What are my chances at DC firms out of UVA? Forum

[Anonymous User]

-3.33 GPA (Top 46%)
-Rising 2L at UVA
-One year of work experience after college.
-Above average or stellar resume
-Strong ties to the area

[meanmugger]

Absolutely no chance at anywhere in DC. Bid to NY.

[sprezz]

consensus is you're not getting looks for the vast, vast majority of dc options. check the most recent career services data for outliers that may be worth bidding at your gpa, but you're definitely after outliers. i don't think any of the other details change that. if you want to see if they do, turn the other details into special requests or whatever those things are called...don't waste bids blanketing dc.

[09042014]

consensus is you're not getting looks for the vast, vast majority of dc options. check the most recent career services data for outliers that may be worth bidding at your gpa, but you're definitely after outliers. i don't think any of the other details change that. if you want to see if they do, turn the other details into special requests or whatever those things are called...don't waste bids blanketing dc.

Doesn't UVA have a preselect system, or are bid limited?

[5ky]

consensus is you're not getting looks for the vast, vast majority of dc options. check the most recent career services data for outliers that may be worth bidding at your gpa, but you're definitely after outliers. i don't think any of the other details change that. if you want to see if they do, turn the other details into special requests or whatever those things are called...don't waste bids blanketing dc.

Doesn't UVA have a preselect system, or are bid limited?

You get 50 bids at UVA. It's a mix of preselect and lottery. It basically boils down to being mostly preselect for people at the top of the class, and mostly lottery for people median and below. Roughly.

OP, you, or somebody else, should start a separate 2013 OGI thread for UVA. There's always a ton of UVA people on TLS, so it prevents a flooding of threads. edit: somebody already did: http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 3&t=211043

[5ky]

consensus is you're not getting looks for the vast, vast majority of dc options. check the most recent career services data for outliers that may be worth bidding at your gpa, but you're definitely after outliers. i don't think any of the other details change that. if you want to see if they do, turn the other details into special requests or whatever those things are called...don't waste bids blanketing dc.

Unless they've changed things, I wouldn't use special requests like that. They are not meant to be a workaround to the 50 bid limit, they're basically a direct appeal to a firm to get an interview when you were not chosen for a preselect and didn't get them in the lottery. It will be hard to convince the firm you really want to work there if you could not be bothered to put them on your list of 50.

[09042014]

consensus is you're not getting looks for the vast, vast majority of dc options. check the most recent career services data for outliers that may be worth bidding at your gpa, but you're definitely after outliers. i don't think any of the other details change that. if you want to see if they do, turn the other details into special requests or whatever those things are called...don't waste bids blanketing dc.

Doesn't UVA have a preselect system, or are bid limited?

You get 50 bids at UVA. It's a mix of preselect and lottery. It basically boils down to being mostly preselect for people at the top of the class, and mostly lottery for people median and below. Roughly.

OP, you, or somebody else, should start a separate 2013 OGI thread for UVA. There's always a ton of UVA people on TLS, so it prevents a flooding of threads. edit: somebody already did: http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 3&t=211043

50 is probably not enough to waste a bunch on DC. Maybe he could afford 5 or so on firms he thinkgs he might have a shot at.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Sorry, I didn't realize there's a thread already.

What are my chances in other markets? At getting a decent job anywhere?

[sprezz]

consensus is you're not getting looks for the vast, vast majority of dc options. check the most recent career services data for outliers that may be worth bidding at your gpa, but you're definitely after outliers. i don't think any of the other details change that. if you want to see if they do, turn the other details into special requests or whatever those things are called...don't waste bids blanketing dc.

Unless they've changed things, I wouldn't use special requests like that. They are not meant to be a workaround to the 50 bid limit, they're basically a direct appeal to a firm to get an interview when you were not chosen for a preselect and didn't get them in the lottery. It will be hard to convince the firm you really want to work there if you could not be bothered to put them on your list of 50.

5ky almost definitely knows more than i do on this point. my suggestion was based on a hazy recollection of KD's incredibly strong emphasis on "use special requests, everyone says they wish they did it more, people get jerbs with them, special requests specialrequests" during a presentation. i could have sworn "oh man i can't believe i missed how great a fit we were for each other until after the bid deadline!" was specifically one of the scenarios that he encouraged that for, but i've certainly been wrong before.

i'll save any further immediately refuted advice for the other thread now [i think your chances in other markets are quite good, this is almost the exact hypothetical scenario i chose uva for. but it's specific market dependent]

[5ky]

consensus is you're not getting looks for the vast, vast majority of dc options. check the most recent career services data for outliers that may be worth bidding at your gpa, but you're definitely after outliers. i don't think any of the other details change that. if you want to see if they do, turn the other details into special requests or whatever those things are called...don't waste bids blanketing dc.

Unless they've changed things, I wouldn't use special requests like that. They are not meant to be a workaround to the 50 bid limit, they're basically a direct appeal to a firm to get an interview when you were not chosen for a preselect and didn't get them in the lottery. It will be hard to convince the firm you really want to work there if you could not be bothered to put them on your list of 50.

5ky almost definitely knows more than i do on this point. my suggestion was based on a hazy recollection of KD's incredibly strong emphasis on "use special requests, everyone says they wish they did it more, people get jerbs with them, special requests specialrequests" during a presentation. i could have sworn "oh man i can't believe i missed how great a fit we were for each other until after the bid deadline!" was specifically one of the scenarios that he encouraged that for, but i've certainly been wrong before.

i'll save any further immediately refuted advice for the other thread now [i think your chances in other markets are quite good, this is almost the exact hypothetical scenario i chose uva for. but it's specific market dependent]

I think you can use special requests for firms you didn't bid on, but if you are limited in the number of special requests you can use (in 2011, if you had a full slate of interviews, you were only allowed to use 2 special requests, and those had to be approved by KD), it is probably not the most efficient use of the SR. FWIW, I think OP can afford to bid a little more heavily in DC than others are suggesting here, but only if his/her resume and ties are as strong as he/she claims. Not going crazy with it or anything, but I don't think it's unreasonable to try 10-15 bids there.

[thesealocust]

Your best bets will be (in no particular order): NYC, southern markets, markets where you have mythical "ties." DC will be hard but definitely not impossible.

Lots of ways to approach it, but there's no magic bullet for bidding while at median. Be sure to mass-mail, talk to career services, and take an active role in the job hunt - that more than anything else separated the people I know who got big law gigs from around median from those who didn't.

[jawsthegreat]

Have a hard time believing that your resume is "stellar" for the purposes of OGI w/ only one year of work experience. Unless you have something that completely stands out and is unique. Lots of people have good resumes.