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A lot of people on here seem to think that 3L OCI is useless, and is unlikely to yield much in the long run, and I was hoping to get a better idea of why that is. (I.e. is it because your odds of finding a job go down/you lose credibility, or because any firm that has to do 3L OCI is a terrible place to work?)

My 1L grades were mediocre at CCN, and it looks like when all the OCI stuff is done, its likely that I will have only one offer. Its a V100, and I know I'm lucky to have it, but its not a firm/office that I envision myself being at long-term, and its location is not the city I was hoping to live in (I was aiming for another city where I have extremely strong, demonstrable ties).

The question is: if I accept this offer for next summer and improve my grades 2L year, is there a decent chance that I will be able to switch firms through 3L OCI, or is that just a long shot?

Yeah there is a decent chance. 3L OCI isn't a good fallback for people who strike out but it's a real thing for people who land an offer and then bump up their grades during 2L.

3L OCI is fairly big for IP too

I'm sure some people will disagree but in my experience (going through it now) 3L recruiting is easiest targeting the largest firms in NYC. I am a CA native who can barely get any traction there but have received interviews from much of the V10 in NYC.

Obviously this will vary depending on the market. Idk, maybe Houston or some booming market needs a lot of bodies and maybe Chicago/DC does more 3Ls than CA.

Several V10 firms whose offers I did not accept, and even one that dinged me post-CB, told me to get in touch with them as a 3L about permanent employment if I was still interested after my summer somewhere else.

I also saw a decent amount of 3L movement at our OCI, but it was in a similar vein: people moving between elite firms or trying to change cities.

Not OP but also intersted. In a similar position - NYC offer when id like to be elsewhere and firm strengths do not align well with my interests. Suspect I struck out in small market that I want to be in long term due to a bad interview or two at each of the firms I had CBs with. Grades are clearly not what held me back. Would 3L OCI be useful in my situation as a second bite at the apple or more likely a list cause? Firms in city at least say they'll interview 3ls fwiw

Anonymous User wrote:Not OP but also intersted. In a similar position - NYC offer when id like to be elsewhere and firm strengths do not align well with my interests. Suspect I struck out in small market that I want to be in long term due to a bad interview or two at each of the firms I had CBs with. Grades are clearly not what held me back. Would 3L OCI be useful in my situation as a second bite at the apple or more likely a list cause? Firms in city at least say they'll interview 3ls fwiw

Well if those firms show up at 3L OCI at your school than 3L OCI will be useful to you I mean I don't know what you are trying to find out in this Q

interested in this as well; can anyone speak to the timeline? massmail as soon as the grades come out? towards the end of the summer? or wait for the OCI? (I am assuming asap)

Anonymous User wrote:interested in this as well; can anyone speak to the timeline? massmail as soon as the grades come out? towards the end of the summer? or wait for the OCI? (I am assuming asap)

I applied towards the end of summer. Lots of people waited until they had offers from their summer firm. I think it's more difficult if you don't have a SA. I think any earlier than that would be kind of weird--3L recruiting mostly runs a little behind 2L recruiting, it seems, not ahead of it. But you don't have to wait til OCI and shouldn't rely on OCI. At my school the roster of firms actively soliciting 3Ls was very limited.

There was one firm at my 3L OCI (that wasn't PI)

i assume by "3L OCI" you mean "3L hiring in general and not only actual school-run OCI"

minnbills wrote:There was one firm at my 3L OCI (that wasn't PI)

We had 6, but they were all over the map (both literally and in terms of size). I'm not counting the solo alum who for some reason paid to participate in OCI and required two letters of rec.

NYC
NYC/Dallas
Dallas
Houston
Multiple offices (Latham)

There was a 7th listed, but it turned out they wanted someone graduating Dec 2015 to do an SA.

BVest wrote:

minnbills wrote:There was one firm at my 3L OCI (that wasn't PI)

We had 6, but they were all over the map (both literally and in terms of size). I'm not counting the solo alum who for some reason paid to participate in OCI and required two letters of rec.

NYC
NYC/Dallas
Dallas
Houston
Multiple offices (Latham)

There was a 7th listed, but it turned out they wanted someone graduating Dec 2015 to do an SA.

Could you PM me the firm? haha I am graduating in December

OP, 3L OCI/big law hiring gets easier as you go to a 2L firm higher on the vault ranks (i.e. a few people every year jump from Cravath to Wachtell) so try to get the best firm you can. It's not helpful to give someone advice and say I was top 10% 1L year and had a great 2L SA and offer and jumped ship. That may not be the OP's situation. If you don't have the grades 1L year it can be hard to jump around.

Anonymous User wrote:Not OP but also intersted. In a similar position - NYC offer when id like to be elsewhere and firm strengths do not align well with my interests. Suspect I struck out in small market that I want to be in long term due to a bad interview or two at each of the firms I had CBs with. Grades are clearly not what held me back. Would 3L OCI be useful in my situation as a second bite at the apple or more likely a list cause? Firms in city at least say they'll interview 3ls fwiw

Under these circumstances (grades, knowledge of willingness to interview 3Ls), you should consider mailing firms in addition to going through 3L OCI. Email an alum to start a relationship or find some other connection with the firm. There are callbacks to be had this way, though since the market is small, there is a high likelihood that you'll have to foot the bill to get to them.