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There isn't much info on 3L EIW at NYU (besides 3L EIW being a myth).

For some background, I have about a 3.5+ after 2L year, up from a 3.2 1L. I am working at a firm that does not give offers at the end of summer.

Does anyone have any advice on 3L bidding strategy (perhaps people who have gone through the process can chime in)? I assume the dynamic is very different, since there are fewer firms interviewing 3Ls and the number of slots are usually lower. Additionally, I have no idea how many 3Ls compete for those slots.

Since you're bidding on fewer firms, I imagine that the chance of landing an interview is much more sensitive to the bid ranking.

Some of the non-IP firms interviewing include:
Cooley, Latham, Satterlee, Goodwin, White & Case, Weil, Paul Weiss, Loeb, Cleary, Bickel, Cravath, Duval, Phillips Lytle - just to give you an idea.

Anyone have any thoughts?

ps - I know not to waste a bid on a firm with a GPA/end-of-summer offer cutoff out of my range (ie Cravath).

Anonymous User wrote:There isn't much info on 3L EIW at NYU (besides 3L EIW being a myth).

For some background, I have about a 3.5+ after 2L year, up from a 3.2 1L. I am working at a firm that does not give offers at the end of summer.

Does anyone have any advice on 3L bidding strategy (perhaps people who have gone through the process can chime in)? I assume the dynamic is very different, since there are fewer firms interviewing 3Ls and the number of slots are usually lower. Additionally, I have no idea how many 3Ls compete for those slots.

Since you're bidding on fewer firms, I imagine that the chance of landing an interview is much more sensitive to the bid ranking.

Some of the non-IP firms interviewing include:
Cooley, Latham, Satterlee, Goodwin, White & Case, Weil, Paul Weiss, Loeb, Cleary, Bickel, Cravath, Duval, Phillips Lytle - just to give you an idea.

Anyone have any thoughts?

ps - I know not to waste a bid on a firm with a GPA/end-of-summer offer cutoff out of my range (ie Cravath).

bump/tag may be joining ya

Everyone is going to ask you whether you received an offer or not. Being at a firm that doesn't (ever) give offers probably isn't a great place to be starting (as I suspect you know), since 3L hiring is generally for people switching between biglaw firms. Talk to career services for how to best handle this. You might try getting interviews before your summer ends, so you can honestly say that the firm hasn't made offers yet, but this will likely only be a stop-gap measure unless they offer you immediately.

Simply relying on the firms that are coming to interview at NYU is a poor strategy. Mass-mail far and wide, and have a practice-area related reason for wanting each firm (in 3L hiring firms are typically looking for people to join specific practice groups).

Yeah, absolutely do not rely on the firms coming to EIW. For one thing, my understanding is that bidding is a bloodbath and you'll likely only get interviews with your top couple bids, if that (they have 3Ls bid before summer offers come in, so the risk-adverse 3Ls will bid on firms and it will be very difficult to win interviews in that first round of bidding). You might get a few more screeners through EIW once the offered 3Ls withdrawal, but you're still unlikely to get more than a handful.

A lot of the other firms (think Cravath, Bickel, Paul Weiss, Cleary, Latham) are very selective and are just looking for a handful of 3Ls looking to trade up (or to fill discrete practice group needs), so even with the GPA bump, you'll face an uphill battle. Unfortunately, these firms also represent a good chunk of the available interviews.

I know that 3Ls in the past have, during EIW, gone around to all the hospitality suites, dropped off resumes, and asked to be considered if the firms were interested in interviewing 3Ls. I don't think this strategy has a high success rate, or even a high enough success rate that it's worth the hassle of running around and wearing yourself out, but it's something to think about.

As the poster noted above, you cannot rely on EIW as the backbone of your job search strategy, and your primary effort should be to instead use targeted mailings, as well as responding to job postings (on Simplicity and elsewhere). Networking will also be crucially important, both to hear about possible openings and to make sure your resume gets pulled from the lengthy stack of submissions. Good luck.

Op here.

Thanks for the advice. I know EIW is a crapshoot, but it is a chance nonetheless so might as well plan it well. I will be doing targetted mailings and reaching out to contacts in the profession.

I suspected 3L bidding is a bloodbath. I just needed an idea of what do expect. Seems like I should just pick a couple of firms I really want to interview with and bid they first few slots and not expect to get anything else the first round.