3L OCI Questions Forum

[Anonymous User]

I go to a T14 and finished my 1L year with ~3.0. I got a V100 job at OCI, but their New York office (where I'll be) doesn't do much of the work I would like to do. Thus I plan to delve into the elusive 3L OCI. A few questions:

1) which is more important as far as grades when you're a 3L: your overall GPA, or your improvement over the last year? I had a ~3.7 last semester and hope/plan to get something similar this semester, but currently my GPA is still only in the low 3.2 area, which is still really low for any firms that recruit 2Ls at OCI. Will they still be judging me as a 2L or will they be looking at how well my last two semesters were?

2) how important are extracurriculars for someone trying to do 3L OCI? Is ed board on a secondary journal worth it? what about on track for publishing a note? trying to be a research assistant for a prof? student gov? anything? or just grades?

3) anything else i should know about from those that have gone through this?

[Anonymous User]

A friend of mine got a job at my firm in the fall of 3L. Here is how it went down:

1. It didn't happen through OCI. That firm didn't even do 3L OCI, but they were still looking for people. Send your stuff to firms that you don't think want to get it.

2. I personally sent the resume and cover letter over to the recruiters, who knew me well. I said "This is the best 3L from my school who will be looking for a job this fall," and I absolutely meant it. Actually a recruiter had told a few of us that our referrals of our classmates mattered a lot to them. This makes sense to me, but one of the other kids in my summer class thought it was a hilarious joke because what the hell do we know. Well, we know a hell of a lot more about who is good at our schools than the firm knows. If you can, get a friend who believes in you to refer you to their 2L firm.

3. Know what practice area you want, most of the time. Many firms will hold their hands while 2Ls explore the wonderful smorgasbord of practice areas, but fewer firms seem to want to let you be indecisive once you have finished law school. My friend REALLY resisted picking a practice area in his cover letter, but I told him that the firm needed people desperately in an area that he wanted. He listed it, they called him, they interviewed him, he got that offer.

4. Have a GREAT reason for moving. My friend wanted to move cities for family reasons. That's unassailable and very different from "I hated my firm" or "I hated their practice areas."

5. Don't worry about how they will look at your GPA. Who cares? Work hard, then apply to all the firms that you want to work for and let them worry about whether they want you.

[Anonymous User]

I think the safest answer is that you should pick up as many resume points as possible because you never know what each firm values. Get your grades as high as possible. Some will look at overall performance, some may look more at 2L year (source: got a job 3L year through mailing, based on 2l grades). Go for ed board and publication if you can do it without your grades suffering. You won't know what these firms want until it's too late, so cover your bases and work on your interview skills.

[rad lulz]

The most impt thing you can do is get an offer from your 2L summer firm

[androstan]

All of the advice itt is good.

OP firms don't care much about improvement. They care about selling you to clients. You're going to have a firm bio and clients are going to look at it because they care who is working on their important legal matters while charging $500/hr. So the more things you can put on your bio that clients like to see the better.

There is a scarcity of demand for biglaw junior associate work. Not a scarcity of ability to do it.

[OutCold]

I'm just copying this from a previous post I wrote about the subject:

I went through the process last summer.

1. A grade increase or some other positive change to your resume (such as a clerkship) is really important. Firms that you interview with are going to ask why you want to switch, and quite frankly, an appropriate answer is that your grades increased or you got that clerkship, and this firm is much better than your other firm in the area of law you want to practice. I had a pretty sharp grade increase, and that was the answer I gave when asked. Firms get it, especially when their practice group really is much better than your other firm's group. You can also try to talk about how you had such a good experience with your old firm's group that you really want to work at the highest level, with a group like the one at the target firm.

2. The firms that are actively recruiting 3Ls tend to be the behemoths, mostly in NYC, but also in DC. Skadden, DPW, STB, Cravath, Latham, Paul Weiss, and several others were particularly active last cycle. Obviously there might be an opening or two that a firm with a SA class of 30 may need to fill, but generally the biggest firms are the most active because they are the least sensitive to over-recruiting. That being said, almost all of these firms were looking to fill positions in specific groups. Paul Weiss was only looking to fill corporate spots last cycle, and the V5s were asking at the outset which group you wanted to join. Since you have a clerkship, I would imagine you are set on litigation which is a good thing since being indecisive will probably hurt you.

3. Don't rely on OCI. At all. Even a little bit. Many of the firms that are recruiting 3Ls won't even advertise that fact at OCI, and won't allocate spots for 3Ls. Almost all of the 3L hiring occurs outside of OCI. You want to start emailing every firm or office's NALP contact a week or so before OCI. Email all of your materials, but pay particular attention to your cover letter. Seriously, a well-written cover letter, while ineffective almost all other times, will be extremely helpful in getting an interview as a 3L. I had secured an externship for the fall semester that I tied in with my other experiences to show that I was particularly set on a certain practice area. The reason that such a letter is important is because most firms won't even given you a screener. I had one phone screener for a firm, but all of the other interviews went directly to the call back stage. Therefore, the only chance you'll have to sell yourself is your cover letter. Of course, you should try to get interviews through 3L OCI, but don't count on it.

Even if you do get an interview through the OCI system, you should still have mailed that firm directly. If a firm is interested, many times they will simply set up an interview while they are on campus doing OCI. Another great strategy is to go into OCI about half hour before it starts and drop your resume off with recruiters. Sometimes you'll score an interview later in the day. Other times, they'll say they aren't interviewing 3Ls but they'll give it to the head recruiter, which can materialize into an interview later down the road. Most importantly, don't get discouraged if you don't get any calls right away. Some firms interview 3Ls at the same time as the 2Ls, but many wait until the end of the 2L cycle. A number of interviews rolled in around the first or second week of September, and one even came near October.

Apologies if that answer was kind of stream of consciousness. If you have any other questions feel free to ask on here or shoot me a PM.

[OutCold]

Also, to your particular questions:

They will look at your GPA holistically, but they will ask about a dramatic grade change. Extracurriculars are as important as they have ever been, which varies from interviewer to interviewer. It would be more important that your extracurriculars fit your narrative of why you want to change firms.

[TooOld4This]

All of the advice itt is good.

OP firms don't care much about improvement. They care about selling you to clients. You're going to have a firm bio and clients are going to look at it because they care who is working on their important legal matters while charging $500/hr. So the more things you can put on your bio that clients like to see the better.

There is a scarcity of demand for biglaw junior associate work. Not a scarcity of ability to do it.

Extracurriculars are not going to sell you to clients. Remember, BigLaw clients are attorneys. The bill and work product are all that matters. I have never looked at a bill and said, but the 1st year was on the editorial board, these hours must be legit. (Nor have I looked at bios and not hired a firm because the associates weren't prestigious enough.) The partner/relationship person is held responsible. If I can't trust them to have good people on my matter, then I'll find another firm. The marketing department can make anyone sound good within the first year.

Really, once you've started practicing, you realize that all the time you spent on extracurriculars is barely worth the ink on the resume line. It might make you feel better, and if that swagger makes you more confident, great, but your fellow law students overhype them. If they didn't, no one would do the work. It's just a prestige Ponzi scheme

Your time will be much better spent on research firms, applying broadly, and networking. You also need to get an offer from you firm this summer. Fair or not, there are enough people holding offers that want to move around that there is no reason to risk that the reason you didn't get one is because you actually don't have the chops for the job.

[androstan]

TooOld you obviously have more experience than me and I'm certain what you say is true for a non-insubstantial number of firms and biglaw clients but some clients at some firms do care quite a lot.