Top Law Schools

I am a 2L at a top 35 law school. I am currently in the top half of my class, am clerking at a mid-sized firm in a major city this summer and will be clerking for the United States Attorney's Office during my 3L year. I had a HORRIBLE academic first semester 1L year, but have had over a 3.4 (top 20%) since. I am also on moot court and law review. I was unable to land a "summer associate" gig, mainly because of those bad first semester grades. My question is this: what is preventing me from marketing myself to large firms as a rising 3L willing to do a summer associate position, and either get an LLM or clerk for a year before starting if I were extended an offer? Career services' (un)helpful advice was to "apply for jobs," so I am wondering why I could not take this approach? Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Getting a clerkship is harder than you are making it sound. Only a handful of firms (if that) will really hire someone for a pre-clerkship summer. A chunk of those will only hire someone for a pre-clerkship summer if they previously summered at the firm. It would be difficult to pull off, unfortunately.

Not sure the LLM is a good idea either, that would be just more money to spend for not a lot of marginal benefit.

what's stopping you is that your pitch essentially boils down to "i'm willing to put off working for another year so you can hire me for a summer." that's not particularly appetizing for a firm, and probably doesn't give you an advantage over any other 3L looking for a job

Most firms will only hire a post-3L summer if that person is going on to do a clerkship. There is nothing stopping you from marketing yourself for a post-3L SA, but the fact is that few if any firms would hire that. You could, like most other people applying as 3Ls, apply for full time, postgraduate positions in biglaw.

I'm gonna be blunt with you, the SA/biglaw boat has almost certainly sailed for you. I'm not saying that's fair or that's right, but it is the way it is. Almost all biglaw attorneys are hired via SA programs or as laterals from other biglaw firms. The number of people who get biglaw offers as 3Ls is either in the double or low triple digits, and most of those people likely already completed SA programs and gotten offers from their SA firm. You could apply to clerk, but that is of course quite competitive and even if you were to land a federal clerkship would not guarantee you a seat in biglaw (many clerks who don't have biglaw credentials prior to clerking tend to struggle to get biglaw even with a clerkship). An LLM is also a very poor idea since they are expensive and are unlikely to improve your employment prospects.

You should be focused on getting a full time postgraduate job but don't focus too heavily on biglaw. As it stands right now, you should try and get a postgraduate offer from the midsized firm if at all possible. If that is not an option, start getting ready to apply for postgraduate jobs (that includes clerking, but, like biglaw, don't let that be your sole focus).

If you jump onto the dual-degree track, JD-Master (MBA, MPH or the like), u can technically re-do 2L OCI as a pseudo-2L (third year in a four-year program). However, top half at a T35 will pretty much not get u an SA gig anyways even if u get a re-do.

I mean, summer associate is literally the best legal job imaginable. My firm is super nice and friendly, and they bring us on outings to baseball games and the like while you are learning skills that are actually useful to practicing law. It seems unlikely actual associates have this opportunity. The fact we make even half of what they do is a win. The only pitch for firms is that they could learn rather we're keepers or droppers before we finish law school. I would also imagine 1/2 of these firms do it only because the other 1/2 does.

I would try to kill it and IDK if the JD-MBA thing works. I also think whoever your interviewer is will be able to put 2 and 2 together, and find out your plan. I don't now if they'd necessarily react to it, but they're smart enough to realize your MBA classes are only starting now.

Getting an MBA just for a second shot at OCI when you have so so grades is a terrible decision. Recall that MBAs cost a lot of money.

Anonymous User wrote:I mean, summer associate is literally the best legal job imaginable. My firm is super nice and friendly, and they bring us on outings to baseball games and the like while you are learning skills that are actually useful to practicing law. It seems unlikely actual associates have this opportunity. The fact we make even half of what they do is a win. The only pitch for firms is that they could learn rather we're keepers or droppers before we finish law school. I would also imagine 1/2 of these firms do it only because the other 1/2 does.

I would try to kill it and IDK if the JD-MBA thing works. I also think whoever your interviewer is will be able to put 2 and 2 together, and find out your plan. I don't now if they'd necessarily react to it, but they're smart enough to realize your MBA classes are only starting now.

This literally doesn't need to be anonymous.

Mod note: please just report anon abuse.

.

.

Jsa725 wrote:this guy did a pre-clerkship SA

Summa cum laude from University of Michigan, very representative example .