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Currently in the top 25-35% of my class at a T25 school (Midwest strong with good recruiting on the East Coast). I'm interested in doing transactional work, ideally M&A, PEG, VC/Startup focused work in Chicago Big law or other Midwestern cities (but spending the summer in NYC, so maybe there as well). I spent ~3 years doing M&A, PEG funding, VC capital raising at a Boutique Investment Bank, but most of my clients were abroad. (Most M&A/Fund deals were $200-500M so we were on the small end of transactions). Before that I started and sold my own company in undergrad, hence my interest.

Given that my grades this semester are looking to be average, will my past experience give me a slight bump if I fall just below the grade cutoff for big law firms? Or if I am at a 3.4 and they want a 3.5-3.6+, am I simply SOL?

Big law firms care about 1) Whether you go to a t-14 and 2-100) grades. Since you don't go t a t-14 your BigLaw chances were likely no better than 20% to begin with, if you finish around median there you can all but rule it out completely. Work experience sometimes will give you a bump on the margins, but ~T25 around median is not close to the margin. And in all honesty, WE is becoming more of the status quo now than an "advantage". Many many people at T14's have started their own business, worked in consulting, IB, etc. Only thing I can say is maybe try and exploit some contacts from your prior WE

Yes, it's very possible. Firms care a lot about relevant WE, which you have.

Being a good interviewer will give you a bump and having WE correlates very well with interviewing well and having a resume worth talking about for 30 minutes.

Anonymous User wrote:Currently in the top 25-35% of my class at a T25 school (Midwest strong with good recruiting on the East Coast).

Those are U of C, NW, and Michigan PERIOD