Pre-OCI 2020 Forum

[Anonymous User]

I sit on the hiring committee for a V50 firm’s DC office. We will be doing pre-OCI with targeted outreach to those who’ve expressed interest. Probably November, although we haven’t been given exact timing. No indication that we will be doing 3L hiring.

[Anonymous User]

Questions this general are sort of silly. It depends on the market, your prior work experience, your ties to firms, your law school, if you are URM, etc.

Christ, no need to be so condescending about it. Sorry that my first-gen URM ass doesn't know as much as someone working at a ~NYC~ ~V10~.

[Anonymous User]

Questions this general are sort of silly. It depends on the market, your prior work experience, your ties to firms, your law school, if you are URM, etc.

Christ, no need to be so condescending about it. Sorry that my first-gen URM ass doesn't know as much as someone working at a ~NYC~ ~V10~.

Anecdotally, if you are a URM you are very in demand, even below median, for many firms as long as that firm does OCI at your school already. You've also got really nothing to lose by sending out your documents to firms that don't interview at your school as long as you don't embarrass yourself with your app materials.

[biglaw_advice]

FWIW, I'm on the recruiting committee of a V100 and OCIs have been pushed to December/January and will likely be entirely remote. Feel free to ask any questions here and I'll try to answer. In case it helps here's some tips I wrote on interviews: https://biglawadvice.com/2019/06/27/5-t ... nterviews/

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I'm on the recruiting committee of a V100 and OCIs have been pushed to December/January and will likely be entirely remote. Feel free to ask any questions here and I'll try to answer. In case it helps here's some tips I wrote on interviews: https://biglawadvice.com/2019/06/27/5-t ... nterviews/

Do you think you will struggle to get a good "feel" for candidates over Zoom? If so, will this make grades more important than a normal year?

[biglaw_advice]

FWIW, I'm on the recruiting committee of a V100 and OCIs have been pushed to December/January and will likely be entirely remote. Feel free to ask any questions here and I'll try to answer. In case it helps here's some tips I wrote on interviews: https://biglawadvice.com/2019/06/27/5-t ... nterviews/

Do you think you will struggle to get a good "feel" for candidates over Zoom? If so, will this make grades more important than a normal year?

Yes - absolutely, it will be tough to get a good feel over zoom. After doing OCIs for a few years now, so much of our evaluation is based on a gut feeling (I think whether we want it to be or not) based on that in the room interaction. I think grades and work experience will be much more important this year. One way I think about each candidate is how do I "sell" this student to the hiring partner when I come back to the office and have to make my case for the top 3 or top 5 from my round of OCIs. Looking back, many times I say they are a strong interviewer and would present well in front of a client. I think I'll be able to pick up on that to some degree over zoom but what's on the resume will carry more weight this year.

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I'm on the recruiting committee of a V100 and OCIs have been pushed to December/January and will likely be entirely remote. Feel free to ask any questions here and I'll try to answer. In case it helps here's some tips I wrote on interviews: https://biglawadvice.com/2019/06/27/5-t ... nterviews/

Do you think you will struggle to get a good "feel" for candidates over Zoom? If so, will this make grades more important than a normal year?

Yes - absolutely, it will be tough to get a good feel over zoom. After doing OCIs for a few years now, so much of our evaluation is based on a gut feeling (I think whether we want it to be or not) based on that in the room interaction. I think grades and work experience will be much more important this year. One way I think about each candidate is how do I "sell" this student to the hiring partner when I come back to the office and have to make my case for the top 3 or top 5 from my round of OCIs. Looking back, many times I say they are a strong interviewer and would present well in front of a client. I think I'll be able to pick up on that to some degree over zoom but what's on the resume will carry more weight this year.

Any suggestions on how spin being a k-jd into a positive (or at least not a negative)?

[biglaw_advice]

FWIW, I'm on the recruiting committee of a V100 and OCIs have been pushed to December/January and will likely be entirely remote. Feel free to ask any questions here and I'll try to answer. In case it helps here's some tips I wrote on interviews: https://biglawadvice.com/2019/06/27/5-t ... nterviews/

Do you think you will struggle to get a good "feel" for candidates over Zoom? If so, will this make grades more important than a normal year?

Yes - absolutely, it will be tough to get a good feel over zoom. After doing OCIs for a few years now, so much of our evaluation is based on a gut feeling (I think whether we want it to be or not) based on that in the room interaction. I think grades and work experience will be much more important this year. One way I think about each candidate is how do I "sell" this student to the hiring partner when I come back to the office and have to make my case for the top 3 or top 5 from my round of OCIs. Looking back, many times I say they are a strong interviewer and would present well in front of a client. I think I'll be able to pick up on that to some degree over zoom but what's on the resume will carry more weight this year.

Any suggestions on how spin being a k-jd into a positive (or at least not a negative)?

For sure, I would emphasize internships and expand on what you did this summer with more bullet points on your resume and more talking points in your interview. Try to accentuate even the smaller things you did and think of any ways you can draw parallels to working at a firm. K-JDs are still perfectly fine (we hire about half K-JDs and half with some work experience, typically around 2-3 years) but as you know, grades will matter much more.

[Anonymous User]

How will you guys view 1L Grades compared to 2L grades? Especially at a school like Columbia where the 1L and 2L curves are different.

[Anonymous User]

Is pre-OCI a thing for people with mediocre grades?

(T14, below median with 1 semester's worth of grades + 1 semester P/F)

Questions this general are sort of silly. It depends on the market, your prior work experience, your ties to firms, your law school, if you are URM, etc.

Conventional wisdom is that you should mass-mail / reach out to contacts, because 1.) you never know who will bite and 2.) there's no downside to doing so unless you catastrophically fuck up somehow.

FWIW my NYC v10 wouldn't bite on any < median without someone at the firm really going to bat for them, clear interest in a practice where we have trouble getting people (e.g. exec comp), or really compelling work experience (i.e. ibanking, buyside anything, 1L firm job).

Sorry if I responded incorrectly (novice poster) but is this true for HYSCCN?

[Anonymous User]

Is pre-OCI a thing for people with mediocre grades?

Sorry if I responded incorrectly (novice poster) but is this true for HYSCCN?

In response to this OP, pre-OCI is a thing with less than mediocre grades. I know someone who had 3.1 at CCN who got 4 offers before OCI with a decent amount of networking. They were not V10s, but any offer helps you cut firms significantly below them from the bidlist and frees you up mentally at OCI to prepare more and thus perform better on fewer interviews. This was 2019 OCI so this year may be different. Regardless, you should make the effort.

[Anonymous User]

Any offer movement? I'm aware of pre-oci interviews in TX but have yet to hear about (non SA) offers. Also, has NY/CA shown any interview or offer movement at all?

[Anonymous User]

Sorry if I responded incorrectly (novice poster) but is this true for HYSCCN?

Especially if you're in the T14, you lose nothing by trying to do pre-OCI broadly. No firm is going to look negatively on you for applying. (I know of numerous stories of people getting rejected for pre-OCI interviews and then getting an offer through OCI.) Your school will never do anything to fuck over your career, so any consequences they threaten for doing pre-OCI are fake.

That said (I was at a CCN and targeted NYC several years ago) consensus was that top 1/3rd at my CCN was when you would really start getting results from pre-OCI. But as the poster above me noted, if you apply broadly you can reasonably expect at least a couple of bites.

Any offer movement? I'm aware of pre-oci interviews in TX but have yet to hear about (non SA) offers. Also, has NY/CA shown any interview or offer movement at all?

As far as I'm aware there has been no NY interview or offer movement as of yet. My firm is telling good candidates who ask that if we do pre-OCI it'll be in Sept / Oct and we'll reach out to them then.

[letsee456]

Any offer movement? I'm aware of pre-oci interviews in TX but have yet to hear about (non SA) offers. Also, has NY/CA shown any interview or offer movement at all?

As far as I'm aware there has been no NY interview or offer movement as of yet. My firm is telling good candidates who ask that if we do pre-OCI it'll be in Sept / Oct and we'll reach out to them then.

Mind sharing firm approximate rank?

[Anonymous User]

Any offer movement? I'm aware of pre-oci interviews in TX but have yet to hear about (non SA) offers. Also, has NY/CA shown any interview or offer movement at all?

As far as I'm aware there has been no NY interview or offer movement as of yet. My firm is telling good candidates who ask that if we do pre-OCI it'll be in Sept / Oct and we'll reach out to them then.

Mind sharing firm approximate rank?

NYC V10

[Anonymous User]

Any offer movement? I'm aware of pre-oci interviews in TX but have yet to hear about (non SA) offers. Also, has NY/CA shown any interview or offer movement at all?

As far as I'm aware there has been no NY interview or offer movement as of yet. My firm is telling good candidates who ask that if we do pre-OCI it'll be in Sept / Oct and we'll reach out to them then.

Mind sharing firm approximate rank?

NYC V10

I had a similar conversation with the hiring partner for my school at a v10 earlier this summer. Granted, I was already in touch previously. Not sure if it is the same firm, but I figured I would put the data point out there. I am what TLS would consider a very strong candidate.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone caught wind of Baker Botts Interviews? I have not verified this yet but apparently callbacks at Akin Gump.

[Anonymous User]

^ Radio silence from Baker Botts on my end.

Anyone have any guesses as to what kind of response deadline pre-OCI offers will have this year? Classmates with better credentials have had callbacks already. None of them have said they've had offers yet, but it seems firms would want to snatch up top candidates with short offer response timelines.

[Anonymous User]

Received an offer from a NYC V25 last week

[Anonymous User]

Work at a high end lit boutique in DC. We are participating at ongoing OCIs (at least one of the CCN) and will be making offers shortly.

[purplegoldtornado]

I hear people talking about firms utilizing OCIs so that they can take the cream of the crop, but is it also useful for those with top grades at a low ranked law school and outside of the school's market?

[Anonymous User]

Received an offer from a NYC V25 last week

Was this through mass mail, direct apply through website, or did you do prior networking/the firm reached out to school for resumes?

Also if you feel comfortable sharing any vague school/GPA band I'm all ears.

[Anonymous User]

Received an offer from a NYC V25 last week

Was this through mass mail, direct apply through website, or did you do prior networking/the firm reached out to school for resumes?

Also if you feel comfortable sharing any vague school/GPA band I'm all ears.

Had connected with some attorneys from the firm during 1L, direct applied through their website, had a screener and "callback" both over video.

[Anonymous User]

Any other movement? Been hearing that firms are starting to accept apps but unsure if actually true.

[Anonymous User]

Any other movement? Been hearing that firms are starting to accept apps but unsure if actually true.

Have heard of movement in Texas. Haven't heard anything about other major markets. Maybe 1 or 2 offers in NYC but hard to verify...