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UT 3.67 (top 25% is 3.60 for C/o 2014). On a secondary journal completely unrelated to any practice area I would consider, waiting to hear back from the write-on (hope to get Texas Review of Litigation and/or Texas International Law Journal, if not TLR) / no moot court + no interest in anything trial-related. Transactional all the way. Native Texas.

Since we get 25 interviews, I will post my top 30. I want to focus on securities and/or M&A. Having lived in China for X years prior to law school, my goal is to lateral to Hong Kong.

My NYC OCI bids are all towards the bottom (I am going to the NYC job fair as well), along with Dallas bids and a smattering of small firms and D.C. bids at less selective firms like Sutherland.

1. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP (NYC, special reason for putting it first, nuff said)
2. Vinson & Elkins, L.L.P (Houston, TX)
3. Baker Botts L.L.P. (Houston, TX) (preselected at 1L OCI but had to decline)
4. Akin Gump (Houston)
5. Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P. (Houston)
6. hogan lovells (Houston, TX) - Porter Hedges
7. Baker & McKenzie (Houston, TX)
8. The Boston Consulting Group (Dallas, TX; NYC; HK)
9. Latham & Watkins (Chicago, Houston)
10. King & Spaulding (Houston, TX)
11. Jones Day (Houston, TX) -Dallas, NYC, Chicago
12. Bracewell & Giuliani LLP (Houston, TX)
13. Haynes and Boone, LLP (Houston, TX)
14. winstead pc (Houston, TX)
15. Thompson & Knight L.L.P. (Houston, TX) (Dallas, TX)
16. Hartline Dacus Barger Dreyer LLP (Houston) - Locke Lord (Houston)
17. Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP (Houston, TX) - Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP (Houston, TX) + Weil (Dallas)
18. Simpson Thacher & bartlett llp (Houston)
19. Andrews Kurth LLP (Houston, TX)
20. McDermott Will & Emery LLP (Houston, TX)
21. Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP (Houston, TX)
22. Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P. (Houston, TX)
23. Strasburger & Price, LLP (Houston)
24. Haynes and Boone, LLP (Dallas, TX)
25. Morrison & Foerster LLP (New York, Hong Kong)
26. mayer brown llp (Houston, TX)
27. Jackson Walker L.L.P. (Houston, TX)
28. Zelle Hofmann Voelbel & Mason LLP (Dallas, TX)
39. K&L Gates (Dallas, TX)

[edited for office sizes and litigation practices]

Should I simply bid on more New York, Chicago, and D.C. firms? I am not going to use all my bids at this rate because I did not bid on both the Dallas and Houston offices of firms that require cover letters.

You need to do some serious firm research. For example, your #2, Hogan Houston, is a tiny lit boutique. Same for Shook Houston. You are going to have some short interviews when you walk in and say "transactional all the way!"

Hard to evaluate what the China stuff does for your resume, but with a 3.7 you should get at least 20 interviews if you bid conservatively. Focus on large classes and firms with transactional practices in the locations you're bidding. Use your top 3-5 for reaches since you can lottery in if your numbers aren't quite there.

Are you 3.62 or 3.7? You're posting anonymously, so I'm not sure why you're giving this huge range.

If you have no pref. between Dallas and Houston, then you should rank Houston firms higher, specifically, the VE, FJ, and BB. You meet the grade cutoffs for all 3, but run a chance of not being preselected if you rank them too low. Honestly, some of the ones you left out (Morgan Lewis, Porter Hedges, Lock Lord) because you consider them "reaches" are a lot less selective than the ones you included (e.g., GDC, Latham, Weil)

Anonymous User wrote:You need to do some serious firm research. For example, your #2, Hogan Houston, is a tiny lit boutique. Same for Shook Houston. You are going to have some short interviews when you walk in and say "transactional all the way!"

Hard to evaluate what the China stuff does for your resume, but with a 3.7 you should get at least 20 interviews if you bid conservatively. Focus on large classes and firms with transactional practices in the locations you're bidding. Use your top 3-5 for reaches since you can lottery in if your numbers aren't quite there.

Now I am quite confused. Hogan has over 40 offices around the world. What makes them a "small boutique"? http://www.hoganlovells.com/offices/. "We have over 2,300 lawyers operating out of more than 40 offices in the United States, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia." But their Houston office IS too small. Almost the exact same thing goes with Shook.

So why does it say on Symplicity that Hogan takes 21 summer associates when the office recruiting at UT has what - 7 people? I must have been doing this wrong.

f0bolous wrote:Are you 3.62 or 3.7? You're posting anonymously, so I'm not sure why you're giving this huge range.

If you have no pref. between Dallas and Houston, then you should rank Houston firms higher, specifically, the VE, FJ, and BB. You meet the grade cutoffs for all 3, but run a chance of not being preselected if you rank them too low. Honestly, some of the ones you left out (Morgan Lewis, Porter Hedges, Lock Lord) because you consider them "reaches" are a lot less selective than the ones you included (e.g., GDC, Latham, Weil)

Nearly halfway in-between. Fixed above. How is that a huge range?

So I am nothing but confused when it comes to the algorithm. On this board, at nearly every other school, the advice is to rank "reaches" (D.C. firms for most people) lower. I could understand how ranking a firm low could affect lottery, but how does ranking a firm affect preselect? So why not just rank "safeties" at the top instead of reaches?

What other firms should be on this list for high quality energy or other transactional work?

Yea dude, go through Chambers. You need to make adjustments to this list. For instance, if you want corporate, AK needs to be higher, perhaps above Fulbright.

Edit: also, I think the 21 number you're referencing is the number of interviews they give, not SAs they hire.

Anonymous User wrote:

f0bolous wrote:Are you 3.62 or 3.7? You're posting anonymously, so I'm not sure why you're giving this huge range.

If you have no pref. between Dallas and Houston, then you should rank Houston firms higher, specifically, the VE, FJ, and BB. You meet the grade cutoffs for all 3, but run a chance of not being preselected if you rank them too low. Honestly, some of the ones you left out (Morgan Lewis, Porter Hedges, Lock Lord) because you consider them "reaches" are a lot less selective than the ones you included (e.g., GDC, Latham, Weil)

Nearly halfway in-between. Fixed above. How is that a huge range?

So I am nothing but confused when it comes to the algorithm. On this board, at nearly every other school, the advice is to rank "reaches" (D.C. firms for most people) lower. I could understand how ranking a firm low could affect lottery, but how does ranking a firm affect preselect? So why not just rank "safeties" at the top instead of reaches?

What other firms should be on this list for high quality energy or other transactional work?

other schools are 100% lottery, so the advice doesn't really apply. what i meant by ranking big 3 higher was that you run the risk of not being preselected, so if you rank them too low, you might strike out with them, even though you meet their grade cutoff otherwise. if a firm is a true safety, they'll preselect you, so ranking won't matter. you put realistic reaches at the top so that you still get the interview through the lottery.

f0bolous wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

f0bolous wrote:Are you 3.62 or 3.7? You're posting anonymously, so I'm not sure why you're giving this huge range.

If you have no pref. between Dallas and Houston, then you should rank Houston firms higher, specifically, the VE, FJ, and BB. You meet the grade cutoffs for all 3, but run a chance of not being preselected if you rank them too low. Honestly, some of the ones you left out (Morgan Lewis, Porter Hedges, Lock Lord) because you consider them "reaches" are a lot less selective than the ones you included (e.g., GDC, Latham, Weil)

Nearly halfway in-between. Fixed above. How is that a huge range?

So I am nothing but confused when it comes to the algorithm. On this board, at nearly every other school, the advice is to rank "reaches" (D.C. firms for most people) lower. I could understand how ranking a firm low could affect lottery, but how does ranking a firm affect preselect? So why not just rank "safeties" at the top instead of reaches?

What other firms should be on this list for high quality energy or other transactional work?

other schools are 100% lottery, so the advice doesn't really apply. what i meant by ranking big 3 higher was that you run the risk of not being preselected, so if you rank them too low, you might strike out with them, even though you meet their grade cutoff otherwise. if a firm is a true safety, they'll preselect you, so ranking won't matter. you put realistic reaches at the top so that you still get the interview through the lottery.

So does this mean that I ought to put my New York bids after the "big 3"? Those are my actual reaches. I have about a dozen of them.

Anonymous User wrote:

f0bolous wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

f0bolous wrote:Are you 3.62 or 3.7? You're posting anonymously, so I'm not sure why you're giving this huge range.

If you have no pref. between Dallas and Houston, then you should rank Houston firms higher, specifically, the VE, FJ, and BB. You meet the grade cutoffs for all 3, but run a chance of not being preselected if you rank them too low. Honestly, some of the ones you left out (Morgan Lewis, Porter Hedges, Lock Lord) because you consider them "reaches" are a lot less selective than the ones you included (e.g., GDC, Latham, Weil)

Nearly halfway in-between. Fixed above. How is that a huge range?

So I am nothing but confused when it comes to the algorithm. On this board, at nearly every other school, the advice is to rank "reaches" (D.C. firms for most people) lower. I could understand how ranking a firm low could affect lottery, but how does ranking a firm affect preselect? So why not just rank "safeties" at the top instead of reaches?

What other firms should be on this list for high quality energy or other transactional work?

other schools are 100% lottery, so the advice doesn't really apply. what i meant by ranking big 3 higher was that you run the risk of not being preselected, so if you rank them too low, you might strike out with them, even though you meet their grade cutoff otherwise. if a firm is a true safety, they'll preselect you, so ranking won't matter. you put realistic reaches at the top so that you still get the interview through the lottery.

So does this mean that I ought to put my New York bids after the "big 3"? Those are my actual reaches. I have about a dozen of them.

Sure. Just rank high whatever you might not get preselected for but would otherwise still qualify for (if that makes sense).

There is a limit to how many lottery interviews you can get. I don't know the exact number (maybe CSO does), but it is small, and I'm certain it is less than 15. So if your first 16 firms are "reaches," you might get 3-4 lottery picks (remember other people are ranking firms highly as well, and there are limited interview slots, and only a small portion of those are allocated for lotteries) and then no preselects from among those 16. If 17-50 are true safeties, I think you would still get preselect interviews, but CSO has never been particularly forthcoming about exactly how the ranking system works (e.g., they claim firms don't see how you rank them). Also, to the extent those NY firms are going to preselect you, you're lowering the number of Texas firms you will interview with because your total number of allowed interviews is capped (at 25 IIRC). So if you lottery 5 picks and get your next 20 bids through preselect, you won't get slotted with whoever you ranked 26-60. But if you were really interested and otherwise qualified, maybe you could get an interview by taking your resume by their hospitality suite.