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Hello,

I'm having some issues deciding on what firm I'd like to go to. I am a 2L at a t14 school, I have a 4.03 and would like to litigate post graduation.

Other than that, I have no preferences as to location or how many hours I'd like to work.

Can anyone offer any advice? I'd like to take as much advantage of my current grades as possible to put myself in a great position.

Question is way too broad for anybody to give helpful advice. Have you done OCI yet? Where do you have callbacks?

Not really relevant to 2L recruiting, but if you maintain those grades, you have a good chance at a top clerkship. From there, an elite litigation boutique like Sussman might be a good fit.

You're going to have to do a little soul-searching and provide some more information for anyone to be helpful.

First, location. Where did you grow up? Where is law school? Do you want to be in NYC, in another big East Coast city, the midwest (e.g., Chicago), California, Texas, or a smaller market?

Relatedly, what are your goals? Do you want to make as much money working as hard as you can? Do you want a realistic shot at partner, or do you want to spend 4 years, pay off your loans, and then move to a smaller firm/government/in-house? If you're particularly interested in government, perhaps DC is the way to go.

Next, practice area. Outside of being pretty good at law school exams, do you have any passions/interests that should influence how you shape your career? Do you love technology -- maybe do patent, IP, or privacy. Do you love music/entertainment -- maybe head to LA to do that. Are you at all interested in criminal? Or how do you feel about internal investigations versus civil litigation? Are you interested in appellate litigation? If so, start thinking about Court of Appeals clerkships for after graduation.

I know it's hard to think about some of these big-picture questions, particularly if you're a 1L and if you went straight from college to law school without any meaningful work experience.

Anonymous User wrote:You're going to have to do a little soul-searching and provide some more information for anyone to be helpful.

First, location. Where did you grow up? Where is law school? Do you want to be in NYC, in another big East Coast city, the midwest (e.g., Chicago), California, Texas, or a smaller market?

Relatedly, what are your goals? Do you want to make as much money working as hard as you can? Do you want a realistic shot at partner, or do you want to spend 4 years, pay off your loans, and then move to a smaller firm/government/in-house? If you're particularly interested in government, perhaps DC is the way to go.

Next, practice area. Outside of being pretty good at law school exams, do you have any passions/interests that should influence how you shape your career? Do you love technology -- maybe do patent, IP, or privacy. Do you love music/entertainment -- maybe head to LA to do that. Are you at all interested in criminal? Or how do you feel about internal investigations versus civil litigation? Are you interested in appellate litigation? If so, start thinking about Court of Appeals clerkships for after graduation.

I know it's hard to think about some of these big-picture questions, particularly if you're a 1L and if you went straight from college to law school without any meaningful work experience.

I don't have preference as to location but I grew up in NY.

I suppose I'd just like to make money. I don't really care about how many hours I have work to do that.
I'm pretty interested in internal investigations, but would be content with any type of fact heavy litigation.

have you considered Kasowitz?

If you want to make the most of your grades, get a feeder CoA clerkship and gun for SCOTUS.

If you absolutely hate lit and only want corp, I guess Wachtell?

So broad but I'll bite. Have you ever done a job that truly involved a great deal of work outside of typical working hours? For years? I find a lot of law students think they just want to make a lot of money and don't care about hours and then get to Cravath and last a year or two at most.

I'm not a litigator, so I would leave that to others but there are a ton of lit focused firms people on here can recommend. But I would think you'd want to go to a great lit shop like Susman, or Boies, or even a larger firm like Paul Weiss, idk? Then a feeder clerkship, see if you can get to a SCOTUS clerkship, then back a firm? At that point maybe to Kirkland or Jones Day or whatever firm pays those huge SCOTUS/Appellate bonuses (again not a litigator/not sure).

Honestly, it just seems weird that you have such high grades and do not care to the level that you don't. That seems more like a corporate personality to me but idk. I always felt like litigators with top grades were more likely to go between DC firms and BigFed-type jobs and always make less than the corporate rainmaker. If you're serious about working killer hours until the day you die for millions of dollars I would think Wachtell/Cravath corporate would be the path for you.

Shouldn't you already be going through OCI and getting offers right now?

no point discussing specific firms until OP lays out what offers s/he has. plenty of people w/stellar grades at meh places because they're autistic weirdos, not like you can just assume s/he's getting Williams or w/e

Anonymous User wrote:Hello,

I'm having some issues deciding on what firm I'd like to go to. I am a 2L at a t14 school, I have a 4.03 and would like to litigate post graduation.

Other than that, I have no preferences as to location or how many hours I'd like to work.

Can anyone offer any advice? I'd like to take as much advantage of my current grades as possible to put myself in a great position.

You're not a good writer. Good writing is required of good litigators. You should try corporate.

Anonymous User wrote:Hello,

I'm having some issues deciding on what firm I'd like to go to. I am a 2L at a t14 school, I have a 4.03 and would like to litigate post graduation.

Other than that, I have no preferences as to location or how many hours I'd like to work.

Can anyone offer any advice? I'd like to take as much advantage of my current grades as possible to put myself in a great position.

"Great" is not some universal truth. You want to be in a great position to do what? To have kids? To make loads of money? To have all of your options open? What exactly is the goal?