Early, but not gunnery, advice.
I wanted to get this thread started a little early because bar studying blows, but more importantly, because if you start thinking about OCI a little early, it can really pay dividends once you get to August. I think some grades have trickled in, but not all. So you shouldn't be worrying about this yet. Instead here are some things to which you should devote your focus:
1. Resumes and Cover Letters.
Make sure your resumes are up to date and sent to career services for proofreading/restructuring. You should have just about all of the information you need to complete your resume - including your 1L job description. Things like K&E Scholar can always be added in later. Also reach out to 2Ls and 3Ls for cover letters. It's very easy to finish a template version of a cover letter for mass mailing purposes. Oh, you aren't sure whether you're going to mass mail? Yes, you will be mass mailing, and you'll be starting the very week that all of your grades come out. So you might as well get a cover letter started and looked at by career services or friends and family you trust.
2. Read up on the firms and markets that interest you.
Two of my favorite resources for this were Chambers Partners and Chambers Associates (
http://www.chambers-associate.com/home and
http://www.chambersandpartners.com). Chambers isn't exhaustive, but it will give you a solid foundation to begin your research. Knowing that Latham doesn't like to call any office its satellite office, or that Sullivan and Cromwell works a lot with investment banks won't get you the job, but it will prevent you from making a faux pas in a screener. Partners provides a great way to understand how law firms are situated in certain practice areas and markets.
I would also read up on the previous OCI threads, as those contain lots of good information, TLS in general, Above the Law (if you can stand that rag), law firm websites (as self-definition provides helpful information), and anything else you find useful.
3. Arrange phone calls, coffee, and lunches with associates and partners in your area, or the area you want to work.
Really, this is tremendously helpful if you can get past the awkwardness of cold emailing people and meeting someone new all the time. Oh, wait, what does that remind me of? Exactly, OCI. This is precisely the thing you need to get good at right now. And listening to attorneys talk about their practice and culture provides invaluable information that you can then turn around and use in interviews. Will this get you secret screeners/callbacks/offers? Probably not, but you never know. The earlier you start building relationships this summer the less obvious it is that all you're doing is looking for a foot in the door.
Reach out to UChicago alums and tell them you'd love to hear about what they do, and what advice they might have for a law student interested in working in their city/practice area. Attorneys are all too eager to talk about themselves. I would say try to do at least a handful of these at your most desired firms, but the more the better. And you shouldn't really be that busy as a 1L anyway, so go enjoy your city a little. You might even get a few free lunches out of it.
Final tidbit here, you can always say during a screener or interview, "I spoke to X attorney about Y subject over the summer and it sounded very interesting. It's one of the reasons I bid your firm and why I want to work in this area." This is a good way to demonstrate that you actually have interest in the practice area or firm.
4. Reflect on your resume and the common OCI questions that might come up.
You would be surprised how hard it is to talk about yourself for long periods of time without a little practice. Learn your resume front and back, and then try practicing answers to the basic interview questions. For example, 1) why law school; 2) why UChicago; 3) why this city/practice area. This is also a good time to try to formulate an initial answer to transactional v. litigation. You're career isn't set in stone already, but try to use number 3 to get a good sense of which one you might prefer at this point.
You do not, I repeat, do not have to have known you were going to be a lawyer ever since you looked down into your Alphabet Soup and saw the word "LAW" spelled out in noodle form. Don't feel bad if you have taken a non-traditional path, or if you just went straight through from undergrad. People just like you have been there before and gotten jobs. What you should be worried about is constructing an overarching narrative to your life's story. While every single decision on your resume doesn't need to form a straight line to a law firm, every choice should seem deliberate and well considered. And you should be able to speak to each item on your resume with confidence and a few anecdotes or things you learned. I think the only way you can go wrong here is if you seem flippant about your career, indecisive, or surprised by something you, yourself, elected to put on your own damn resume.
5. Jot down a few experiences and projects from this summer.
You should have a few stories and assignments that you can discuss from your 1L job. Don't have any good ones yet? Talk to your supervisors about your expectations and what you want out of the job. This is totally welcomed and professional.
It's true that your 1L job doesn't preclude you from any 2L firm jobs, but I think this advice overshadows how much of an asset a good 1L experience can be. Demonstrate that you took the initiative this summer by going beyond the scope of your work, or making yourself crucial to a project. I had one or two
pretty, and I emphasize that they were not life changing, assignments over my summer, and my interviewers really liked my answers when they came up. I think a lot of people sort of just go through the motions (literally in some litigation jobs) and gloss over this as a potential asset.
6. Relax.
Enjoy the summer and city as much as you can. OCI is a slog, and the more energy you bring to the process, the better your results will be. You do not want to seem weighed down by the process, and it's easy to talk about your fun extra curricular experiences during an interview.
If you can get all of this stuff done by the time grades come out, you are really head of the curve.
