PI resume tanks Biglaw chances? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I have top grades at a T20 school but with a pretty extensive resume in public interest work. The few screeners and callbacks that I did in a major market all wanted to tell me about their strong commitment to public interest, their extensive pro bono work, blah blah. Then I get dings from all of them, even though the interviews all went smoothly, very conversational, and flowing and positive comments throughout and at the end.

But did my PI-heavy resume kill me or should I reassess my interviewing skills?

Plus, TLS made me think that based on my grades, I'd be getting many more invites to interview than I have. Only 2 callbacks.

[BrainsyK]

Most people will go into OCI with only one PI experience so I doubt that's the problem.

1. Did you bid badly?
2. Did you talk a bunch about PI with them?
3. What's "top?"
4. Did you have ties in the markets you bid?

[QContinuum]

Most people will go into OCI with only one PI experience so I doubt that's the problem.

1. Did you bid badly?
2. Did you talk a bunch about PI with them?
3. What's "top?"
4. Did you have ties in the markets you bid?

Also, which T20? Minnesota placed less than 24% of the class of '17 in BigLaw/federal clerkships, which means even top quarter/top fifth students at Minnesota are in substantial danger of striking out at OCI. You'd likely need top 10% to really be "safe," grades-wise.

[Anonymous User]

Most people will go into OCI with only one PI experience so I doubt that's the problem.

1. Did you bid badly?
2. Did you talk a bunch about PI with them?
3. What's "top?"
4. Did you have ties in the markets you bid?

OP here

1. I don't think so
2. Yes, which might have killed me. I felt like they were trying to prove to me that they cared about PI/pro bono so I went with it.
4. Top 3-5%
5. Yes.

By PI resume, I mean the only experience on there was PI work and about 5 previous positions.

[Anonymous User]

OP again.

But I'm also surprised by how few screeners I have gotten based on grades. Career services checked my cover letter and resume before I sent them off. The only thing I can think of is that my resume screams "public interest"

[QContinuum]

2. Yes, which might have killed me. I felt like they were trying to prove to me that they cared about PI/pro bono so I went with it.

Given top 3-5% at a T20, I agree that the talk about PI probably did you in. Firms are out to make bank. Talk about PI is meant to make themselves more attractive to students, along with talk about summer program activities, vacation/benefits offered, etc. But at the end of the day, firms are looking for folks interested in private practice - not folks who want to do PI (or folks who're looking forward to taking full advantage of the "unlimited vacation" policy, or folks who can't wait to take advantage of the open bar, etc.).

Mass mail NYC immediately (if you haven't already been doing so) and any other markets where you have ties. And esp. given your resume's PI bent, avoid discussing PI like the plague in any future interviews. Talk up how much you want private practice.

[Anonymous User]

2. Yes, which might have killed me. I felt like they were trying to prove to me that they cared about PI/pro bono so I went with it.

Given top 3-5% at a T20, I agree that the talk about PI probably did you in. Firms are out to make bank. Talk about PI is meant to make themselves more attractive to students, along with talk about summer program activities, vacation/benefits offered, etc. But at the end of the day, firms are looking for folks interested in private practice - not folks who want to do PI (or folks who're looking forward to taking full advantage of the "unlimited vacation" policy, or folks who can't wait to take advantage of the open bar, etc.).

Mass mail NYC immediately (if you haven't already been doing so) and any other markets where you have ties. And esp. given your resume's PI bent, avoid discussing PI like the plague in any future interviews. Talk up how much you want private practice.

Career services told me that the door is pretty much closed for biglaw in NYC and DC by now. ?

[BrainsyK]

Career services told me that the door is pretty much closed for biglaw in NYC and DC by now. ?

Nope. Start mailing tonight. You're still a fairly valuable candidate.

[BlackAndOrange84]

Talk up how much you want private practice.

Just to be clear, this doesn't just mean talking about wanting private practice but giving a coherent explanation for why someone who has obviously been heavily invested in PI wants to do private practice.

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I'm a KJD with an exclusively PI background and I got through OCI alright. I did get asked "Why Biglaw?" a lot, but most people accepted my pretty generic "As much as I enjoyed my time in PI organizations, I realized that I want to work on more sophisticated matters with sophisticated clients, as well as the kind of resources that you can only really get in Biglaw" answer. Sometimes I threw in "also I want to train as a generalist and not get pigeonholed into one practice area." I did however scrupulously avoid asking about pro bono during interviews, and even when interviewers brought up a pro bono case they did I kept the discussion pretty short.

[Anonymous User]

I have top grades at a T20 school but with a pretty extensive resume in public interest work. The few screeners and callbacks that I did in a major market all wanted to tell me about their strong commitment to public interest, their extensive pro bono work, blah blah. Then I get dings from all of them, even though the interviews all went smoothly, very conversational, and flowing and positive comments throughout and at the end.

But did my PI-heavy resume kill me or should I reassess my interviewing skills?

Plus, TLS made me think that based on my grades, I'd be getting many more invites to interview than I have. Only 2 callbacks.

Hey there, average grades in a T14 here, and with a similar background to yourself - 5 PI positions on my resume, most of it pretty extreme stuff. I got a healthy amount of callbacks and did alright with them.

A PI-heavy resume won't kill you, but if you don't make it work for you, it'll work against you. When you have the sort of resume that we have, your interviewers are going to start talking to you about PI work - makes for an easy conversation and it's all they've got to go on, but you're not necessarily selling them what they want to buy.

- If they start focussing the conversation on PI/pro bono stuff, steer the conversation toward the area of practice you're interested in. Their baseline assumption is that you're not really into this, so you have to be pro-active and intentional about making sure you have thought about the direction you're going in and why, and centering the discussion around that. Be enthusiastic as hell.

- Its natural for them to be skeptical. More or less every interview I had (and I was interviewed by ~70 attys over all) asked me at some point "So you've done all this stuff, why the hell do you want to do BigLaw?" Have a convincing answer. I generally went for something along the lines of "I started doing human rights work when I was in my early 20s. I'm never not going to be interested in social justice, but I feel like I achieved what I set out to achieve for myself, and its the right time to move on and start building a more stable life." I told some of them straight up that I burned out, and to the extent that I want to be contributing in the near future to the causes I used to fight for, my most effective contribution would be monetary.

-Be able to tell a convincing story about how you got to the choices you have. If you're transactional, then what you really loved about PI work, above the social mission, was the intensity of the work, the experience of the camaraderie working in teams toward a shared goal, the direct interaction you had with people, and, looking at the legal industry, really the place where those skills can be best expressed and you can keep that style of work is in M&A (or wherever the fuck). If you're litigation, you loved the fact that you were engaged in a cause, and in fighting for that cause you had to be diligent, you had to investigate every possibility before moving ahead because the stakes were high and had genuine impacts on the people you were working on behalf of. Think of it in terms of client focus. I found an effective line (and a genuine one) is that working in PI, you're always working with less resources than you need - so you have to be inventive and resourceful, and you get to take on whichever responsibilities you feel able to do - its always all hands on deck. You're pro-active, energetic, and you want to take responsibility. That stuff is really transferable - the people skills, the work ethic, the responsibility, the analytic/systems thinking skills, the goal-focused work. Just make sure you highlight your work experience with regard to these professional skills.

-One of the great things about PI work is that you've probably done way cooler, higher-stakes, responsible stuff than most people you're competing against. You'll be memorable. That makes great for great illustrative stories about challenges faced, teams led, decisions reached, and so on. Don't be afraid to use those stories, because they'll stand out. On the other hand, as above, make sure these stories are illustrating why you've got the skills they need, not that you're really only interested in social justice work.

- Ultimately the aim is telling a story about yourself where the natural next step is that all your skills come together and you become a killer atty for their firm. Thats the same for all interviewees. You've just got a potentially much more unique, exciting, and impressive story to tell than someone who worked for a year in their Dad's accounting firm.

So, TL:DR version is, utilize the stories and be proud of the experiences, but in a framework of professional skills exactly suited to whatever you're going for. If you're just talking about pro-bono and social missions, you're a risky proposition that they're not going to bet on. But if you tell them what PI work is like, and the skills you get in it, that stuff is actually really transferable and will make you memorable. Just keep it coming back to why this stuff is suited to being in Big Law (which it is). If all else fails, make them laugh, tell them you've got karma to burn*. Hasta la victoria siempre herman@.

* Don't do that, thats my line.

[lavarman84]

2. Yes, which might have killed me. I felt like they were trying to prove to me that they cared about PI/pro bono so I went with it.

Given top 3-5% at a T20, I agree that the talk about PI probably did you in. Firms are out to make bank. Talk about PI is meant to make themselves more attractive to students, along with talk about summer program activities, vacation/benefits offered, etc. But at the end of the day, firms are looking for folks interested in private practice - not folks who want to do PI (or folks who're looking forward to taking full advantage of the "unlimited vacation" policy, or folks who can't wait to take advantage of the open bar, etc.).

Mass mail NYC immediately (if you haven't already been doing so) and any other markets where you have ties. And esp. given your resume's PI bent, avoid discussing PI like the plague in any future interviews. Talk up how much you want private practice.

Career services told me that the door is pretty much closed for biglaw in NYC and DC by now. ?

Ignore career services' bullshit. Worst case scenario, you wasted time applying to a bunch of firms. But there are still firms hiring. And there will still be firms interviewing even into next month. There are far fewer slots. There are far fewer firms hiring. But they're still out there. Don't get discouraged. Apply as widely as possible. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And offering an anecdote, a friend of mine landed a SA position at Weil after interviewing in late September or early October (that was when the screener was) when I was a 2L.

[Anonymous User]

I had the same issues during OCI and callbacks. When asked "why private practice", I just pulled out the parts of public interest work I like and showed them how it all fit into private practice.

So, I liked A and B from job 1. I loved C from job 2. Biglaw has A, B, and C. What's not to like?

It seemed to satisfy most interviewers.

[imnottelling]

Have seven years of PI work, specifically granola-eating, protest-sign-carrying animal rights work (not PETA). Top grades at what was at the time a T50 (now closer to T25). Had over 5 big law offers and now at a V10 in NYC.

As others have said, you need to be able to steer the conversation about not your previous PI work and when that work is brought up, explain how that work would make you a great lawyer and a great lawyer for them (driven, resource-conscious, ability to work with limited supervision, more responsibility faster). When I was in law school, I thought I wanted to do PI work and I told a law firm partner that. He said he never felt getting bad about being compensated for the work he does--something I never got in PI work. I brought that up in interviews and it actually got better reception than I expected. These attorneys have trained and have spent years honing their skills, and they should be compensated for it. I think they appreciated my desire to be in their shoes as well. I also asked a lot of questions about the firm, including about their pro bono activities. When asking about pro bono, I tried to make sure to keep the theme--that pro bono work can help you become a better lawyer faster.

Also, how many years of work experience do you have? 5 PI jobs over 5-8 years means hopping around a lot. You may have wanted to address that aspect of things.

Finally, I might suggest taking a hard look at your interview skills. It seems like this thread has a number of people who did well with Biglaw despite their PI work. Did those interview really go as well as you remember them?

[Anonymous User]

I had a bit lower school, higher stats. I did get a couple offers, but I do think my PI heavy in a particular area hurt me (or to be fair, I sometimes didn't utilize my PI background well enough). Firms did the same thing with me talking about their pro bono programs, and I did my best to weave it in. I ended up somewhere that has a pro bono program far above the average big law firm, so that is good.

If you still want big law (or anything outside of the PI world), you should keep applying, but also focus on maximizing your resume now. Get a good internship (federal government is fine, I think, even though it's public service. maybe judicial. or anything else really). RA for a prof. Basically get some other legal work on your resume to balance out the PI. It will make it more plausible to interviewers that the PI did give you some transferable skills, but you are looking to do something else now. If you can get an internship for this semester to add to the top of the resume--even though you won't have gained skills from it yet--it will show that you are serious about branching out.

I have top grades at a T20 school but with a pretty extensive resume in public interest work. The few screeners and callbacks that I did in a major market all wanted to tell me about their strong commitment to public interest, their extensive pro bono work, blah blah. Then I get dings from all of them, even though the interviews all went smoothly, very conversational, and flowing and positive comments throughout and at the end.

But did my PI-heavy resume kill me or should I reassess my interviewing skills?

Plus, TLS made me think that based on my grades, I'd be getting many more invites to interview than I have. Only 2 callbacks.

Hey there, average grades in a T14 here, and with a similar background to yourself - 5 PI positions on my resume, most of it pretty extreme stuff. I got a healthy amount of callbacks and did alright with them.

A PI-heavy resume won't kill you, but if you don't make it work for you, it'll work against you. When you have the sort of resume that we have, your interviewers are going to start talking to you about PI work - makes for an easy conversation and it's all they've got to go on, but you're not necessarily selling them what they want to buy.

- If they start focussing the conversation on PI/pro bono stuff, steer the conversation toward the area of practice you're interested in. Their baseline assumption is that you're not really into this, so you have to be pro-active and intentional about making sure you have thought about the direction you're going in and why, and centering the discussion around that. Be enthusiastic as hell.

- Its natural for them to be skeptical. More or less every interview I had (and I was interviewed by ~70 attys over all) asked me at some point "So you've done all this stuff, why the hell do you want to do BigLaw?" Have a convincing answer. I generally went for something along the lines of "I started doing human rights work when I was in my early 20s. I'm never not going to be interested in social justice, but I feel like I achieved what I set out to achieve for myself, and its the right time to move on and start building a more stable life." I told some of them straight up that I burned out, and to the extent that I want to be contributing in the near future to the causes I used to fight for, my most effective contribution would be monetary.

-Be able to tell a convincing story about how you got to the choices you have. If you're transactional, then what you really loved about PI work, above the social mission, was the intensity of the work, the experience of the camaraderie working in teams toward a shared goal, the direct interaction you had with people, and, looking at the legal industry, really the place where those skills can be best expressed and you can keep that style of work is in M&A (or wherever the fuck). If you're litigation, you loved the fact that you were engaged in a cause, and in fighting for that cause you had to be diligent, you had to investigate every possibility before moving ahead because the stakes were high and had genuine impacts on the people you were working on behalf of. Think of it in terms of client focus. I found an effective line (and a genuine one) is that working in PI, you're always working with less resources than you need - so you have to be inventive and resourceful, and you get to take on whichever responsibilities you feel able to do - its always all hands on deck. You're pro-active, energetic, and you want to take responsibility. That stuff is really transferable - the people skills, the work ethic, the responsibility, the analytic/systems thinking skills, the goal-focused work. Just make sure you highlight your work experience with regard to these professional skills.

-One of the great things about PI work is that you've probably done way cooler, higher-stakes, responsible stuff than most people you're competing against. You'll be memorable. That makes great for great illustrative stories about challenges faced, teams led, decisions reached, and so on. Don't be afraid to use those stories, because they'll stand out. On the other hand, as above, make sure these stories are illustrating why you've got the skills they need, not that you're really only interested in social justice work.

- Ultimately the aim is telling a story about yourself where the natural next step is that all your skills come together and you become a killer atty for their firm. Thats the same for all interviewees. You've just got a potentially much more unique, exciting, and impressive story to tell than someone who worked for a year in their Dad's accounting firm.

So, TL:DR version is, utilize the stories and be proud of the experiences, but in a framework of professional skills exactly suited to whatever you're going for. If you're just talking about pro-bono and social missions, you're a risky proposition that they're not going to bet on. But if you tell them what PI work is like, and the skills you get in it, that stuff is actually really transferable and will make you memorable. Just keep it coming back to why this stuff is suited to being in Big Law (which it is). If all else fails, make them laugh, tell them you've got karma to burn*. Hasta la victoria siempre herman@.

* Don't do that, thats my line.

This is really good advice. I also agree with imnottelling's comments; if I remember correctly, I was more forthright in my better interviews that I at one point had planned on a career in PI.