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No offered from my first-half firm. How bad is this if I'm going for a different market at OCI? Assume grades aren't an issue. Anyone have any experiences they can share regarding this?

Not a big deal. You aren't expected to have an offer from your first firm as a 1L, especially is you're applying in a different market.

Did they tell you in your exit interview/how'd you hear?

Yeah exit interview.

I think the fact you were only there for half the summer combined with being a 1L suggest it was unlikely they would be able to offer you anyway. As long as your grades held up in the spring and you're at a decent school it won't make any difference for 2L OCI

I think the effect depends on the market. TX firms seem to generally offer their 1L SAs to return for 2L if they like them, and I think a no-offer can look bad. In other markets, a 1L SA might not be expected to lead to a return offer.

A Houston Big Law hiring partner told me that they consider no-offers from 1L firms as a really bad sign and would hire someone without a 1L SA over a no-offer. He said they did take into account the firm's financial situation, but he basically called no-offers "rejects." I think the partner was saying all of this to make me feel better about the fact that I didn't have a 1L SA though, so take it with a grain of salt.

I did a first half 1L SA and was only asked if I got an offer once or twice (out of 20+ oci interviews). So I wouldn't worry too much. (Though I was interviewing with NY firms ymmv in other markets.)

Anonymous User wrote:I did a first half 1L SA and was only asked if I got an offer once or twice (out of 20+ oci interviews). So I wouldn't worry too much. (Though I was interviewing with NY firms ymmv in other markets.)

I did a 1L SA and only 2 firms out of 20+ OCI screeners asked me about whether I got an offer or not. Though, I should note that one of those was my top choie firm.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I did a first half 1L SA and was only asked if I got an offer once or twice (out of 20+ oci interviews). So I wouldn't worry too much. (Though I was interviewing with NY firms ymmv in other markets.)

I did a 1L SA and only 2 firms out of 20+ OCI screeners asked me about whether I got an offer or not. Though, I should note that one of those was my top choie firm.

Did it come up in callbacks?

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I did a first half 1L SA and was only asked if I got an offer once or twice (out of 20+ oci interviews). So I wouldn't worry too much. (Though I was interviewing with NY firms ymmv in other markets.)

I did a 1L SA and only 2 firms out of 20+ OCI screeners asked me about whether I got an offer or not. Though, I should note that one of those was my top choie firm.

Did it come up in callbacks?

Not that I can recall. I did get lots of questions about what kind of work I did there, who I worked with, favorite assignment, etc., but nothing about whether or not I actually received an offer.

I was in the same situation a few years ago. Out of about 25 OCI interviews, three firms asked me about it, two at the screener stage and one at the callback stage. That said, my lack of an offer seemed to be a dealbreker for all three of those firms.

Anonymous User wrote:I was in the same situation a few years ago. Out of about 25 OCI interviews, three firms asked me about it, two at the screener stage and one at the callback stage. That said, my lack of an offer seemed to be a dealbreker for all three of those firms.

Care to share what market the firms who asked were in?

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I was in the same situation a few years ago. Out of about 25 OCI interviews, three firms asked me about it, two at the screener stage and one at the callback stage. That said, my lack of an offer seemed to be a dealbreker for all three of those firms.

Care to share what market the firms who asked were in?

All DC. I interviewed in NY too, but none of those firms asked.

When I interviewed for 2L SA jobs, only one firm out of dozens asked me whether I got an offer from my 1L firm.

Don't sweat it but in my experience the top firms will definitely ask about it.

Anonymous User wrote:Yeah exit interview.

Is this a non-Texas southern firm? Your experience may just be standard operating procedure for the firm

Did other 1Ls get offers? Figure out a way to answer the question honestly but in a way that says/implies it was done as a matter of policy or for financial reasons.

2014 wrote:Did other 1Ls get offers? Figure out a way to answer the question honestly but in a way that says/implies it was done as a matter of policy or for financial reasons.

A little over half got offers. They never offer all the 1Ls. Varying reasons were given to people. Several 2Ls were no offered because there weren't spots in their practice area. They could be culling their class size for next year, but I also got a plausible explanation for my no-offer.