no-offered today Forum

[Anonymous User]

I was no-offered today. I am not comfortable outing my firm but it was a small satellite office on the West Coast of a firm in the V70s. I was told that the firm will not say I got no-offered if another firm calls, and four attorneys are willing to serve as good references for me. I was told I was no offered because I had a couple of mixed reviews (specifically 3 assignments out of about 18). I did close to 20 assignments and I was also told that the majority of my work was "excellent," but on some matters I could have used a bit more organization in my writing. This firm was supposedly 100% offer rate last year, so I am really confused about what I could have possibly done better. On the three assignments they mentioned specifically, I did a rework and got good feedback the second time around (didn't understand what was being asked of me at first, which I think had more to do with the attorneys being unclear than anything else). I am freaking out. I don' t go to a very highly ranked school and I think I am a shitty interviewer. I got this SA because I had a connection, and the connection is also extremely disappointed and was very happy with the work I did for her and has agreed to give me a great reference and talk to me further about my next move. I am top 22% at a school that is barely in the Top 50 in a very small market. I love this market, and would be happy to stay, but I don't even know how to go about this. I missed the 3L OCI cut off for my school and most of these firms hire very few attorneys and have small summer classes. I feel like I also missed the boat on clerkships. Any advice or insight on how to recover from this would be welcome.

[SmokeytheBear]

Feel shitty for a day. Process the feelings. This sucks and it sounds like you got kind of screwed. Don't deny yourself that and how you feel.

But then you gotta pick yourself up after that one day and start mass mailing with utter determination. Ask your connection at the firm--or someone in your law school's career office--if they can help you with your interview skills. You're going to be able to put that firm on your resume, which is great, but firms are going to wonder why it doesnt say "offer extended" after the firm's name. So come up with a narrative of why you don't want to work there so you have a story for when you are asked about it during an interview.

You're not dead in the water and you still have a shot. Process what happened and then move on. You got this.

[PeanutsNJam]

It's terrifying to know that you can get no-offered for making some mistakes on 3/20 assignments.

[SmokeytheBear]

It's terrifying to know that you can get no-offered for making some mistakes on 3/20 assignments.

It could be a bazillion things and that's just pretext. If he got the job through a connection and not through OCI, there might be some internal politics at work among the partners.

[Roy McAvoy]

It's terrifying to know that you can get no-offered for making some mistakes on 3/20 assignments.

[1styearlateral]

It's terrifying to know that you can get no-offered for making some mistakes on 3/20 assignments.

It could be a bazillion things and that's just pretext. If he got the job through a connection and not through OCI, there might be some internal politics at work among the partners.

This is likely what happened.

Just mass mail and just state that you enjoyed your summer at your 2L firm but are looking for opportunities doing XYZ because your 2L firm doesn't have that practice or something to that effect.

[Anonymous User]

my firm no-offered someone today in an east coast major market office. Wont out the firm, but similar vault ranking, so it may be the same firm. Was previously 100% offer rate

[SmokeytheBear]

Yeah we gotta remember that no offers happen. Just because you got the summer spot doesn't mean you can just show up and coast and go to lunches and expect to get a full time spot. OP seems like he got no-offered because of some pretext. But my current firm no-offered someone a few years ago because they just didn't participate in the summer program really at all--they did their work OK, but they didn't go to lunches, they didn't socialize with attorneys at the office, and they went to almost none of the events.

[Anonymous User]

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[Anonymous User]

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[Anonymous User]

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[SmokeytheBear]

OP and anon--i would delete those couple above posts as you 100% outted the firm.

[andythefir]

If summers regularly got no-offered for mixed reviews on 3 assignments, very few summers would get offers. It's not your fault, OP. That's office politics or business being down. It sucks, there's no way around it, and I'm sorry it happened to you.

I was no-offered my 2L summer. It's humiliating. You made all those connections to all those people, mentally checked out the real estate market, crunched the numbers re your salary, and now it's all up in smoke. There's also a "WTF, [other summer] sucked and still got an offer, I never really had a chance," and it's hard to not take it as an evaluation of your entire worth as a human.

My CDO was basically useless. To them, I basically was trying to crowd in on the government/public interest at the very end of the party. I applied to literally hundreds of jobs in all 50 states and got nothing.

If you want to work in a big firm, it's going to be tough. But if you're flexible you can find work. I ended up working in a DAs office, loving every second of it, and within 3 years I made it to bigfed. Be smart, flexible, and deliberate, and you'll land on your feet. Message me if you want contacts, I know of several rural NM places that are always hiring.

[TEIAM]

OP PM me. The same happened to me at the same firm and same office.