Top Law Schools

I lurked on TLS a fair amount back when I was applying to law schools and it proved an invaluable resource. Unfortunately, I’ve just finished my 1L year with disappointing results. I recognize that there are far worse situations to be in but I was hoping for some honest advice as to what my next step(s) should be. Here is where I stand:

> T6
> GPA: ~2.95 (with a downward trend at that…)
> Non-diverse
> Primarily hoping for NYC or DC markets
> Have a solid 1L internship with a federal judge (for whatever that’s worth)
> For the sake of this, let’s assume that I’ll receive no offers from journals or the like in the coming months
> Unspectacular softs by my estimate
> Interested in litigation, whether it be government or BigLaw, but clearly not planning on being picky


Obviously, I will do my best to take advantage of the general 2L year lull and get the best possible grades from here on out. I know that rings of “too little, too late” (if such a 2L lull even truly exists) but some pretty serious family issues factored into my underwhelming efforts this past year and, for better or worse, I don’t plan on advertising that to anyone.

I recall a certain TLS mantra that one should simply bite the bullet and drop out if one gets poor enough grades. At the fear of putting some of you off, I’ll be honest: I’m not looking for this advice. I am certainly considering this option on my own, but I was more hoping to find here suggestions on how to best improve a shitty situation should I indeed choose to continue. I’m also hoping that my attendance at a T6 will soften the blow a bit given employers’ tendencies to dip deeper into these classes.

Basically, what advice do you have for someone in my position? How should I strategize my OCI bidding? I’ve looked through NALP and the offerings of my OCS. What other resources are out there? If government work is my long-term goal, what steps should I take now? I’ll really take any wisdom here, whether obvious or obscure. Also, please keep in mind that, while I believe government litigation might be my best fit in terms of substance and job culture, I’m open to pretty much anything at this point. As I said, the very thought of being picky makes me cringe with disappointment.

Sorry if any of that made me sound like a twat. I’m just stressing, and I know this is where you come to get the hard truth. Let’s just say that it would be great if I could right this ship soon enough that someone I care about could rest assured. I appreciate it.

I went through OCI with a ~3.05 at NYU (2 B-'s)

I interview very well, had prior work experience and am a diverse candidate.

I mass mailed like crazy without any success. Got 1 screener through MM but no cb's

I rocked screeners at OCI, got 10 NY cb's, but I went through hell converting those cb's into offers. I have to believe it was my grades, I think the hiring committee just couldn't give me the thumbs up at a lot of firms, even though the interviewers liked me.

I ended up getting an offer at a market-paying NY NLJ250. The 9 V100 cb's I had all dinged me.

You're not completely out of it but it isn't going to be easy for you. Have career services review your bid list, they have data on all the gpa cutoffs which is pretty useful. You're going to need to really know about the firms, so once you finalize your bid list, figure out what practice areas appeal to you at the firms and soak up knowledge about them like a sponge. You need to leave them with enough of an impression to put your grades aside.

Ms. Lead wrote:I lurked on TLS a fair amount back when I was applying to law schools and it proved an invaluable resource. Unfortunately, I’ve just finished my 1L year with disappointing results. I recognize that there are far worse situations to be in but I was hoping for some honest advice as to what my next step(s) should be. Here is where I stand:

> T6
> GPA: ~2.95 (with a downward trend at that…)
> Non-diverse
> Primarily hoping for NYC or DC markets
> Have a solid 1L internship with a federal judge (for whatever that’s worth)
> For the sake of this, let’s assume that I’ll receive no offers from journals or the like in the coming months
> Unspectacular softs by my estimate
> Interested in litigation, whether it be government or BigLaw, but clearly not planning on being picky


Obviously, I will do my best to take advantage of the general 2L year lull and get the best possible grades from here on out. I know that rings of “too little, too late” (if such a 2L lull even truly exists) but some pretty serious family issues factored into my underwhelming efforts this past year and, for better or worse, I don’t plan on advertising that to anyone.

I recall a certain TLS mantra that one should simply bite the bullet and drop out if one gets poor enough grades. At the fear of putting some of you off, I’ll be honest: I’m not looking for this advice. I am certainly considering this option on my own, but I was more hoping to find here suggestions on how to best improve a shitty situation should I indeed choose to continue. I’m also hoping that my attendance at a T6 will soften the blow a bit given employers’ tendencies to dip deeper into these classes.

Basically, what advice do you have for someone in my position? How should I strategize my OCI bidding? I’ve looked through NALP and the offerings of my OCS. What other resources are out there? If government work is my long-term goal, what steps should I take now? I’ll really take any wisdom here, whether obvious or obscure. Also, please keep in mind that, while I believe government litigation might be my best fit in terms of substance and job culture, I’m open to pretty much anything at this point. As I said, the very thought of being picky makes me cringe with disappointment.

Sorry if any of that made me sound like a twat. I’m just stressing, and I know this is where you come to get the hard truth. Let’s just say that it would be great if I could right this ship soon enough that someone I care about could rest assured. I appreciate it.

I suggest you become G, B, or, my personal favorite, T. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_reassignment_surgery.

Employers eat that shit up.

User has been banned for 24 hours for repeatedly trolling on topic threads. Don't troll on topic threads.

I had similar grades after 1L (albeit at a T7 lmao) and feel compelled to reply. Tbh you are in a very tough position, and I urge you to prepare yourself for the long game. As for OCI/potential post-OCI, this is what I suggest:
- don't waste bids on DC at all
- for NYC: prioritize ~less selective firms w/ larger class sizes. I know that everyone says this, but for your case in particular I would stress that even in looking at whatever grade data your school provides, you need to prioritize less selective firms w/ larger class sizes over the least selective firms w/ the smallest class sizes. This means that you need to make sure sure to get interviews with, say, Schulte Roth/ Morgan Lewis etc. over, say, Arent Fox/ Foley Lardner.
- hopefully you go to CLS/NYU: if so: mail smaller NY firms in early August or after OCI
- re: grades: you need to decide whether or not to address them in your interviews. I followed career services's advice and affirmatively brought them up in every interview; in retrospect, this may not have been a good idea. Your grades are such that they are likely below the threshold GPA of every firm, but for certain interviewers, it may be a better choice to overplay the confidence card.
- if your judge is at all connected, try to see if they can put you in touch with any useful people; same goes for close family and friends
- reach out to alumni and do a fuckton of informational interviews
- post-grad fed gov jobs are likely out (at least the desirable ones); if you are committed to gov maybe look into DA work, which has a different hiring timeline (and 2L/3L coursework will matter more)

Anonymous User wrote:I went through OCI with a ~3.05 at NYU (2 B-'s)

I interview very well, had prior work experience and am a diverse candidate.

I mass mailed like crazy without any success. Got 1 screener through MM but no cb's

I rocked screeners at OCI, got 10 NY cb's, but I went through hell converting those cb's into offers. I have to believe it was my grades, I think the hiring committee just couldn't give me the thumbs up at a lot of firms, even though the interviewers liked me.

I ended up getting an offer at a market-paying NY NLJ250. The 9 V100 cb's I had all dinged me.

You're not completely out of it but it isn't going to be easy for you. Have career services review your bid list, they have data on all the gpa cutoffs which is pretty useful. You're going to need to really know about the firms, so once you finalize your bid list, figure out what practice areas appeal to you at the firms and soak up knowledge about them like a sponge. You need to leave them with enough of an impression to put your grades aside.

Thanks very much for the response, and congratulations on pulling out a solid job. I definitely plan on fine-tuning my interview game. I'm guessing that and bidding strategy are among the few remaining factors under my control as far as OCI goes.

Anonymous User wrote:I had similar grades after 1L (albeit at a T7 lmao) and feel compelled to reply. Tbh you are in a very tough position, and I urge you to prepare yourself for the long game. As for OCI/potential post-OCI, this is what I suggest:
- don't waste bids on DC at all
- for NYC: prioritize ~less selective firms w/ larger class sizes. I know that everyone says this, but for your case in particular I would stress that even in looking at whatever grade data your school provides, you need to prioritize less selective firms w/ larger class sizes over the least selective firms w/ the smallest class sizes. This means that you need to make sure sure to get interviews with, say, Schulte Roth/ Morgan Lewis etc. over, say, Arent Fox/ Foley Lardner.
- hopefully you go to CLS/NYU: if so: mail smaller NY firms in early August or after OCI
- re: grades: you need to decide whether or not to address them in your interviews. I followed career services's advice and affirmatively brought them up in every interview; in retrospect, this may not have been a good idea. Your grades are such that they are likely below the threshold GPA of every firm, but for certain interviewers, it may be a better choice to overplay the confidence card.
- if your judge is at all connected, try to see if they can put you in touch with any useful people; same goes for close family and friends
- reach out to alumni and do a fuckton of informational interviews
- post-grad fed gov jobs are likely out (at least the desirable ones); if you are committed to gov maybe look into DA work, which has a different hiring timeline (and 2L/3L coursework will matter more)

Thank you for your response, as well.

My gut tells me to confront my grades outright, but I'll make sure to discuss that further with a career counselor. This may be a sentiment that puts me back into twat territory, but I wish I could convey to interviewers how absurd I find it that the primary metric for distinguishing hundreds of students is roughly eighteen cumulative hours of rushed exam writing meant to demonstrate mastery of six of the predominant substantive fields of US law... Probably not a smart talking point though, ya?

I'm actually very interested in DA work. I know two established lawyers who went that route out of school and they are currently in enviable positions. That said, I have no idea what sort of credentials they had beforehand (besides the fact that they both attended H). Did you mention the DA because it is typically less GPA-focused and/or takes a more holistic look at applicants?

Ms. Lead wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I had similar grades after 1L (albeit at a T7 lmao) and feel compelled to reply. Tbh you are in a very tough position, and I urge you to prepare yourself for the long game. As for OCI/potential post-OCI, this is what I suggest:
- don't waste bids on DC at all
- for NYC: prioritize ~less selective firms w/ larger class sizes. I know that everyone says this, but for your case in particular I would stress that even in looking at whatever grade data your school provides, you need to prioritize less selective firms w/ larger class sizes over the least selective firms w/ the smallest class sizes. This means that you need to make sure sure to get interviews with, say, Schulte Roth/ Morgan Lewis etc. over, say, Arent Fox/ Foley Lardner.
- hopefully you go to CLS/NYU: if so: mail smaller NY firms in early August or after OCI
- re: grades: you need to decide whether or not to address them in your interviews. I followed career services's advice and affirmatively brought them up in every interview; in retrospect, this may not have been a good idea. Your grades are such that they are likely below the threshold GPA of every firm, but for certain interviewers, it may be a better choice to overplay the confidence card.
- if your judge is at all connected, try to see if they can put you in touch with any useful people; same goes for close family and friends
- reach out to alumni and do a fuckton of informational interviews
- post-grad fed gov jobs are likely out (at least the desirable ones); if you are committed to gov maybe look into DA work, which has a different hiring timeline (and 2L/3L coursework will matter more)

Thank you for your response, as well.

My gut tells me to confront my grades outright, but I'll make sure to discuss that further with a career counselor. This may be a sentiment that puts me back into twat territory, but I wish I could convey to interviewers how absurd I find it that the primary metric for distinguishing hundreds of students is roughly eighteen cumulative hours of rushed exam writing meant to demonstrate mastery of six of the predominant substantive fields of US law... Probably not a smart talking point though, ya?

I'm actually very interested in DA work. I know two established lawyers who went that route out of school and they are currently in enviable positions. That said, I have no idea what sort of credentials they had beforehand (besides the fact that they both attended H). Did you mention the DA because it is typically less GPA-focused and/or takes a more holistic look at applicants?

Definitely don't say the bolded in an interview.

ph14 wrote:

Ms. Lead wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I had similar grades after 1L (albeit at a T7 lmao) and feel compelled to reply. Tbh you are in a very tough position, and I urge you to prepare yourself for the long game. As for OCI/potential post-OCI, this is what I suggest:
- don't waste bids on DC at all
- for NYC: prioritize ~less selective firms w/ larger class sizes. I know that everyone says this, but for your case in particular I would stress that even in looking at whatever grade data your school provides, you need to prioritize less selective firms w/ larger class sizes over the least selective firms w/ the smallest class sizes. This means that you need to make sure sure to get interviews with, say, Schulte Roth/ Morgan Lewis etc. over, say, Arent Fox/ Foley Lardner.
- hopefully you go to CLS/NYU: if so: mail smaller NY firms in early August or after OCI
- re: grades: you need to decide whether or not to address them in your interviews. I followed career services's advice and affirmatively brought them up in every interview; in retrospect, this may not have been a good idea. Your grades are such that they are likely below the threshold GPA of every firm, but for certain interviewers, it may be a better choice to overplay the confidence card.
- if your judge is at all connected, try to see if they can put you in touch with any useful people; same goes for close family and friends
- reach out to alumni and do a fuckton of informational interviews
- post-grad fed gov jobs are likely out (at least the desirable ones); if you are committed to gov maybe look into DA work, which has a different hiring timeline (and 2L/3L coursework will matter more)

Thank you for your response, as well.

My gut tells me to confront my grades outright, but I'll make sure to discuss that further with a career counselor. This may be a sentiment that puts me back into twat territory, but I wish I could convey to interviewers how absurd I find it that the primary metric for distinguishing hundreds of students is roughly eighteen cumulative hours of rushed exam writing meant to demonstrate mastery of six of the predominant substantive fields of US law... Probably not a smart talking point though, ya?

I'm actually very interested in DA work. I know two established lawyers who went that route out of school and they are currently in enviable positions. That said, I have no idea what sort of credentials they had beforehand (besides the fact that they both attended H). Did you mention the DA because it is typically less GPA-focused and/or takes a more holistic look at applicants?

Definitely don't say the bolded in an interview.

Ha yeah, I figured. I'll leave rants like that to the anonymous forums.

BigRob wrote:

Ms. Lead wrote:I lurked on TLS a fair amount back when I was applying to law schools and it proved an invaluable resource. Unfortunately, I’ve just finished my 1L year with disappointing results. I recognize that there are far worse situations to be in but I was hoping for some honest advice as to what my next step(s) should be. Here is where I stand:

> T6
> GPA: ~2.95 (with a downward trend at that…)
> Non-diverse
> Primarily hoping for NYC or DC markets
> Have a solid 1L internship with a federal judge (for whatever that’s worth)
> For the sake of this, let’s assume that I’ll receive no offers from journals or the like in the coming months
> Unspectacular softs by my estimate
> Interested in litigation, whether it be government or BigLaw, but clearly not planning on being picky


Obviously, I will do my best to take advantage of the general 2L year lull and get the best possible grades from here on out. I know that rings of “too little, too late” (if such a 2L lull even truly exists) but some pretty serious family issues factored into my underwhelming efforts this past year and, for better or worse, I don’t plan on advertising that to anyone.

I recall a certain TLS mantra that one should simply bite the bullet and drop out if one gets poor enough grades. At the fear of putting some of you off, I’ll be honest: I’m not looking for this advice. I am certainly considering this option on my own, but I was more hoping to find here suggestions on how to best improve a shitty situation should I indeed choose to continue. I’m also hoping that my attendance at a T6 will soften the blow a bit given employers’ tendencies to dip deeper into these classes.

Basically, what advice do you have for someone in my position? How should I strategize my OCI bidding? I’ve looked through NALP and the offerings of my OCS. What other resources are out there? If government work is my long-term goal, what steps should I take now? I’ll really take any wisdom here, whether obvious or obscure. Also, please keep in mind that, while I believe government litigation might be my best fit in terms of substance and job culture, I’m open to pretty much anything at this point. As I said, the very thought of being picky makes me cringe with disappointment.

Sorry if any of that made me sound like a twat. I’m just stressing, and I know this is where you come to get the hard truth. Let’s just say that it would be great if I could right this ship soon enough that someone I care about could rest assured. I appreciate it.

I suggest you become G, B, or, my personal favorite, T. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_reassignment_surgery.

Employers eat that shit up.

OP, you seem too sensible to follow this advice, but just in case you spent a second considering it, don't. It's pretty offensive to suggest (even in jest), actually.

Get over yourself. There are more than enough people who performed decently well on exams to fill every desirable law job. It's not like every person who does well on exams is otherwise incompetent. You knew the game before you joined up. Not only that, curves can be arbitrary at the margins. It is really pretty easy to distinguish the top and bottom of a class. Sub-3 is a big deal and will be hard to overcome.

After your first semester, when you realized you weren't killing it on the grades front, you should have started networking. Now you are late and are in the position of looking desperate and not well prepared.

Best bets:
Mass mail everywhere starting in a couple of weeks.
Leave your GPA off your materials.
As someone above stated, bid the least selective largest classes you can.
Start networking tomorrow. Focus on employers that don't start hiring until Spring. You will look less desperate and have a better chance of having someone give you their time. Figure out UG and law school connections at these employers and start there.
Mock interview with alumni.
Eat some humble pie on the grades. That doesn't mean that you can't have confidence in other areas, but writing off grades as being stupid or irrelevant, even on an anonymous board is an attitude that will undoubtably show in interviews.
Don't bring up grades. You have a limited amount of time to sell yourself. Don't waste a single second on a negative unless you are asked to explain.
Have a stellar writing sample. If I'm looking for some reason to overlook grades, the writing sample is where I'm looking next.
Have something positive to talk about. You have to know why x for every cover letter and every interview. You also need to figure out a way to demonstrate (show, not tell) that your grades are not reflective of your potential.

TooOld4This wrote:Get over yourself. There are more than enough people who performed decently well on exams to fill every desirable law job. It's not like every person who does well on exams is otherwise incompetent. You knew the game before you joined up. Not only that, curves can be arbitrary at the margins. It is really pretty easy to distinguish the top and bottom of a class. Sub-3 is a big deal and will be hard to overcome.

After your first semester, when you realized you weren't killing it on the grades front, you should have started networking. Now you are late and are in the position of looking desperate and not well prepared.

Best bets:
Mass mail everywhere starting in a couple of weeks.
Leave your GPA off your materials.
As someone above stated, bid the least selective largest classes you can.
Start networking tomorrow. Focus on employers that don't start hiring until Spring. You will look less desperate and have a better chance of having someone give you their time. Figure out UG and law school connections at these employers and start there.
Mock interview with alumni.
Eat some humble pie on the grades. That doesn't mean that you can't have confidence in other areas, but writing off grades as being stupid or irrelevant, even on an anonymous board is an attitude that will undoubtably show in interviews.
Don't bring up grades. You have a limited amount of time to sell yourself. Don't waste a single second on a negative unless you are asked to explain.
Have a stellar writing sample. If I'm looking for some reason to overlook grades, the writing sample is where I'm looking next.
Have something positive to talk about. You have to know why x for every cover letter and every interview. You also need to figure out a way to demonstrate (show, not tell) that your grades are not reflective of your potential.

I appreciate your frankness. I'm not trying to make myself feel bigger by belittling the law school system. As I said, it was a rant, and one I'm not foolish enough to bring with me into an interview. Nonetheless, I feel like the system is undeniably arbitrary at times, and that many of those who defend it most likely do so because they found themselves near the top of the curve (just as those who decry it may only do so because they found themselves at the bottom). That said, the last thing I want to do is discredit others' achievements. Many of my good friends killed it this year. I'm mature enough to be happy for them and still admit that it sucks to have to measure myself against their success. My failures are my own.

Regardless, you offer some great advice. Thanks for that. I'll take it to heart.

I know at least 3 people at my school (Chicago) who had TERRIBLE grades (like, bottom bottom of the class) who got v100 offers in NY.

Bid very conservatively. Certainly don't lose hope or drop out. Good luck!

moonman157 wrote:

Big Rob wrote:I suggest you become G, B, or, my personal favorite, T. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_reassignment_surgery.

Employers eat that shit up.

OP, you seem too sensible to follow this advice, but just in case you spent a second considering it, don't. It's pretty offensive to suggest (even in jest), actually.

I absolutely agree. It's also completely unhelpful in the on-topics.

Anonymous User wrote:I know at least 3 people at my school (Chicago) who had TERRIBLE grades (like, bottom bottom of the class) who got v100 offers in NY.

Bid very conservatively. Certainly don't lose hope or drop out. Good luck!

That's incredibly encouraging. Would you happen to know (without divulging anything too personal/revealing) if there was anything about their candidacy that may have set them apart? Could it have something to do with Chicago's smaller class size (I believe something like 200 as compared to the 300-400 at each of Columbia and NYU)? That is, do firms aim to assemble SA classes representing a wide range of schools, such that applicants from larger schools suffer from oversaturation?

Ms. Lead wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I know at least 3 people at my school (Chicago) who had TERRIBLE grades (like, bottom bottom of the class) who got v100 offers in NY.

Bid very conservatively. Certainly don't lose hope or drop out. Good luck!

That's incredibly encouraging. Would you happen to know (without divulging anything too personal/revealing) if there was anything about their candidacy that may have set them apart? Could it have something to do with Chicago's smaller class size (I believe something like 200 as compared to the 300-400 at each of Columbia and NYU)? That is, do firms aim to assemble SA classes representing a wide range of schools, such that applicants from larger schools suffer from oversaturation?

I hear that's what happens, but I can't really speculate if the smaller class is really what happened here.

Generally, the people at Chicago with bad grades can end up with a job if they're somewhat sociable. Most of the strike outs had some sort of personality issue (combative during interviews, for example), made a huge mistake with bidding/interviewing, didn't mass mail, etc. I'd imagine that's the same at other CCN schools.

There's nothing you can do about bad grades now. Go into interviews with confidence. If you knock the interview out, you get a job--and it only takes one offer. Absolutely don't drop out until you definitely have no job.

Anonymous User wrote:

Ms. Lead wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I know at least 3 people at my school (Chicago) who had TERRIBLE grades (like, bottom bottom of the class) who got v100 offers in NY.

Bid very conservatively. Certainly don't lose hope or drop out. Good luck!

That's incredibly encouraging. Would you happen to know (without divulging anything too personal/revealing) if there was anything about their candidacy that may have set them apart? Could it have something to do with Chicago's smaller class size (I believe something like 200 as compared to the 300-400 at each of Columbia and NYU)? That is, do firms aim to assemble SA classes representing a wide range of schools, such that applicants from larger schools suffer from oversaturation?

I hear that's what happens, but I can't really speculate if the smaller class is really what happened here.

Generally, the people at Chicago with bad grades can end up with a job if they're somewhat sociable. Most of the strike outs had some sort of personality issue (combative during interviews, for example), made a huge mistake with bidding/interviewing, didn't mass mail, etc. I'd imagine that's the same at other CCN schools.

There's nothing you can do about bad grades now. Go into interviews with confidence. If you knock the interview out, you get a job--and it only takes one offer. Absolutely don't drop out until you definitely have no job.

ehh I'd also guess that Chicago's numeric grading system may help a bit for NY firms ...

A few more questions:

Anybody know what sort of qualifications DA offices value most, both for 2L summer internships and post grad?

How hard is it to break into BigLaw post grad if you don't take an SA position over 2L summer?

I know this is school- and context- specific, but I've heard it's near impossible to land a BigLaw offer through 3L OCI. Any thoughts or anecdotes on that front? I feel like it might behoove me (should I strike out this summer) to load up on classes my next two semesters and try to increase my GPA as much as possible for next year's OCI.

Thanks again.

nothing to view here.