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What is the significance of being a transfer student after your first job? Do firms care about your 1L school?

Anonymous User wrote:What is the significance of being a transfer student after your first job? Do firms care about your 1L school?

They don't care. And you don't even list your 1L school on your resume, unless there is some 1L honor you really want to include. You will likely have to submit transcripts when applying for jobs in the future, so its not like they won't know. But its not really an issue, since you obviously did well if you were able to transfer.

The transfers in my school work really fking hard.
I spoke to one and he regrets not working as hard on the LSAT and just wanted to start law school that fall.
Some decided on law school at the last minute.
I'm sure they're all capable of scoring 170+.

eriedoctrine wrote:The transfers in my school work really fking hard.
I spoke to one and he regrets not working as hard on the LSAT and just wanted to start law school that fall.
Some decided on law school at the last minute.
I'm sure they're all capable of scoring 170+.

OP here. So does this translate into firms thinking this as well? If you have a big firm job does it matter at all what your first law school was?

Anonymous User wrote:

eriedoctrine wrote:The transfers in my school work really fking hard.
I spoke to one and he regrets not working as hard on the LSAT and just wanted to start law school that fall.
Some decided on law school at the last minute.
I'm sure they're all capable of scoring 170+.

OP here. So does this translate into firms thinking this as well? If you have a big firm job does it matter at all what your first law school was?

No. Trust me no one really cares. Plenty of transfers are in the top firms this year.

Columbia transfer students do very well at OCI.

CanadianWolf wrote:Columbia transfer students do very well at OCI.

And literally not one person during OCI process down from partners to recruiting personnel "cares". They will just be curious about the process and applaud your decision. That's my experience at least. OP pm me if you still have specific concerns and I'll do my best to answer.

I transferred to NYU, and essentially every transfer I know had a great job lined up. Just off the top of my head from my transfer class, I know of people who ended up with Sullivan & Cromwell, Kirkland, Paul Weiss, WilmerHale, Jones Day, MoFo, Wilkie, Cahill, Akin Gump, etc. Come to think of it, I can't think of a single transfer I know who didn't have a great firm job lined up.

2013 grad here (so transferred in 2011). I'll echo what's been said in that OCI for transfers my year was great. Don't know of any transfers in my class (T10) that did not get a great firm job. Wanted to add specifically, though, that the same holds true for lateral hiring later in your career. Firms will see your transcripts but generally the transfer matter doesn't come up, and you don't list your old school on your resume. I've been on a few lateral interviews and it's not ever come up.

I was a transfer student and all I'll say is (1) make sure you coordinate your transfer with your desired school's career services office and get in their good graces (be very thankful and complimentary); and (2) make sure you transfer early enough to take full advantage of 2L OCI.

I transferred very late (August) and totally missed OCI. This made finding work 2L summer pretty difficult, and then it made finding a job after law school much harder than it needed to be.

Looking back, I would seriously pay $5,000 to have sent an email to the CSO at Ohio State in May to make sure I could take full advantage of OCI. I didn't and didn't end up with anything.

But I did find a job and things worked out. And in the end, I'm at a smaller firm and pretty happy with my job. Things were just unnecessarily stressful because I handled my transfer very incompetently.