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Does top 25% at CCN have a shot at 1L SA without diversity?

Not in any major market.

Whelp you are either Columbia or NYU because we don't have grades at Chicago yet

There is a humongous amount of information on this and yet every single year 1Ls insist on applying to firms for 1L SAs. Don't bother unless you are a minority or from Texas. It is a waste of time otherwise. Mail the applications if you must, but don't spend more than a few hours on that mail merge. Just do what everyone else does and get your judicial internship or your (honestly preferable) public interest org/government internship, take your federal work study money, and be done with the process so you can focus on second semester.

Nelson wrote:There is a humongous amount of information on this and yet every single year 1Ls insist on applying to firms for 1L SAs. Don't bother unless you are a minority or from Texas. It is a waste of time otherwise. Mail the applications if you must, but don't spend more than a few hours on that mail merge. Just do what everyone else does and get your judicial internship or your (honestly preferable) public interest org/government internship, take your federal work study money, and be done with the process so you can focus on second semester.

Actually I am also diverse but most firms don't have diversity fellowships. Wondering if I should apply to those as well..

Anonymous User wrote:

Nelson wrote:There is a humongous amount of information on this and yet every single year 1Ls insist on applying to firms for 1L SAs. Don't bother unless you are a minority or from Texas. It is a waste of time otherwise. Mail the applications if you must, but don't spend more than a few hours on that mail merge. Just do what everyone else does and get your judicial internship or your (honestly preferable) public interest org/government internship, take your federal work study money, and be done with the process so you can focus on second semester.

Actually I am also diverse but most firms don't have diversity fellowships. Wondering if I should apply to those as well..

Then you should be hitting all firms hard. Focus on any diversity position and make yourself clearly diverse on your non-diversity apps (through cover letter/resume). Diversity apps do not really care about grades at all unless they're terrible, which yours are not. Mail as widely as possible and do a good job this summer. It's a load off your loans and a nice hedge against a grade drop.

Nelson wrote:There is a humongous amount of information on this and yet every single year 1Ls insist on applying to firms for 1L SAs. Don't bother unless you are a minority or from Texas. It is a waste of time otherwise. Mail the applications if you must, but don't spend more than a few hours on that mail merge. Just do what everyone else does and get your judicial internship or your (honestly preferable) public interest org/government internship, take your federal work study money, and be done with the process so you can focus on second semester.

I'm a white guy and was top 15% at a T2 and got a 1L summer with a midsize firm. I know a LOT of people from my T2 who were not diverse and had firms. Its not easy, but its not the craziest thing ever. TLS sometimes goes overboard with the pessimism and realities. I can think of 4 people who had 1L in-house at major companies when TLS was spewing all sorts of "In House is impossible as a 1L, just doesn't happen!" BS. The point is, apply wherever you can and hope for the best. The firm I worked for advertised that they were coming to spring OCI, I applied, was the first person to interview on the first day, and ended up with the spot. Its possible, don't listen to extremes.

It's possible. I know someone personally at CCN around that rank that got a 1L SA at a V50, and I'm fairly sure it was not a diversity spot. I also know of non-diversity applicants getting callbacks/offers from Cravath as 1Ls at HYS. Both were in NYC.

However, non-diversity 1L SAs are still extremely rare and you will probably not get one even with stellar grades. Definitely not worth the time to customize cover letters at all.

BarbellDreams wrote:

Nelson wrote:There is a humongous amount of information on this and yet every single year 1Ls insist on applying to firms for 1L SAs. Don't bother unless you are a minority or from Texas. It is a waste of time otherwise. Mail the applications if you must, but don't spend more than a few hours on that mail merge. Just do what everyone else does and get your judicial internship or your (honestly preferable) public interest org/government internship, take your federal work study money, and be done with the process so you can focus on second semester.

I'm a white guy and was top 15% at a T2 and got a 1L summer with a midsize firm. I know a LOT of people from my T2 who were not diverse and had firms. Its not easy, but its not the craziest thing ever. TLS sometimes goes overboard with the pessimism and realities. I can think of 4 people who had 1L in-house at major companies when TLS was spewing all sorts of "In House is impossible as a 1L, just doesn't happen!" BS. The point is, apply wherever you can and hope for the best. The firm I worked for advertised that they were coming to spring OCI, I applied, was the first person to interview on the first day, and ended up with the spot. Its possible, don't listen to extremes.

Meh, you're probably right if "mid-sized" firms in secondary markets are what we're talking about. I don't have a lot of experience in that realm. If he's a CCN 1L, I guarantee you he's not applying to 50 or fewer attorney firms in secondary midwestern firms.

In house is kind of whatever to me. It depends on where and what position you're talking about.

My answer wasn't challenging your situation, it was responding to the situation of most T14 1Ls who are blanketing the Vault firms with generic cover letters.

Cravath has resorted to hiring 1Ls?

Holy shit that's TTT.

Unironically CravaTTTh.

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Token numbers relative to 2Ls, often for things like particular language skills, diversity, etc.

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Does non-diverse top 25% HYS (well, HS, Yalies don't have grades) have a shot?

Is diversity at law firms the same as URM in admissions, or is it broader?

papercut wrote:Is diversity at law firms the same as URM in admissions, or is it broader?

It is probably narrower. Law firms tend to have broad diversity definitions and have affinity groups or internal diversity programs that cater to those groups. However, their pipeline diversity programs tend to favor facially diverse candidates from under-represented cultural minority groups (e.g. AA and MA) and disfavor broad-based or over-represented minority groups (e.g. Asians, Women).

daryldixon wrote:

papercut wrote:Is diversity at law firms the same as URM in admissions, or is it broader?

It is probably narrower. Law firms tend to have broad diversity definitions and have affinity groups or internal diversity programs that cater to those groups. However, their pipeline diversity programs tend to favor facially diverse candidates from under-represented cultural minority groups (e.g. AA and MA) and disfavor broad-based or over-represented minority groups (e.g. Asians, Women).

It varies wildly by firm. I know of instances where a (major market v100) "diversity" 1L was an ORM with great grades.

Law school admissions is pretty mechanical. Firm hiring rarely is.