Top Law Schools

You're a smart law student. Talk to actual attorneys at the firms you're considering and exercise good judgment. Relying on the anonymous advice of internet peers who often know little/nothing about the firms you're considering is a bad idea. It's not even a good data point - these threads are filled with so much misinformation.

Would you really listen to a SA who drank the cool-aid last year but hasn't seriously worked at a law firm for more than 10/12 weeks to give you advice about the "culture" of "peer firms"? Would you poll your whole law school about it? Just cut it out. Focus your time spent neurotically following up with people who actually know what they're talking about.

Somebody had a rough Saturday night. It's okay Mr. Cookiejar, let it all out man

Yes, how dare law students use every perspective when choosing between often indistinguishable firms.

^Accidental anon.

Many of the people responding aren't as anonymous as you think. It surprises me that someone with several hundred posts on here would still think that.

One person can't notice everything on second looks/callbacks.

People like to brag. This stuff is exciting go ahead and let them to a certain extent (tho I'm in the extreme minority here)

All firms look the same and people have a limited time to choose. Sometimes people don't even know what to look for.

Many people here actually do know what they are talking about and just because they are posting under a handle doesn't mean they don't.

The threads are filled with misinformation. But assuming they are because it is a post on top-law-schools.com/forums is wrong

But really this "it's on tls it must be false" shtick is really annoying and untrue

To be fair, talking to attorneys at the firm probably isn't much better

I agree and disagree. Sometimes you're going to have people who want to make a dumb choice/push something silly, and I hope that TLS can push people away from that. Like, let's say someone was absolutely sold on S&C because it destroyed its so-called peers: you'd want to disabuse someone of that notion.

Someone you talk to through the firm is likely going to be very positive. You're probably not going to get the whole story from them. If you can get a real, actual associate from a firm to talk to you quasi-anonymously, you'll hear actually useful things, both in terms of the positives and where some of the bodies are buried.

Moreover, it's not just blind anecdote that people push out: it's the actual experiences of their friends who are juniors.

I guess I understand why the threads are frustrating. I just don't think "just do talk to the firm" is a better option.

In fact, it might be best to talk to people who have *left* that firm

Good thing we have an anonymous bort where people can respond truthfully about their experiences

I agree with op, isn't that why we have vault anyway?

Anonymous User wrote:Yes, how dare law students use every perspective when choosing between often indistinguishable firms.

I think this pretty much nails it.

Making a decision purely based on TLS anons is pretty dumb. However, I found TLS to be incredibly helpful when deciding between firms last year. If you have options, why not use every resource possible given how important this decision is?

Asking for advice on TLS, taking 2nd looks, talking to 3Ls and associates, and discussing your options with anyone else you trust are all useful (at least I found them to be)

Do people actually take second looks seriously. I thought it was just an excuse for a paid trip. You talk to four more people who can't speak freely, so useful!

Rahviveh wrote:Do people actually take second looks seriously. I thought it was just an excuse for a paid trip. You talk to four more people who can't speak freely, so useful!

You can talk about exits and benefits without it seeming as weird at least, but yeah ,solid comment.

These threads are largely bullshit, but these decisions also largely come down to bullshit distinctions between essentially indistinguishable options, so I'm sympathetic. The responses should be taken with a giant grain of salt, but I assume that whoever is posting them is typically smart enough to take the advice for what it's worth.

Skadden v. Davis Polk for Corporate work. All your insights would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

These threads are good if the poster has specific desires or impressions, because sometimes the hivemind will have info they didn't come across (or that's not available) regarding those criteria.

These threads are terrible if it's just "I want to work at the best firm. Is it A or B? Not sure about corp or lit or location."

I don't get the sense that there's any particular useful info out there. Even anon people who work somewhere aren't gonna say too much. So they just devolve into baseless speculation. But whatever I guess.

+1 to whoever said talking to associates from the firm isn't necessarily reliable.

So I summered at multiple places, and the first place had a person who lateraled from the second. Seems like a trustworthy person with an objective perspective and wouldn't lead me wrong, right? He/she gave me a "heart to heart" talk about why they left, which allegedly was because they were getting lambasted for not hitting an absurd billable requirement (thing ~2700/yr), so they left to this firm, and now everything is sunshine & rainbows. Sounded great... for any naive student that never bothered to talk to people in the profession/market/etc. or never perused TLS.

Talked to a person at the second place when I got there, and asked about getting work from aforementioned attorney's practice group and possibly returning to that group fulltime, but the attorneys I had befriended told me that the group was dead, had been for a while, people were in danger of missing hours for a while now, and implied that the department was trimming its size to compensate for the lack of work. Now to be fair, this is also information from attorneys at the firm I was at, but the context was what group to pick, not what firm to pick, and the aforementioned person wasn't brought up by anyone. Besides, it seemed to coincide with my observation that that group never got any work and always left early, so I highly doubt anyone there was billing 2700 while people were getting stealthed. And subsequently talking to others in my market outside of these two workplaces, the consensus seemed to be that the entire practice is dead.

Now this info doesn't necessarily mean either place is better than the other, but had I relied on that person's word, I may have made a decision based on the impression that one of the firms was a sweatshop, when there was plenty of evidence indicating that couldn't be the case. I guess I also figured out that one of the places I'm considering will stealth you if you're slow, but I suppose that's the reality anywhere?

TL;DR: I don't see the harm in extra perspectives, as long as people take them with a grain of salt.