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Alright. I go to a T6. I am undecided wether to go corporate or litigation and also have no clue about which practice areas interest me. I have decent grades. I definitely want big law. The markets that interest me the most are probably LA, And Texas. Maybe Silicon Valley also. I also plan to mass mail. How many bids should I send to New York? Is it hard to get into a transactional group in Texas or LA? Should I switch focus to completely litigation? Grades are a little above median. For reference ties are to a western fly over state where I don't want to end up.

This depends if you go to HYSChi or CN

I go to chicago. But no desire to work in chicago. Would rather have New York if it came down to it.

My advice: always bid New York (or, alternatively, the market your law school is in), especially if you don't have tippy-top grades and are focused on secondary markets where you don't really have ties.

Even in markets like Texas/LA/SV, there are relatively few SA openings, many of which are reserved for students at more local law schools (think UT or Stanford/Boalt). If you focus entirely on a secondary market, your likelihood of striking out increases just because it's a numbers game. Those Texas/Cali firms might come to your OCI looking to hire two or three folks, and so getting shut out is a very real possibility. Extensive mass-mailing can hedge this risk somewhat, but it's much easier to get callbacks through OCI (where you often just have to meet the grade cutoff and make a nominally positive impression) than through mass mail (where you have to hope that your resume catches the eye of an overworked recruiting staffer). You can focus your bids on the secondary market firms you like, but I would definitely also throw a fair number of bids at big New York firms that your grades are competitive for.