terrible grades and biglaw Forum
Forum rules
Anonymous Posting
Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.
Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned.
Anonymous Posting
Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.
Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned.
-
- Posts: 15
- Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:30 pm
terrible grades and biglaw
Is there ANY way to get biglaw ever, ever, ever with bottom thirty percent grades (of a TT or TTT)? Has this ever happened? If it can happen, what is the way to do it????
-
- Posts: 1862
- Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:36 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
Do you have a close relative that is the managing or hiring partner of a firm? Probably not then. Maybe if you speak an obscure language that is in demand or have a particular IP background that a firm is desperately looking for.
But probably not. It's hard enough for bottom 30% at T14 schools to get jobs.
But probably not. It's hard enough for bottom 30% at T14 schools to get jobs.
-
- Posts: 91
- Joined: Tue Sep 24, 2013 7:45 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
Eventually, yes.
Immediately, extremely unlikely.
Immediately, extremely unlikely.
-
- Posts: 15
- Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:30 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
mw115 wrote:Eventually, yes.
Immediately, extremely unlikely.
What is the path into it eventually? Also, what about after a clerkship? Maybe at state appellate or trial level??
Want to continue reading?
Register now to search topics and post comments!
Absolutely FREE!
Already a member? Login
-
- Posts: 15
- Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:30 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
I mean, surely one of you TLS people has some anecdote about a crazy cousin or uncle that went to Appalachian and graduated dead last in their class that now works at Cravath... Right? People are always saying quasi-impossible stuff online. And boy, I'd sure like to hear that I have a snowball's chance in hell of getting biglaw. Shoot away...
- Calvin Murphy
- Posts: 288
- Joined: Fri Nov 15, 2013 1:58 am
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
"What is the path into it eventually?"terrible_student wrote:mw115 wrote:Eventually, yes.
Immediately, extremely unlikely.
What is the path into it eventually? Also, what about after a clerkship? Maybe at state appellate or trial level??
-Develop a book of business so irresistible that they won't even look at the education section on your résumé.
-Develop a breakthrough legal maneuver. (See, e.g., Martin Lipton, The Poison Pill, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_rights_plan.)
"What about after a clerkship? Maybe at . . . ."
-Nope. I mean...I guess an Article III clerkship gives you some extra time to look...but even then firms will look at your grades and choose someone else. It's a buyer's market, and firms are the buyers.
-
- Posts: 432509
- Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
No shot in hell bro
- heavoldgotjuice
- heavoldgotjuice
-
- Posts: 15
- Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:30 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
Any biglaw associates out there with insight?
- OneMoreLawHopeful
- Posts: 1191
- Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2012 6:21 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
I personally know 3 guys that came close to this hypo, but they went to T50 schools, so not a TT or TTT.
For two of them, they were patent agents that had already worked for biglaw firms, and the firms basically said "If you go to law school we will hire you when you graduate." I don't know that either was bottom 30%, but both came in below median. Obviously this is only something you can set up pre-law-school so it's going to be too late for most people who get their grades back and find out they are in the bottom 30%.
I know one other guy who finally ended up in biglaw just this year, after graduating in the bottom 25% of a T50 in 2009. He set up work with a small firm (~12 attorneys) after graduation, worked for two years, then lateraled to a "regional biglaw" firm (~100 attorneys), then he was invited to "come along" with a partner that left the regional firm for biglaw (and brought clients). Even now he often feels like he's not "fully on the inside" at his biglaw firm because it's hard for him to get assignments from anyone other than the partner he came over with (he's gotten some, so he's not 100% shut-out, but it's been a struggle). Also, it goes without saying that the "jump to biglaw" for him was almost entirely luck, as he had no control over the decision of the partner that he worked for to leave "regional biglaw" for biglaw.
As for someone from a TT or TTT, I've never heard of it.
For two of them, they were patent agents that had already worked for biglaw firms, and the firms basically said "If you go to law school we will hire you when you graduate." I don't know that either was bottom 30%, but both came in below median. Obviously this is only something you can set up pre-law-school so it's going to be too late for most people who get their grades back and find out they are in the bottom 30%.
I know one other guy who finally ended up in biglaw just this year, after graduating in the bottom 25% of a T50 in 2009. He set up work with a small firm (~12 attorneys) after graduation, worked for two years, then lateraled to a "regional biglaw" firm (~100 attorneys), then he was invited to "come along" with a partner that left the regional firm for biglaw (and brought clients). Even now he often feels like he's not "fully on the inside" at his biglaw firm because it's hard for him to get assignments from anyone other than the partner he came over with (he's gotten some, so he's not 100% shut-out, but it's been a struggle). Also, it goes without saying that the "jump to biglaw" for him was almost entirely luck, as he had no control over the decision of the partner that he worked for to leave "regional biglaw" for biglaw.
As for someone from a TT or TTT, I've never heard of it.
Last edited by OneMoreLawHopeful on Thu Aug 21, 2014 10:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
- Posts: 91
- Joined: Tue Sep 24, 2013 7:45 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
This. My advice: find something you really enjoy doing and try hard to find a small-firm doing that work willing to take you under their wing.Calvin Murphy wrote:-Develop a book of business so irresistible that they won't even look at the education section on your résumé.terrible_student wrote:mw115 wrote:Eventually, yes.
Immediately, extremely unlikely.
What is the path into it eventually?
-
- Posts: 8058
- Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2013 2:47 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
If you're a 1L, the answer is with draw & retake.
Register now!
Resources to assist law school applicants, students & graduates.
It's still FREE!
Already a member? Login
-
- Posts: 15
- Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:30 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
mw115 wrote:This. My advice: find something you really enjoy doing and try hard to find a small-firm doing that work willing to take you under their wing.Calvin Murphy wrote:-Develop a book of business so irresistible that they won't even look at the education section on your résumé.terrible_student wrote:mw115 wrote:Eventually, yes.
Immediately, extremely unlikely.
What is the path into it eventually?
What if I could get a state appellate clerkship from a judge who is a family friend? Would this make a difference in getting respectable firm employment?
-
- Posts: 15
- Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:30 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
mw115 wrote:This. My advice: find something you really enjoy doing and try hard to find a small-firm doing that work willing to take you under their wing.Calvin Murphy wrote:-Develop a book of business so irresistible that they won't even look at the education section on your résumé.terrible_student wrote:mw115 wrote:Eventually, yes.
Immediately, extremely unlikely.
What is the path into it eventually?
What if I could get a state appellate clerkship from a judge who is a family friend? Would this make a difference in getting respectable firm employment?.
- Calvin Murphy
- Posts: 288
- Joined: Fri Nov 15, 2013 1:58 am
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
This is a good point that I should have mentioned.acrossthelake wrote:Note: Martin Lipton went to NYU and was EIC of their law review, then joined a small firm, and then co-founded WLRK 10 years out of law school, and then created the poison pill 17 years later (and 27 years after graduating law school). So he himself is not a long odds story at all.Calvin Murphy wrote:
-Develop a breakthrough legal maneuver. (See, e.g., Martin Lipton, The Poison Pill, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_rights_plan.)
- Emma.
- Posts: 2408
- Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2008 7:57 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
Maybe a little. Probably depends what you mean by "respectable." It likely won't help a lot for market-paying biglaw.terrible_student wrote: What if I could get a state appellate clerkship from a judge who is a family friend? Would this make a difference in getting respectable firm employment?.
Get unlimited access to all forums and topics
Register now!
I'm pretty sure I told you it's FREE...
Already a member? Login
-
- Posts: 8058
- Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2013 2:47 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
Not really.What if I could get a state appellate clerkship from a judge who is a family friend? Would this make a difference in getting respectable firm employment?.
-
- Posts: 432509
- Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
there's no science to whether you will get a biglaw job with terrible grades (no matter the school but I'm talking T14). You just have to put your best foot forward and try and try and try and hope for the best. I know someone who got 2 offers from OCI bottom 20% CCN.
- baal hadad
- Posts: 3167
- Joined: Sun Jul 20, 2014 2:57 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
If you were in my jx w a state appellate clerkship w no biglaw SA no, you would not be attractive to even the regional biglaw firms
- JamMasterJ
- Posts: 6649
- Joined: Sat Jan 29, 2011 7:17 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
Marty Lipton is like the RBG-no-offer of not getting biglaw out of law schoolCalvin Murphy wrote:This is a good point that I should have mentioned.acrossthelake wrote:Note: Martin Lipton went to NYU and was EIC of their law review, then joined a small firm, and then co-founded WLRK 10 years out of law school, and then created the poison pill 17 years later (and 27 years after graduating law school). So he himself is not a long odds story at all.Calvin Murphy wrote:
-Develop a breakthrough legal maneuver. (See, e.g., Martin Lipton, The Poison Pill, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_rights_plan.)
Communicate now with those who not only know what a legal education is, but can offer you worthy advice and commentary as you complete the three most educational, yet challenging years of your law related post graduate life.
Register now, it's still FREE!
Already a member? Login
- OneMoreLawHopeful
- Posts: 1191
- Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2012 6:21 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
This is unlikely to help for like 99% of all state appellate clerkships. Is this some kind of a unicorn situation, e.g. the Delaware Court of Chancery, or the First Department of the New York Supreme Court Appellate division? If so, then this might help. But if this is some random clerkship in Wyoming, then no, this is not going to help.terrible_student wrote:What if I could get a state appellate clerkship from a judge who is a family friend? Would this make a difference in getting respectable firm employment?.
-
- Posts: 186
- Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2011 3:46 am
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
I'm a biglaw associate. Everyone else is correct. If your grades don't get you into biglaw in 2L OCI, then you're pretty much never going to make it as an associate. Your only hope is to build a portable book of business and a reputation for solid lawyering. Once you've done that (and I mean 10 years down the road) you might be a candidate for firms looking at lateral partners. Otherwise, you need something seriously special to get firms to overlook your grades, like the IP or work experience that others have mentioned. I don't even think developing a breakthrough legal maneuver would do it. Once you've developed it, biglaw can have other people learn it and do it just as well as you did.terrible_student wrote:Any biglaw associates out there with insight?
Read the judicial clerkship forum for a few minutes and you'll see the same advice over and over: "clerking is not a golden ticket to biglaw." And those guys are talking about federal clerkships, not a state appellate court. The only way this helps you is if you ace all your classes during 2L and 3L, graduate in the top of your class, spend your first year out of law school clerking, and then apply to biglaw during your clerkship. Still not a good chance, but at least remotely possible (IF you get your grades way up).terrible_student wrote:What if I could get a state appellate clerkship from a judge who is a family friend? Would this make a difference in getting respectable firm employment?
-
- Posts: 91
- Joined: Tue Sep 24, 2013 7:45 pm
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
Respectable firm =/= big law
-
- Posts: 186
- Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2011 3:46 am
Re: terrible grades and biglaw
Good point. If by respectable you mean "good lawyers, substantive work, decent pay, satisfying quality of life," then you can probably find this with bad grades. The key then will be networking and being a good person to work with.mw115 wrote:Respectable firm =/= big law
If by respectable you mean "preftige," then no, you'll never do that with bad grades. Come on, good grades are pretty much the definition of preftige. This is kind of like asking "if I am 5'3" can I play in the NBA???" By definition, no. Unless you're Muggsy Bogues.
Seriously? What are you waiting for?
Now there's a charge.
Just kidding ... it's still FREE!
Already a member? Login