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I met with several associates/partners working at biglaws and forgot to drop their names in my cover letter. How much impact name dropping does on the probability of getting screeners from biglaws?

My take is that name dropping in a cover letter isn't very helpful. It's better to just keep it short and to the point and have someone important forward your materials to HR/hiring. To me, that's where you'll see the most impact.

Name dropping only works if the HR person reads your cover letter. Its better to send a quick e-mail to the partners you met and say something along the line of, enjoyed meeting you and just letting you know i emailed my resume to whoever. If they liked you they will email HR and tell them not to auto delete your application.

Anonymous User wrote:Name dropping only works if the HR person reads your cover letter. Its better to send a quick e-mail to the partners you met and say something along the line of, enjoyed meeting you and just letting you know i emailed my resume to whoever. If they liked you they will email HR and tell them not to auto delete your application.

Thanks for your answer. What if the person that I met was a 3Rd or 4the year asso who used to work in that market but transferred to a different market a year ago? Send them an email saying that I applied?

Plus, I was always wondering if and why super busy biglaw partners find time to meet law students. Smart students always apply to biglaws.

It doesn't hurt maybe they had a good relationship with HR. I had a first year associate friend, before she even started, give the HR lady she was on good terms with a heads up not to auto delete my app. I don't know if it helped but I got a CB with the firm.

Anonymous User wrote:It doesn't hurt maybe they had a good relationship with HR. I had a first year associate friend, before she even started, give the HR lady she was on good terms with a heads up not to auto delete my app. I don't know if it helped but I got a CB with the firm.

Good advice. Can you share how you indirectly asked your said friend? "Hey can you tell your HR not to auto delete my application" is not applicable in my case, since I am not close to this asso at all.

My friend was a friend of 10 years so I didn't have to indirectly ask. It was literally, "Sup applied to your firm, want to tell HR not to auto delete my app lol." To my surprise she texted back saying, "Tight with HR sent an e-mail good luck."

I'd just tell the assoc you enjoyed meeting them and that you emailed HR your resume. You don't need to tell them to contact HR for you they will get the hint.