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I'm originally from the area, so ties are not a concern. Will a median at T-14 net me one of the firms in SF/PA? How competitive is the NoCal market compared to NY?

Depends what t14. It's super competitive compared to nyc. I doubt you're getting Sf/pa from median at gtown or what have you. I'm at H and ppl at median here have had some success so far but not nearly as much as nyc.

Anonymous User wrote:Depends what t14. It's super competitive compared to nyc. I doubt you're getting Sf/pa from median at gtown or what have you. I'm at H and ppl at median here have had some success so far but not nearly as much as nyc.

I see. That was my instinct but wanted to get the latest news. Would some of the outposts of NY-based firms be less competitive than the native firms (i.e. Fenwick, WSGR, Cooley, etc.)? Vice versa? MVPB here, by the way.

SF and SV are competitive, due in large part to the smaller class sizes of the area firms. Generally, you'll find more litigation work in SF and more corporate work in the Valley, but that's not a hard and fast rule. Also generally, the native firms tend to be SV-based aside from MoFo, so you'll find larger classes in Palo Alto/Menlo Park. As you can imagine, SV is less desirable on the whole to students who often prefer to live in cities, so combining that with the larger class sizes, I definitely think it's safe to say that your odds are strongest targeting local firms in their Valley offices (most local firms, like MoFo, Orrick, WSGR, etc. have both SV and SF offices).

I went to Boalt and did OCI while looking at Bay Area firms, but I was interested in a more NYC-style corporate practice, and I didn't feel like there was a lot of that. I also had 0 interest in working in PA/MP. I had no ties other than school, but did feel they were important to interviewers.

Tl;dr: If you're really interested in the Bay Area, I'd bid like the largest 3 classes in SV and that's it. Maximize your odds but don't put too many eggs in the Bay basket.

NorCal is extremely hard to get into, even local firms only take 12 summers.