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I am a 2L at a T14, and will be going to an NY lower V100 this summer. My firm’s summer program allows you to rotate through a few groups. I think I will much prefer corporate work to litigation. (Please accept this assumed premise in "good faith" for now rather than making this thread an argument about this. I have my reasons.) However, back during OCI time, a lot of interviewers at firms (including at least one at the firm I accepted with) expressed skepticism about my preferring corporate work, probably because I don’t have much experience in that area. Though my firm usually has a 100% offer rate, people I spoke with did not always get to work in their first choice group after graduation. Additionally, I also know that I was not in the initial group of people from my school that my firm offered. Being that this is a lower V100, the reputation of different groups varies, and I would imagine exit options would also differ (probably much better in some groups on the corporate side).

So my question is this: is it possible my firm could get annoyed if I decide to choose only corporate groups to work in over the summer? This would presumably mean that I could not get an offer from a Lit group, since I didn’t work for one (or more pessimistically, that they could no-offer me if they perceive this as a bad move on my part). Or am I just worrying too much? I am just worried about trying to appease them by choosing one Lit group and one corporate, and then not getting an offer from the corporate group. But maybe my perception of skepticism was flawed in the first place, since I received an offer anyway (and not from a specific group either, as I understand some firms do at this initial stage).

I really need to finish the paper I'm working on, but yay procrastination.

I would say that it is unwise to not try your hand at any lit assignments. Not because your firm will no offer you as a result but a) because there likely isn't much substantive work in your firm's corporate department for the summer b) you might be surprised and really like the work or more importantly the people.

My two cents.

Anonymous User wrote:I am a 2L at a T14, and will be going to an NY lower V100 this summer. My firm’s summer program allows you to rotate through a few groups. I think I will much prefer corporate work to litigation. (Please accept this assumed premise in "good faith" for now rather than making this thread an argument about this. I have my reasons.) However, back during OCI time, a lot of interviewers at firms (including at least one at the firm I accepted with) expressed skepticism about my preferring corporate work, probably because I don’t have much experience in that area. Though my firm usually has a 100% offer rate, people I spoke with did not always get to work in their first choice group after graduation. Additionally, I also know that I was not in the initial group of people from my school that my firm offered. Being that this is a lower V100, the reputation of different groups varies, and I would imagine exit options would also differ (probably much better in some groups on the corporate side).

So my question is this: is it possible my firm could get annoyed if I decide to choose only corporate groups to work in over the summer? This would presumably mean that I could not get an offer from a Lit group, since I didn’t work for one (or more pessimistically, that they could no-offer me if they perceive this as a bad move on my part). Or am I just worrying too much? I am just worried about trying to appease them by choosing one Lit group and one corporate, and then not getting an offer from the corporate group. But maybe my perception of skepticism was flawed in the first place, since I received an offer anyway (and not from a specific group either, as I understand some firms do at this initial stage).

You're worrying too much. Law students are fungible and worthless.

OK, fair enough. It's just that relative to what TLS usually says about expressing an interest not really mattering, I did receive some skepticism when I expressed an interest in corporate during OCI. So I wondered if that would carry over to this part of the process. But maybe they really just had some other concern about me that they chose not to say explicitly, so who knows.

-OP