle
Dechert
Fish & Richardson
Foley & Lardner
Gunderson
hogan lovells
Hughes Hubbard & Reed
Jones Day
Kaye Scholer
Kilpatrick Townsend
King & Spalding
Kramer, Levin, Naftalis & Frankel
Paul Hastings
Paul, Weiss
Schiff Hardin
Shearman & Sterling
Wilson Sonsini

Or any of these that I should bid on:

Cleary
Davis Polk
Gibson Dunn
Latham
Ropes & Gray
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
Skadden
Sullivan & Cromwell
Weil, Gotshal
WilmerHale LLP

You have Cleary in both your bid and not-bid lists. A bid on them is probably not going to pan out, so eliminate them. Your dont-bid list is pretty good, I guess, although if you have spare bids I think Latham and Ropes could be marginal fliers, and Weil possibly too.

That isn't your entire bid list for NY, right? You're missing some decent shots at firms with larger summer classes, such as Cahill/ Schulte Roth, then some smaller-ish like Seward, etc.

Paul Weiss is probably a wasted bid.

Thanks.

Re: Cleary. I meant them to be on the don't-bid list. The only reason I was considering leaving them on is because the data we got showed them making several offers at our OCI last year (but then again it was probably to people w/ higher grades then me).

Taking Paul Weiss off.

Re: other firms - this is pretty much what we have coming from NY right now but I'm sure other firms will get added during the summer. If there are firms out there that I'd be a good fit for is mass mailing a waste of time?