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At UC Davis. It's probably a long shot asking for advice on this since most people here are at T-14 schools, but I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on ranking them (or on bidding in general). Whole thing's got me pretty stressed out.

I know I'm not close to big law secure, but I'm going to try to do my best before moving onto backup plans. I'll be mass mailing in the meantime.

-90% Preselect, 10% lottery
-Last year, about 15% of my school ended up in big law.

My stats:
-Top 20% (No LR, F@#$...)
-Senior Editor on a secondary journal
-Moot Court
-3 years WE, nothing too impressive
-Strong ties to LA (born and raised, went to UG in SoCal)

High:
Arnold & Porter LLP (LA)
Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe (Sac)
Reed Smith LLP (SF)
dla piper (Palo Alto)
dla piper (Sac)
DLA Piper (SF)
Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP
Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger LLP (LA)
Bryan Cave, LLP (Irvine, SF, Santa Monica)
Magstagni Holstedt PC (Sac) (Midsized)
Miller Morton Caillat & Nevis LLP (San Jose) (Midsized)
goodwin procter llp (LA)(Top 25% hard cutoff)
goodwin procter llp (SF) (Top 25% hard cutoff)
Goodwin Procter (Silicon) (Top 25% hard cutoff)

Mid:
Cota Cole LLP (Roseville, Ontario)
downey brand llp (Sac)(Top 1/3 hard cut)
Drinker Biddle & Reath (SF, Philly)
Foley & Lardner LLP (LA, Silicon, SD, DC)
hanson bridgett llp (SF)
venable llp (SF)(Hard Cutoff: 3.3)
Weintraub Tobin Chediak Coleman Grodin (Sac)(midsized)
Wilke, Fleury, Hoffelt, Gould & Birney LLP (Sac)(midsized)
Kronick Moskovitz Tiedemann & Girard (Sac)(Law Clerk for midsized)
Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP (SF)(SF)
Wanger Jones Helsley P.C. (Fresno)(Top 25% hard cutoff)
Porter Scott (Sac) (midsized)
Best Best & Krieger LLP (Ontario-SoCal)(Top 50% hard cut)

Low:
cooley llp
Arnold & Porter LLP (SF)
O'Melveny & Myers LLP (SF)
Ropes & Gray (Palo Alto)
Shearman & Sterling LLP (NY)(Hard cutoff: B+ Average)
sidley austin llp (SF)
Baker Botts LLP (Palo Alto)(Top 20% preferred)
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP (Palo Alto)
Davis Polk & Wardwell (Menlo Park)


ETA: This is pretty much the list I will go with. Don't have a lot of options (not top 10%) so these are the firms that I am not eliminated due to the hard cutoffs or IP. I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on where to rank them on my bids (high, mid, and bottom). In the meantime, I've contacted my Career Services for help. Was wondering if TLS could weigh in.

Thanks in advance!

I would deprioritize the following unless you have significant ties/URM/relevant W/E.

Arnold & Porter LLP (LA)
Arnold & Porter LLP (SF)
cooley llp
O'Melveny & Myers LLP (SF)
Ropes & Gray (Palo Alto)
Shearman & Sterling LLP (NY)
sidley austin llp (SF)
Baker Botts LLP (Palo Alto)
Davis Polk & Wardwell (Menlo Park)
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP (Palo Alto)

a tip - post your school in the thread title so people from there/similar schools are more likely to notice it

OP here.

Thanks for your replies. Pretty much the kind of advice I was looking for. What should I prioritize? Right now, I'm thinking about some of the local midsized firms, DLA Piper, and Orrick.

I'd drop Drinker Biddle Philly if you don't have ties, however if you do have ties, go ham on them during the interview. IME Philly firms (besides Dechert/MLB) are much more concerned with ties or fit as opposed to prestige, so if you have a good interview, I think you're fine there with your school/grades.

Are you mass mailing elsewhere besides doing OCI?

Massmailing LA, Orange County, SF, Sacramento, NYC.

Anonymous User wrote:Massmailing LA, Orange County, SF, Sacramento, NYC.

Ok good.

Do you have any data on things such as the median grades for CBs from firms, or the percent that bid and get screeners with firms, or anything like that? Cuz that would def help when ordering these.

scottidsntknow wrote:I'd drop Drinker Biddle Philly if you don't have ties, however if you do have ties, go ham on them during the interview. IME Philly firms (besides Dechert/MLB) are much more concerned with ties or fit as opposed to prestige, so if you have a good interview, I think you're fine there with your school/grades.

Are you mass mailing elsewhere besides doing OCI?

Drinker Biddle is almost assuredly interviewing for their SF office, can't imagine it would actually be for Philly.

But of course still have to go hard with the ties pitch, SF cares a good deal about that too.

Drinker Biddle is a great firm name FWIW.

BigZuck wrote:

scottidsntknow wrote:I'd drop Drinker Biddle Philly if you don't have ties, however if you do have ties, go ham on them during the interview. IME Philly firms (besides Dechert/MLB) are much more concerned with ties or fit as opposed to prestige, so if you have a good interview, I think you're fine there with your school/grades.

Are you mass mailing elsewhere besides doing OCI?

Drinker Biddle is almost assuredly interviewing for their SF office, can't imagine it would actually be for Philly.

But of course still have to go hard with the ties pitch, SF cares a good deal about that too.

Drinker Biddle is a great firm name FWIW.

Oh I just assumed since OP put Philly next to it along with SF, and they have more than two offices. Fwiw Drinker Biddle just moved up to 160k in Philly which is baller considering Philly is 1/3 the price of living in SF.

scottidsntknow wrote:

BigZuck wrote:

scottidsntknow wrote:I'd drop Drinker Biddle Philly if you don't have ties, however if you do have ties, go ham on them during the interview. IME Philly firms (besides Dechert/MLB) are much more concerned with ties or fit as opposed to prestige, so if you have a good interview, I think you're fine there with your school/grades.

Are you mass mailing elsewhere besides doing OCI?

Drinker Biddle is almost assuredly interviewing for their SF office, can't imagine it would actually be for Philly.

But of course still have to go hard with the ties pitch, SF cares a good deal about that too.

Drinker Biddle is a great firm name FWIW.

Oh I just assumed since OP put Philly next to it along with SF, and they have more than two offices. Fwiw Drinker Biddle just moved up to 160k in Philly which is baller considering Philly is 1/3 the price of living in SF.

Yeah I assume the OP was just quoting from some OCI materials. And hell, maybe they will interview for Philly too. But I bet it'll be all SF people. That's what it was at UT's OCI, they might list that they interview for all offices but really they're just there for the Houston/Dallas satellite. Seems to be how OCI rolls at regional schools from my experience.

160K outside NY/SF seems to be pretty dope (and definitely not a bad salary anywhere, just perhaps a bit less dope)

Anyway, we all need to keep our eyes on the prize: NYC to 190K

Well, I'm also a rising 2L (different school), so I don't know how much value there is to my advice.

I don't know if your bidding window has opened yet, but if you bid multiple offices for the same firm, you'll typically be given extra bid slots. If that list is based on your assumed max of what appears to be 30 bids, consider researching more firms to add to the list in preparation of receiving more bids. Also, add more doubles if that is the case. For example, I know Sidley Palo Alto is also recruiting. If you get extra bids for multiple offices, there is no reason not to add them. Quite a few of your firms have multiple offices in Northern California and L.A. that you haven't listed.

Also, I think you should definitely target those mid-sized firms in Sac like Downey Brand, but also make sure you research expected summer associate class sizes. Less selective firms with bigger summer associate class sizes is ideal. You may have already accounted for that though. When you're on the cusp you gotta pull a spray-n-pray attitude. Can't be sniping for those small classes unless the firm is known to be less selective. I noticed you're targeting Orrick, Sacramento, but Orrick S.F. or Menlo Park will surely have larger class sizes. Drinker is another one, don't know their expected class size, but the S.F. office only has like 20 people. Wouldn't think they're bringing on more than one or two summers.

If you do end up getting more bid slots, L.A. is an easier market to break into, especially if you have ties down there.

Also, I noticed you have just listed your targeted firms in alphabetical order rather than bid order. You should list the the firms you plan to rank at the top and people might have advice what firms to put up at the top. Since your school is only 10% lottery, I can't assume anything outside of the top 3 bids will matter as far as ranking firms.

OP here. Thanks for all your advice (including the PMs). Seriously. You guys have been a big help so far.

I've edited the OP to reflect my high, mid, and low bids as well as some more infos on the firms and their cutoffs. I only have serious ties to LA (born and raised). Other than that, I go to law school in NorCal but that's about it.

What do you guys think?

Scooped.

OP again. To the above anon poster:

Thanks for your thorough reply. Yeah, I took a lot of that info into account. The problem with midsized firms is that I can't seem to find their SA class info on the NALP website. In terms of multiple offices, my list takes them into account. The reason why I list DLA Piper 3 times is because you actually have to bid on them separately. In addition, some of the firms I listed only allows you to bid ONE office. So naturally, I chose the LA offices.

And unfortunately, Orrick SF has a hard top 15% grade cutoff...

The good news is, I know a guy SAing at the Sac office at top 20% and no LR.

BUMP.

other Davis students on here?

OP here. Thanks for your help everyone. I ended up getting 26/38 screens for the first session. I realized I shouldn't have stressed out about this since it was 90% preselect anyway. Was nothing I could have really controlled. Surprisingly, I did get a few lottery picks mainly from the unpopular firms.

Nice, OP!

Best of luck to you! I'm in a similar boat with a lot of interviews, and I'm just concerned now about prepping for each one and not getting burned out!