Rising 2Ls, what are you doing to end up employed? Forum

[DELG]

Who are you talking to? Can you speak intelligently about the practices you're interested in? Do you know which firms you want to apply to, inside of and outside of OCI?

[DoveBodyWash]

Can you speak intelligently about the practices you're interested in?

I can lie about it really well...

To be honest narrowing down firms beyond geography and size has been kind of difficult because it's so hard to pick practice areas. Even picking between lit and corporate is tough right now based on what i know...

[TooOld4This]

Suggestion: spreadsheet

Have contact info, whether you know anyone at the firm, which practice groups you are interested in (based off of Chambers and data on number of attorneys in those groups), whether you bid on them for OCI, misc notes. You can also use it for mass mail by writing a couple of versions of cover letters and have (a) column(s) in your spreadsheet for writing tailored pieces to "personalize" them (ties, practice areas, knowing people, etc.)

Merge the data into Word before OCI and have cheat sheets to glance at before each interview.

Hopefully you have been networking and getting answers to all of DELG's questions.

[lawhopeful10]

If I want transactional work what are some good ways to convey I'm knowledgeable about the area and should I be specific and say like X practice area in transactional seems interesting or just say I rather be part of deals than spend two years on a case that will get settled anyway.

[moonman157]

It would be helpful to have a single grade from spring semester back Heck, even my Pass/Fail LPW grade would be nice...

[ymmv]

Who are you talking to? Can you speak intelligently about the practices you're interested in? Do you know which firms you want to apply to, inside of and outside of OCI?

I've been led to believe it's a really bad idea to be specific at OCI about what I want to do beyond saying "litigation" generically. Initially a mock interviewer from a firm told me this, and I've seen it repeated on TLS.
Was this bad advice? If so, what do I say to firms who don't do a lot of the subpractice I'm interested in? Make up / lie about having other specific interests tailored to certain firms, then try to keep the spiels straight?

[sublime]

..

[TooOld4This]

Who are you talking to? Can you speak intelligently about the practices you're interested in? Do you know which firms you want to apply to, inside of and outside of OCI?

I've been led to believe it's a really bad idea to be specific at OCI about what I want to do beyond saying "litigation" generically. Initially a mock interviewer from a firm told me this, and I've seen it repeated on TLS.
Was this bad advice? If so, what do I say to firms who don't do a lot of the subpractice I'm interested in? Make up / lie about having other specific interests tailored to certain firms, then try to keep the spiels straight?

You don't want to say you want to do appellate work or some niche area that only a couple of people work in. "I am interested in litigation, and your securities litigation and white collar practice groups in particular sound interesting. Though as a rising 2L, I am, of course interested in getting as much exposure to the firm's work as possible." You want to walk the line between seeming knowledgable and inflexible.

[hichvichwoh]

Who are you talking to? Can you speak intelligently about the practices you're interested in? Do you know which firms you want to apply to, inside of and outside of OCI?

I've been led to believe it's a really bad idea to be specific at OCI about what I want to do beyond saying "litigation" generically. Initially a mock interviewer from a firm told me this, and I've seen it repeated on TLS.
Was this bad advice? If so, what do I say to firms who don't do a lot of the subpractice I'm interested in? Make up / lie about having other specific interests tailored to certain firms, then try to keep the spiels straight?

Telling a truth that they want to hear > Lying convincingly about what they want to hear > lying unconvincingly about what they want to hear > telling the truth about something they don't want to hear.

[DELG]

You absolutely have to be careful about seeming too narrow.

But if you don't know ANYTHING about ANY of their groups and what the work actually involves, how the fuck will you pitch yourself? Now you're just saying "yeah, I would be chill with like, lit. Or whatever." Compare to your classmate who said, "this summer I worked on X, and I talked to Alum at your firm, who mentioned working on Y has a lot in common with X, and I really thrived doing that work for [reasons]."

[Cicero76]

Man I guess I should learn what a practice group is

[bulinus]

I have a science background, so giving a good answer to "Why IP?" is not hard. But there are pros, lit and transactional/licensing/M+A stuff under that umbrella. I figure I will prefer pros and trans to lit, b/c of working with inventors sounds fun, things are potentially less adversarial working with a USPTO examiner than opposing counsel, and exit opitions are supposed to be better (will not say the last thing out loud). That said, I would not mind, either as a 2L SA, or beyond, to get as a broad based experience as possible to inform my practice. Need to have potential litigation in mind when drafting claims, y'know?

Does that sound ok?

[Crowing]

Is this an IAFG gives advice thread

[El Pollito]

lol creep

[jbagelboy]

It would be helpful to have a single grade from spring semester back Heck, even my Pass/Fail LPW grade would be nice...

so sick of this waiting shit

[Anonymous User]

It would be helpful to have a single grade from spring semester back Heck, even my Pass/Fail LPW grade would be nice...

so sick of this waiting shit

This is borderline ridiculous. It'd be awesome to get started working on bidlists if we, you know, had a damn clue how we did for half of 1L.

(EDIT: unintentional anon. This is ymmv.)

[Anonymous User]

letting current summers settle, waiting until next week to bombard law firms with applications, networking with alums and local judges, doing what a CCN 3.2 student has to do to get a job.

[DELG]

letting current summers settle, waiting until next week to bombard law firms with applications, networking with alums and local judges, doing what a CCN 3.2 student has to do to get a job.

First networking, then applying.

Your application will get better traction if you've gotten something to pitch out of networking.

[rickgrimes69]

Who are you talking to? Can you speak intelligently about the practices you're interested in? Do you know which firms you want to apply to, inside of and outside of OCI?

I've been led to believe it's a really bad idea to be specific at OCI about what I want to do beyond saying "litigation" generically. Initially a mock interviewer from a firm told me this, and I've seen it repeated on TLS.
Was this bad advice? If so, what do I say to firms who don't do a lot of the subpractice I'm interested in? Make up / lie about having other specific interests tailored to certain firms, then try to keep the spiels straight?

You don't want to say you want to do appellate work or some niche area that only a couple of people work in. "I am interested in litigation, and your securities litigation and white collar practice groups in particular sound interesting. Though as a rising 2L, I am, of course interested in getting as much exposure to the firm's work as possible." You want to walk the line between seeming knowledgable and inflexible.

This is good advice. I've had interviewers tell me they hate it when some K-JDbro is like "oh yeah I definitely want to do securities litigation, those securities man so interesting and litigious they are" when they can't back it up their interest with anything substantive. They know that rising 2Ls generally have no idea what they want to do, especially for transactional folk, and they're generally understanding of that fact. Just sound interested and open to trying out a bunch of stuff.

[DELG]

Who are you talking to? Can you speak intelligently about the practices you're interested in? Do you know which firms you want to apply to, inside of and outside of OCI?

I've been led to believe it's a really bad idea to be specific at OCI about what I want to do beyond saying "litigation" generically. Initially a mock interviewer from a firm told me this, and I've seen it repeated on TLS.
Was this bad advice? If so, what do I say to firms who don't do a lot of the subpractice I'm interested in? Make up / lie about having other specific interests tailored to certain firms, then try to keep the spiels straight?

You don't want to say you want to do appellate work or some niche area that only a couple of people work in. "I am interested in litigation, and your securities litigation and white collar practice groups in particular sound interesting. Though as a rising 2L, I am, of course interested in getting as much exposure to the firm's work as possible." You want to walk the line between seeming knowledgable and inflexible.

This is good advice. I've had interviewers tell me they hate it when some K-JDbro is like "oh yeah I definitely want to do securities litigation, those securities man so interesting and litigious they are" when they can't back it up their interest with anything substantive. They know that rising 2Ls generally have no idea what they want to do, especially for transactional folk, and they're generally understanding of that fact. Just sound interested and open to trying out a bunch of stuff.

Sorry but this is bad advice. Everyone is "just being open" to stuff. Yes, you should not pitch yourself hard for one narrow thing. But you can't rely on interviewers "being understanding" that you have no idea what you are talking about. Spend this summer getting a clue.

[rickgrimes69]

I've been led to believe it's a really bad idea to be specific at OCI about what I want to do beyond saying "litigation" generically. Initially a mock interviewer from a firm told me this, and I've seen it repeated on TLS.
Was this bad advice? If so, what do I say to firms who don't do a lot of the subpractice I'm interested in? Make up / lie about having other specific interests tailored to certain firms, then try to keep the spiels straight?

You don't want to say you want to do appellate work or some niche area that only a couple of people work in. "I am interested in litigation, and your securities litigation and white collar practice groups in particular sound interesting. Though as a rising 2L, I am, of course interested in getting as much exposure to the firm's work as possible." You want to walk the line between seeming knowledgable and inflexible.

This is good advice. I've had interviewers tell me they hate it when some K-JDbro is like "oh yeah I definitely want to do securities litigation, those securities man so interesting and litigious they are" when they can't back it up their interest with anything substantive. They know that rising 2Ls generally have no idea what they want to do, especially for transactional folk, and they're generally understanding of that fact. Just sound interested and open to trying out a bunch of stuff.

Sorry but this is bad advice. Everyone is "just being open" to stuff. Yes, you should not pitch yourself hard for one narrow thing. But you can't rely on interviewers "being understanding" that you have no idea what you are talking about. Spend this summer getting a clue.

wow its almost like different interviewers look for different things in candidates or something

[Anonymous User]

I have my spring grades (I dropped almost .2 from first semester ) but I am taking summer courses that will likely raise my GPA at least .05 to .1. The grades will be in by the end of the month so I assume I should wait to start mailing correct?

[DELG]

I have my spring grades (I dropped almost .2 from first semester ) but I am taking summer courses that will likely raise my GPA at least .05 to .1. The grades will be in by the end of the month so I assume I should wait to start mailing correct?

You shouldn't be massmailing in June anyway.

[Anonymous User]

I have my spring grades (I dropped almost .2 from first semester ) but I am taking summer courses that will likely raise my GPA at least .05 to .1. The grades will be in by the end of the month so I assume I should wait to start mailing correct?

You shouldn't be massmailing in June anyway.

When should I be then? Zero employers are coming to my OCI from my target market. I am going to try to get stuff at a few fairs in that market but with my grades I doubt I will even get interviews.

[DELG]

I have my spring grades (I dropped almost .2 from first semester ) but I am taking summer courses that will likely raise my GPA at least .05 to .1. The grades will be in by the end of the month so I assume I should wait to start mailing correct?

You shouldn't be massmailing in June anyway.

When should I be then? Zero employers are coming to my OCI from my target market. I am going to try to get stuff at a few fairs in that market but with my grades I doubt I will even get interviews.

More like July. How small is your target market? Sounds like you need to add a backup market.