Offer after worrisome review? Forum

[Anonymous User]

So I just had my summer review and was told that there were concerns about my writing but that I was improving. Can't help but think that this was implying I will get no-offered.
Has anyone gone through something similar and got an offer (or didn't get an offer)?
Big law firm in major market btw.

[Anonymous User]

This is usually a very bad sign.

[goodolgil]

Think this concern was real or pretextual (i.e. they might want to no-offer you for some more esoteric reason, but tell you they have issues with work product?).

If the concern was really writing and you are getting better, then it's probably less damning. This is all speculation though.

[Anonymous User]

I was told that I "dropped the ball" on a certain assignment during the mid summer review. I got an offer. It is a lonely feeling, though, so I am sorry for you. Much depends on the personality of your reviewer, the luck of the draw in who did your evaluations, how your firm uses the review process. Try to do good work, and best of luck!

[Anonymous User]

I was told in my end of summer review that the hiring committee knows that there are some reviewers who grade everyone very critically and some reviewers who give everyone good grades. They generally know that and will take that into account in a holistic evaluation of you. Basically, if you get a critical review from a "good grader" person it looks pretty bad, but if you get a critical review from a "hyper critical" person it doesn't look so bad.

[Anonymous User]

You should certainly be concerned. If I were you, I'd do my best to make an objective assessment of whether my writing was adequate or not. If you were assigned a writing coach or associate mentor, consider asking him or her. At my firm, and I assume this is standard practice, the hiring committee looks at not just evaluations, but the written assignments themselves (they have a binder of every assignment you did). If some of those assignments are of poor quality, you may be screwed depending on how much your firm cares about its offer rate.

[monkey85]

What is the historical offer rate at your firm?

If it is "only" a work product issue, then I actually would not worry as much. You can improve, or they can help you fix the writing issue. However, if it is a personality/fit issue (and they are using work product as pretext - as noted by another poster), then that cannot be fixed.

At this point, just try to kick ass from here on out. That is all you can do.

[NotMyRealName09]

Writing is important. Not writing well is bad.