4.0 at mid T14 - How selective can I be with OCI interviews? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I would like to avoid the craze of OCI week as much as possible and not do screeners until I'm red in the face. But also, the risk-averse voice in the back of my head is telling me to pick up as many screeners as possible. I'm mainly targeting DC (Cov, W&C, Wilmer, A&P, Gibson, Hogan).

Do my grades afford me the luxury of being a bit selective with interviews? Can I "bank" on at least some CBs with these firms? How many screeners would be overkill?

[Goldie]

It's so much harder to pick up additional interviews outside the formal processes, so I would err on the side of doing more interviews to ensure you come out of the process with a job. OCI can be unpredictable and very good candidates sometimes do not get offers where one might expect them to.

I got the opposite advice going into OCI (#1 at a ~T30 school so, to be fair, not the same position as you) and so applied to only some DC firms, but found myself without any offers from the firms I had OCI interviews with and had to hustle after the fact for a couple months before finally getting a couple offers in DC.

[Anonymous User]

No. Especially if you’re not at UVA, you can’t count on anything in DC. It’s a very selective market. I would bid as many as you can—there’s very little downside and I know multiple people who eventually got feederish clerkships who ended up at “lower-tier” offices and/or nearly struck out.

And in any case your list of top choices is poor—if you want to do elite lit there are a lot of great offices down the Vault rankings, which are bad for DC. E.g. Jenner, King & Spalding, MTO (good luck lol), Paul Weiss, O’Melveny. And applying in DC nobody can afford to miss Latham, Jones Day, Kirkland, and Sidley, which have very strong DC offices with relatively large class sizes.

[Anonymous User]

Do my grades afford me the luxury of being a bit selective with interviews? Can I "bank" on at least some CBs with these firms?

Absolutely not. I know people with the same grades plus federal clerkships at higher-ranked schools that almost struck out or did strike out in DC. I had the same GPA at a higher-ranked school and only got CBs at 2 of the firms you listed (both ultimately did turn into offers, though). The class sizes and institutional priorities (both in practice areas and demographics) create far too much unpredictability for anyone to consider even a single DC offer a done deal.

[Anonymous User]

Do all the screeners. DC is brutal. I have a feeder clerkship and struggled to land anything in DC.

[Anonymous User]

While everyone is right to point out that you shouldn't assume you have it in the bag (since DC hiring is a bit more unpredictable), I will say that if you're a solid interviewer and you have a decent reason for wanting to come to DC, I don't think you'll have a super hard time.

I have a few buddies who went to Michigan who had solid but not top grades (like, 3.4-5ish) who had no problem landing multiple offers at the not-quite-best-but-still-great DC firms. So maybe not W&C and Wilmerhale but like all the firms the next level down (Gibson, Hogan, A&P, Skadden, etc). With your grades (and if you're a friendly person), I think you can go into interviews feeling confident.

[hdr]

Do as many screeners as possible. Lots of people with great grades either strike out in DC or only get offers from lower-ranked firms. Some who strike out never recover and end up as career attorneys for the social security administration--don't let that be you. Don't be selective about where you interview until you have an offer.

[Anonymous User]

Do all the screeners. DC is brutal. I have a feeder clerkship and struggled to land anything in DC.

Ditto. I was an idiot with your grades at a better school, later got a feeder, no ties, limited my interview list to the top ~15 because I was hitting several markets, and got three callbacks and one offer. I have two other friends who had superb grades/clerkships who only got one offer. All of us ended up at top DC firms but it's highly random, not at all like New York where if your grades are good enough you can count on getting offers from many firms. Offices are small, it's an incredibly competitive market, lit groups are more selective than regulatory or transactional, some firms actually do care about ties (mine mostly hired from Georgetown and UVA), etc.

[Anonymous User]

While everyone is right to point out that you shouldn't assume you have it in the bag (since DC hiring is a bit more unpredictable), I will say that if you're a solid interviewer and you have a decent reason for wanting to come to DC, I don't think you'll have a super hard time.

I have a few buddies who went to Michigan who had solid but not top grades (like, 3.4-5ish) who had no problem landing multiple offers at the not-quite-best-but-still-great DC firms. So maybe not W&C and Wilmerhale but like all the firms the next level down (Gibson, Hogan, A&P, Skadden, etc). With your grades (and if you're a friendly person), I think you can go into interviews feeling confident.

I don’t know much about the DC market so this is a genuine question. Are W&C (White & Case or Williams & Connolly?) and WilmerHale considered stronger than Gibson and Skadden, at least in DC? I know they’re all great firms but was wondering since Gibson and Skadden are always so highly ranked on Vault.

[Anonymous User]

While everyone is right to point out that you shouldn't assume you have it in the bag (since DC hiring is a bit more unpredictable), I will say that if you're a solid interviewer and you have a decent reason for wanting to come to DC, I don't think you'll have a super hard time.

I have a few buddies who went to Michigan who had solid but not top grades (like, 3.4-5ish) who had no problem landing multiple offers at the not-quite-best-but-still-great DC firms. So maybe not W&C and Wilmerhale but like all the firms the next level down (Gibson, Hogan, A&P, Skadden, etc). With your grades (and if you're a friendly person), I think you can go into interviews feeling confident.

I don’t know much about the DC market so this is a genuine question. Are W&C (White & Case or Williams & Connolly?) and WilmerHale considered stronger than Gibson and Skadden, at least in DC? I know they’re all great firms but was wondering since Gibson and Skadden are always so highly ranked on Vault.

W&C is presumably referring to Williams and Connolly. Skadden’s office is quite new and expanding quickly, but basically all of the firms listed above have “preftige” and are going to want to see top grades. The above post is pretty inaccurate and a fairly odd list (leaving out Covington for example).

But overall, DC firms are attainable for anyone in the top third of their class from the T-14 with ties. The issue is that “attainable” does not mean “likely.” So if you are in the top third at NYU, you are almost guaranteed a V10 offer (and likely multiple) in NYC unless you are the world’s worst interviewer. But if you go into 20 DC interviews discussing your love of appellate litigation, you could strike out, and will likely have a stressful time. DC hiring is just idiosyncratic.

Edit: to clarify Skadden’s DC office is not new (I’m sure it’s been around for decades), I meant they’ve been expanding the appellate litigation group with big new hires.

[Anonymous User]

While everyone is right to point out that you shouldn't assume you have it in the bag (since DC hiring is a bit more unpredictable), I will say that if you're a solid interviewer and you have a decent reason for wanting to come to DC, I don't think you'll have a super hard time.

I have a few buddies who went to Michigan who had solid but not top grades (like, 3.4-5ish) who had no problem landing multiple offers at the not-quite-best-but-still-great DC firms. So maybe not W&C and Wilmerhale but like all the firms the next level down (Gibson, Hogan, A&P, Skadden, etc). With your grades (and if you're a friendly person), I think you can go into interviews feeling confident.

I don’t know much about the DC market so this is a genuine question. Are W&C (White & Case or Williams & Connolly?) and WilmerHale considered stronger than Gibson and Skadden, at least in DC? I know they’re all great firms but was wondering since Gibson and Skadden are always so highly ranked on Vault.

Williams & Connolly, Wilmer, Gibson, and Kellogg are probably the top DC firms for appellate/white collar/general commercial lit (the idea that Wilmer is somehow better than Gibson is ridiculous). Skadden is not a major DC firm; they only have a very small DC office. The fact that this person is comparing Gibson and Skadden shows they really don't understanding the DC market, and I very much doubt many people at Michigan with 3.5s are landing any of the firms mentioned. For reference, at my YSH, W&C, Gibson, and Wilmer's 25th percentile offer was like top 15% and their median offer was top 10%, while A&P's were like top 25% and 15% respectively, and Hogan was like top 40%/30%. Skadden DC had much lower cutoffs (its the only listed DC firm where someone with a 3.5 from Michigan could even come close).

This is all to say that the original poster has absolutely no idea what they are talking about and that DC firms are very tough to break into.

[gontid]

While everyone is right to point out that you shouldn't assume you have it in the bag (since DC hiring is a bit more unpredictable), I will say that if you're a solid interviewer and you have a decent reason for wanting to come to DC, I don't think you'll have a super hard time.

I have a few buddies who went to Michigan who had solid but not top grades (like, 3.4-5ish) who had no problem landing multiple offers at the not-quite-best-but-still-great DC firms. So maybe not W&C and Wilmerhale but like all the firms the next level down (Gibson, Hogan, A&P, Skadden, etc). With your grades (and if you're a friendly person), I think you can go into interviews feeling confident.

I don’t know much about the DC market so this is a genuine question. Are W&C (White & Case or Williams & Connolly?) and WilmerHale considered stronger than Gibson and Skadden, at least in DC? I know they’re all great firms but was wondering since Gibson and Skadden are always so highly ranked on Vault.

Williams & Connolly, Wilmer, Gibson, and Kellogg are probably the top DC firms for appellate/white collar/general commercial lit (the idea that Wilmer is somehow better than Gibson is ridiculous). Skadden is not a major DC firm; they only have a very small DC office. The fact that this person is comparing Gibson and Skadden shows they really don't understanding the DC market, and I very much doubt many people at Michigan with 3.5s are landing any of the firms mentioned. For reference, at my YSH, W&C, Gibson, and Wilmer's 25th percentile offer was like top 15% and their median offer was top 10%, while A&P's were like top 25% and 15% respectively, and Hogan was like top 40%/30%. Skadden DC had much lower cutoffs (its the only listed DC firm where someone with a 3.5 from Michigan could even come close).

This is all to say that the original poster has absolutely no idea what they are talking about and that DC firms are very tough to break into.

Skadden has a "small" DC office lol. Why say something demonstrably false? They have 271 attorneys in the DC office while Gibson Dunn has 238 and WilmerHale has 320.

[Anonymous User]

It's not true that Skadden is small but it is true that it's not a "major DC shop" imo because it's so transactional-focused. Like on Chambers it's a top firm for M&A, antitrust, and tax but Band 3 for general commercial lit, Band 4 for white collar, and (for now) nothing for appellate. And almost all DC gunners are there for lit, which is what drives the selectivity of the lit spots at these firms, and why Skadden DC is relatively promiscuous with offers (though of course it's still pickier than Skadden NY).