2L Grades and STB Forum

[Anonymous User]

Any current STB associates/former summer associates know if Simpson requests a transcript during the 2L summer. I know it's inconsistent among the v10, so I figured this was worth a shot. Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous User]

Bump. Also interested.

[thesealocust]

STB isn't like Gibson Dunn, they won't care.

[brotherdarkness]

.

[Liam]

I have a classmate who will also be summering at STB; one of the partners he was in touch with during the recruiting process basically told him not to worry too much about grades and to enjoy his last two years of school, since he won't have free time once he starts working.

[Anonymous User]

Is the logic with firms not caring that you've shown you can do it when it counts? I don't understand why firms would care so much about grades to hire SA's, and suddenly not care in making full time offers to these SA's. My worry is they will see it as s/he does great work until they get comfortable so while the SA work product was good, it will now start to slack once they start f/t.

[thesealocust]

Is the logic with firms not caring that you've shown you can do it when it counts? I don't understand why firms would care so much about grades to hire SA's, and suddenly not care in making full time offers to these SA's. My worry is they will see it as s/he does great work until they get comfortable so while the SA work product was good, it will now start to slack once they start f/t.

How is this hard to understand at all?

They only care when hiring you for the summer because they have nothing else to go on. After that, they have substantially better information with which to evaluate you.

Grades are the worst metric to use for hiring prior to the summer, except for all the other ones.

[Anonymous User]

They didn't ask for a transcript when I was a summer associate.

[Anonymous User]

First-year at STB. No. No one cares. They'll ask for an official one after you graduate, of course, but unless you actually fail to graduate there's no risk of grade-related revocation of offers at STB (or any other big firm as far as I'm aware). Some other firms do request 2L transcripts, but I've never heard of no-offers on that basis.

[Anonymous User]

Is the logic with firms not caring that you've shown you can do it when it counts? I don't understand why firms would care so much about grades to hire SA's, and suddenly not care in making full time offers to these SA's. My worry is they will see it as s/he does great work until they get comfortable so while the SA work product was good, it will now start to slack once they start f/t.

How is this hard to understand at all?

They only care when hiring you for the summer because they have nothing else to go on. After that, they have substantially better information with which to evaluate you.

Grades are the worst metric to use for hiring prior to the summer, except for all the other ones.

Same poster. If this were the case then why would those who were paralegals at top law firms prior to law school realize little-to-no benefit from this in recruiting? Although nothing like practice, it seems succeeding there and being median would be more predictive than being top quarter straight through?

[thesealocust]

The paralegals I know who did good work at their firms often got offers to return post-law school without otherwise having competitive academic credentials, but had more modest results looking elsewhere because other firms have no way of knowing how successful such pre-LS employment was.

TL;DR completely consistent with what I wrote above.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Same poster. If this were the case then why would those who were paralegals at top law firms prior to law school realize little-to-no benefit from this in recruiting? Although nothing like practice, it seems succeeding there and being median would be more predictive than being top quarter straight through?

For one thing, paralegal work is not the same as being an associate (which is not to belittle paralegals, they usually know more than I do). Being a paralegal at a law firm isn't necessarily more indicative of success as an attorney than any other work experience - which does often seem to give people a bit of a boost in OCI.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Certainly takes the downside risk down in a meaningful way.