Michigan OCI 2015 Forum

[Anonymous User]

Important dates:

July 8th, last day to upload resumes

July 9th, Bidding begins at 12:00 AM ET

July 16th, Bidding ends

Every other day from July 21st through August 3rd, Interview add/drop days

August 3rd, OCI Orientation, mandatory, 2:00 PM ET

August 4th, Start of OCI

August 7th, End of OCI


Go forth and discuss

[Anonymous User]

Any former students want to weigh in on bid strategies?

[Anonymous User]

Know that as it works out, if you've got a 3.7+ you can basically select the 20 firms that you would most like to interview with and have them, because everyone with a 3.3 is scrambling over the same 25 firms, whereas you've got the top 20 spots on the Vault list to yourself (relatively).

If you're in the 3.2-3.5 mix, you've got to find the 16 or so firms that make the most sense for you, and then slot them in bid/interview order. Obviously, in selecting firms, you should consider the likelihood of getting an OCI interview, a CB, and an offer.

If you're under a 3.4, New York is the play; you can split with another market if you've got ties, but don't bank on going elsewhere.

If you're under a 3.2, you're fighting a tough fight.

[Anonymous User]

what about if you are right around 3.5 (like 3.45-3.55)? is Chicago in play for people like me if I have midwest/soft chicago ties.

E

[Anonymous User]

what about if you are between a 3.4 and a 3.6

Sadly this is also me. ATM anyway.

[Anonymous User]

what about if you are right around 3.5 (like 3.45-3.55)? is Chicago in play for people like me if I have midwest/soft chicago ties.

E

Chicago is definitely in play in that range. But, Chicago is TOUGH at just about any range. Just go back and read a bit of last year's thread. There were a few 3.6+ who either struck out or squeezed out only one offer in Chicago but cleaned up NY.

Kind of early to really discuss bid lists at this point but that GPA should give you a fighting shot at most Chicago firms (sans Kirkland, Jones Day, Skadden, Ropes & Gray and possibly Latham). You probably won't want to go 'all in' on Chicago. You'll want to throw in quite a few (maybe 50/50) NY firms that take big classes and are in your GPA range (e.g. Weil, Cadwalader, Milbank)

[Anonymous User]

I had about a 3.9, ~8 Chicago interviews at OCI --> 1 offer. New York was no problem.

[Anonymous User]

URM female w/ 3.2. What are my chances of getting something through OCI?

Thanks.

[Anonymous User]

There is some great advice in last year's thread concerning what to do/avoid. I highly recommend it as reading.

There is lots of good advice out there, but the single most important thing I can recommend is that you put in the necessary work to perform well. Most of the people who put a lot of thinking into OCI did well, regardless of GPA. Obviously a 3.7 is going to out perform a 3.2 everything else being equal, but the individuals I know who had a 3.5 and put the work into OCI tended to do better than the individuals with 3.7s and above who didn't.

A few more specifics:

1. Develop a Story: This is important both in terms of geography and practice area interest (see below). But your 2-minute elevator schtick should be able to tie both of these concerns to the firm you are interviewing with + your own life experiences/interests etc.

2. Have a Specific Practice Group Interest: Like all advice, this is less important the better grades you have. However, it can make a significant difference at some firms. It's not necessarily about expressing a practice group interest and firm X needs people for that area (although it can be). It's more about showing that you have thought about what you want to do with the next step in your life and that there is a reason that you chose to interview with firm X--even if there really isn't.

I recommend figuring out what practice area you might want to be in first. For some of you this might be easy, i.e. you've always wanted to do patent, for others this could be more difficult. Chambers Associates has good guides on various practice areas and simple Google searches can also be helpful.

Once you've figured out what practice area you're interested in, figure out what firms (given your grade constraints) do that work well. Chambers & Partners has good rankings on this type of thing by market. Depending on what you decide you're interested in, this also might dictate what markets you're interested it. If you want to regulatory work for example, DC is probably where you want to focus, even if the GPAs are higher.

This might seem daunting and/or nerve-racking because you have no idea what you want to do yet. That's okay, to an extent. In that case, find firms that do a variety of different things well, that you'd be willing to practice in, but I'd still recommend going into your screener with a specific practice area or two that you're interested in. Again, this shows the interviewers you've both put thought into what you want to do with your life and that there is a specific reason you bid Firm X. I cannot emphasize this enough. Interviewers want a reason to like you, but you need to give them that reason.

Lastly, if you're worried about committing to a practice area, remember that most firms nowadays don't hire summers for a specific practice group. You are free to change in the summer, and often even after you get to the firm. Choosing a practice group is all about sending a signal to interviewers you've put some thought into your future career.

3. CONTACT A CURRENT MICHIGAN ASSOCIATE/PARTNER + SUMMER ASSOCIATE (IF POSSIBLE) AT EVERY FIRM YOU'RE INTERVIEWING WITH: Single most important thing I did. It took forever. I worked on it all July, but I emailed someone at every firm, and had a phone conversation with most of them. Target Michigan grads specifically in the practice group you're interested in, but even if there aren't Michigan grads in your preferred practice group, that's ok. Still reach out to them. Doing this helps you learn more about the firm. More importantly, though, it also gives you a name to drop when you interview with individuals from the firm at OCI. "I talked to Jerry in the Latham Chicago office and he was telling me about some of the responsibilities junior M&A associates tend to have. Seemed like stuff I would really like." Again, the substance doesn't matter much, but you're sending a signal to the firm that you care about them enough to invest some time.

4. Do an Interests Section on Your Resume: I had never had one, but OCP recommended it. I was skeptical, but I did it anyways. Best decision. Many of my interviews consisted of discussing my sports and other extracurricular interests from this section. Made things go a lot smoother. Just make sure whatever you put on there you're prepared to talk about.

5. Do a Mock Interview: Varying degrees of helpfullness depending on how socially awkward you are, but can't hurt. Do it.

6. Factor Your Social IQ into Your Bid Strategy: If you have a 3.8 but you know you have trouble in an interview setting, bid like you have a 3.6 If you have a 3.4 but you are confident and have good WE, bid like you have a 3.6. I know some individuals who sold themselves short because they were worried about their GPA, and I know others who bid all V10s but didn't get an offer w/ a 3.7 because they came straight from undergrad and didn't know how to interview. Be honest with yourself about your interview/social abilities and factor that in.

7. Know Your Interviewers: Don't stalk them, but try to find a connection. Did they group in Chicago? Maybe you have visited Chicago? Did they go to law school at Michigan? Oh, did they live in the lawyers club while they were there/here? Me too, let's discuss how much better the building is today, etc.

8. Have a List of Questions Ready: Self explanatory, but important for screeners with interviewees who want to see how prepared you are. Questions should be a mix of both general and firm-specific. This is where research comes in. Do it, it's important.

If I think of other stuff, Ill add those thoughts later. Again, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to do the work necessary to be successful.

[Anonymous User]

Do any of the sections have all of their spring grades back? I want to start putting my bid list together, but I've only got one grade back for this semester and a list at this point would be pretty tentative given that 1/3 of my 1L GPA is still up in the air.

[Anonymous User]

A lot of these firms on Symplicity will list journal / moot court as preferred... obviously we couldn't compete in Campbell as 1Ls, but given that it's open to anyone should we list it on our resume if we plan on doing it this upcoming year?

[Anonymous User]

Rising 3L and current v20 SA here. I had below median grades and no impressive work experience whatsoever. My biggest piece of advice is to focus on what you can control at this point. I spent too much time last summer stressing about my grades and wondering who would ever give me a callback. Ultimately I ended up doing just fine - over five callbacks and several offers.

More than anything, being personable is crucial. Screening interviews are so short that you really dont have time to get into any substantive discussion about the firm. More often than not I found myself bullshitting with the interviewer about sports (esp. Michigan sports if he/she was an alum), Ann Arbor, life in NYC/Chicago/LA/insert your preferred market here. If you can have a friendly conversation with the person, that'll go far when it comes time for them to give out callbacks. Remember this person sits in the same room all day long talking to overbearing, neurotic law students.

I'll echo the suggestion to DEFINITELY include an interests section. Inevitably your interests will serve as a jumping off point for friendly conversation. The more you can enthusiastically and elaborately discuss your interests, the easier it will be to develop a rapport with the interviewer.

20 minutes pass much more quickly than you might ever imagine. Take a deep breath. Recognize that your grades are what they are at this point. While these firms are looking for smart and capable students, they also want people who are fun and easy to work with.

[gnuwheels]

Bar-studying recent grad here. I have some advice for this thread: people should post their approximate GPAs instead of "below median" or "above median" or whatever. My experience in this kind of thread a few years ago and then afterwards was that people have wildly different ideas of what is median. There is also a lot of "woe is me I can't believe I got a B in torts looks like I must be below median" while they're sitting on a high 3.4x.

Two friends of mine went through OCI both saying they were below median. Found out later one had a 3.22 and the other had a 3.39 going into OCI. Those are drastically different GPAs for hiring purposes and we wasted hours of our lives debating why their results were so different when it would have been perfectly clear if they just said what they had.

[Anonymous User]

Median is gonn be somewhere between a 3.3 and a 3.36 right?

[Anonymous User]

Yeah. When 1/3 of people get a B+, a 3.3 median is a pretty safe bet.

[scaliaantics]

One thing to remember: When career service gives you advice on your bid list, they are giving everyone else the exact same advice. If you have a firm at slot five and they say "to be safe, slot it at four," then they are telling that same piece of advice to everyone. This means #4 is not a safe slot for that firm. Most people don't think this through and so everyone slots it at 4, which means you need to do some game theory and figure out where the best place to slot that firm is given the new information you have. Listening to career services is good advice for figuring out where most people are slotting firms. They should not be relied on for structuring your bid list. Their goal is to get everyone near the median number of interviews. Your goal is to maximize your interviews. Your interests are different and you have to take that into account.

Also, career services is really stupid. They told multiple people my year to bid williams and connoly DC in their top 10. I got it at #30. They told people to bid Gibson NY way low. It was gone after #8. Take that into account too.

[UnamSanctam]

This

Know that as it works out, if you've got a 3.7+ you can basically select the 20 firms that you would most like to interview with and have them, because everyone with a 3.3 is scrambling over the same 25 firms, whereas you've got the top 20 spots on the Vault list to yourself (relatively).

If you're in the 3.2-3.5 mix, you've got to find the 16 or so firms that make the most sense for you, and then slot them in bid/interview order. Obviously, in selecting firms, you should consider the likelihood of getting an OCI interview, a CB, and an offer.

If you're under a 3.4, New York is the play; you can split with another market if you've got ties, but don't bank on going elsewhere.

If you're under a 3.2, you're fighting a tough fight.

and this

There is some great advice in last year's thread concerning what to do/avoid. I highly recommend it as reading.

There is lots of good advice out there, but the single most important thing I can recommend is that you put in the necessary work to perform well. Most of the people who put a lot of thinking into OCI did well, regardless of GPA. Obviously a 3.7 is going to out perform a 3.2 everything else being equal, but the individuals I know who had a 3.5 and put the work into OCI tended to do better than the individuals with 3.7s and above who didn't.

A few more specifics:

1. Develop a Story: This is important both in terms of geography and practice area interest (see below). But your 2-minute elevator schtick should be able to tie both of these concerns to the firm you are interviewing with + your own life experiences/interests etc.

2. Have a Specific Practice Group Interest: Like all advice, this is less important the better grades you have. However, it can make a significant difference at some firms. It's not necessarily about expressing a practice group interest and firm X needs people for that area (although it can be). It's more about showing that you have thought about what you want to do with the next step in your life and that there is a reason that you chose to interview with firm X--even if there really isn't.

I recommend figuring out what practice area you might want to be in first. For some of you this might be easy, i.e. you've always wanted to do patent, for others this could be more difficult. Chambers Associates has good guides on various practice areas and simple Google searches can also be helpful.

Once you've figured out what practice area you're interested in, figure out what firms (given your grade constraints) do that work well. Chambers & Partners has good rankings on this type of thing by market. Depending on what you decide you're interested in, this also might dictate what markets you're interested it. If you want to regulatory work for example, DC is probably where you want to focus, even if the GPAs are higher.

This might seem daunting and/or nerve-racking because you have no idea what you want to do yet. That's okay, to an extent. In that case, find firms that do a variety of different things well, that you'd be willing to practice in, but I'd still recommend going into your screener with a specific practice area or two that you're interested in. Again, this shows the interviewers you've both put thought into what you want to do with your life and that there is a specific reason you bid Firm X. I cannot emphasize this enough. Interviewers want a reason to like you, but you need to give them that reason.

Lastly, if you're worried about committing to a practice area, remember that most firms nowadays don't hire summers for a specific practice group. You are free to change in the summer, and often even after you get to the firm. Choosing a practice group is all about sending a signal to interviewers you've put some thought into your future career.

3. CONTACT A CURRENT MICHIGAN ASSOCIATE/PARTNER + SUMMER ASSOCIATE (IF POSSIBLE) AT EVERY FIRM YOU'RE INTERVIEWING WITH: Single most important thing I did. It took forever. I worked on it all July, but I emailed someone at every firm, and had a phone conversation with most of them. Target Michigan grads specifically in the practice group you're interested in, but even if there aren't Michigan grads in your preferred practice group, that's ok. Still reach out to them. Doing this helps you learn more about the firm. More importantly, though, it also gives you a name to drop when you interview with individuals from the firm at OCI. "I talked to Jerry in the Latham Chicago office and he was telling me about some of the responsibilities junior M&A associates tend to have. Seemed like stuff I would really like." Again, the substance doesn't matter much, but you're sending a signal to the firm that you care about them enough to invest some time.

4. Do an Interests Section on Your Resume: I had never had one, but OCP recommended it. I was skeptical, but I did it anyways. Best decision. Many of my interviews consisted of discussing my sports and other extracurricular interests from this section. Made things go a lot smoother. Just make sure whatever you put on there you're prepared to talk about.

5. Do a Mock Interview: Varying degrees of helpfullness depending on how socially awkward you are, but can't hurt. Do it.

6. Factor Your Social IQ into Your Bid Strategy: If you have a 3.8 but you know you have trouble in an interview setting, bid like you have a 3.6 If you have a 3.4 but you are confident and have good WE, bid like you have a 3.6. I know some individuals who sold themselves short because they were worried about their GPA, and I know others who bid all V10s but didn't get an offer w/ a 3.7 because they came straight from undergrad and didn't know how to interview. Be honest with yourself about your interview/social abilities and factor that in.

7. Know Your Interviewers: Don't stalk them, but try to find a connection. Did they group in Chicago? Maybe you have visited Chicago? Did they go to law school at Michigan? Oh, did they live in the lawyers club while they were there/here? Me too, let's discuss how much better the building is today, etc.

8. Have a List of Questions Ready: Self explanatory, but important for screeners with interviewees who want to see how prepared you are. Questions should be a mix of both general and firm-specific. This is where research comes in. Do it, it's important.

If I think of other stuff, Ill add those thoughts later. Again, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to do the work necessary to be successful.

should be in the OP. If you think you're special and should deviate from these two posts, realize you are not and you should not.

[UnamSanctam]

One thing to remember: When career service gives you advice on your bid list, they are giving everyone else the exact same advice. If you have a firm at slot five and they say "to be safe, slot it at four," then they are telling that same piece of advice to everyone. This means #4 is not a safe slot for that firm. Most people don't think this through and so everyone slots it at 4, which means you need to do some game theory and figure out where the best place to slot that firm is given the new information you have. Listening to career services is good advice for figuring out where most people are slotting firms. They should not be relied on for structuring your bid list. Their goal is to get everyone near the median number of interviews. Your goal is to maximize your interviews. Your interests are different and you have to take that into account.

Also, career services is really stupid. They told multiple people my year to bid williams and connoly DC in their top 10. I got it at #30. They told people to bid Gibson NY way low. It was gone after #8. Take that into account too.

Also this. Please realize that OCP is doing their job; they are getting interviews/offers for the maximum amount of people so that Michigan looks better as compared to peer schools. But that means that they're not going to maximize you individually. NY firms that hire around median and below (well, any firms that hire around median) are firms that you should be putting higher. Leave your Hail Mary bids for selective firms if you have any left.

And when in doubt, NY is the answer.

[Anonymous User]

Do summer starters 3 semesters of grade count or just first two

[UnamSanctam]

3

[umichman]

nd we wasted hours of our lives debating why their results were so different when it would have been perfectly clear if they just said what they had.

People really spend their time talking about this? Even amongst law school people that seems obnoxious.

[gnuwheels]

nd we wasted hours of our lives debating why their results were so different when it would have been perfectly clear if they just said what they had.

People really spend their time talking about this? Even amongst law school people that seems obnoxious.

When you have two friends who claim to have the same credentials, one is juggling multiple offers at top firms and the other struck out and is contemplating dropping out, then yes, you talk about it.

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone have any thoughts on how aggressive you can simultaneously bid CA and NY with a ~3.65?
Other info that might be relevant: URM with ~3 years solid WE. I have strong CA ties and am a decent interviewer (but nothing to write home about). I'm targeting corporate work only.

Would it be incredibly stupid to just target big name firms/offices in CA (e.g. MoFo, Gibson, Latham, KE, WSGR, Cooley) and then fill up the rest with V10-20 NY firms? Looking at the historical GPA data, it looks like I land above the 50th percentile for most and above the 25th for almost all of them.

Thanks!

[UnamSanctam]

Does anyone have any thoughts on how aggressive you can simultaneously bid CA and NY with a ~3.65?
Other info that might be relevant: URM with ~3 years solid WE. I have strong CA ties and am a decent interviewer (but nothing to write home about). I'm targeting corporate work only.

Would it be incredibly stupid to just target big name firms/offices in CA (e.g. MoFo, Gibson, Latham, KE, WSGR, Cooley) and then fill up the rest with V10-20 NY firms? Looking at the historical GPA data, it looks like I land above the 50th percentile for most and above the 25th for almost all of them.

Thanks!

With a 3.65 + URM + WE + ties, you can afford to diversify in this way. I would have said you could do it even w/o the middle two factors, for anyone else w/ a 3.65 who wants to do NYC + another major market with ties reading this in the future.

[Anonymous User]

What about 3.5? Could u do secondary and then big firms in nyc and Chicago?