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Hello,

Rising 2L URM at UCLA. I am really lost as to what path to take, and my career counselor is useless. I completely bombed my first year. I have a 2.9 right now. I took all advice by meeting with each professor during the first semester to see how I can improve, and applied their advice to second semester courses, but any improvements I made in the second semester made barely a dent.

Anyways, I just need advice on how to move forward. I'm still doing OCI this year, but I'm not hinging my hopes on that. My ultimate goal is to go in-house in entertainment. Do I even have a chance without biglaw? Any pathways outside of biglaw to successfully reaching my goal?

I'm very good at networking, and I'm hoping that some of my contacts in that respect might pan out for biglaw, but to be honest, I have no actual desire to do biglaw, I just want to do it as a pathway to in-house. If there is any way to bypass biglaw with my stats, I would be fine. Any and all help is super welcome.

Can't tell if flame or out of whack expectations.

As far as I know, entertainment is unicorn law. I think that biglaw is probably gonna be a stretch with a 2.9. Overall, I don't want to say give up on your dreams, but it's time to start firming up your backup plan because the path to in-house entertainment law is an uphill one for you.

If you're at UCLA, then you should be aiming for the mid-market/boutique entertainment firms. Big law, and especially entertainment big law, is going to be very hard with that GPA. By contrast, I have heard a number of stories from people who started at entertainment boutiques without good grades—it's all about networking. Look into Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump Aldisert (also, Cohen Gardner) and any other similar firms that you discover—you need to do this by leveraging contacts because entertainment firms often have little info posted online. Find UCLA alumni who work at these places by searching their websites or by talking to career services. Set up informational phone calls with associates. Ask for advice while conveying your enthusiasm for entertainment work. You should also contact any 3Ls you can find who are involved in the Entertainment Law Association (or Entertainment Law Review) and ask them about how to target the smaller entertainment firms and to introduce you to people they know.

Going straight in-house is a bad idea because it's extremely difficult to ever lateral/transition without having firm experience.

Another back-up plan: if you can't find any decent firm work next summer, perhaps aim for an in-house internship at a large entertainment company, raise your GPA during 2L, take as many entertainment classes as you can, and network constantly throughout the year. Then target the smaller entertainment firms again next year when your resume/GPA are better.