Below Median Biglaw Interview/Targeting Tips Forum

[Enchanted19]

Hello everyone. I am a JD/MBA at a lower T14 (9-11). I am just finishing my first MBA year (did 1L last year) and will now be participating in OCI and trying to land a corporate biglaw gig. My GPA is below median, I am rocking a 3.19. The OCI process will begin in the next month or so (networking mostly), and I am trying to strategize where I should focus. Ideally, I'd like to be in Texas (I have decent ties). I have been doing some reading though and it seems the usual recommendation is to focus mostly on NY biglaw because it tends to be less grade sensitive. I have little to no interest in going to NY so I was wondering what tips anyone had to break into regional biglaw firms with a less than stellar GPA? Are TX biglaw firms worth applying to for me, or should I start targeting midlaw? Thanks in advance! If it's helpful, I am not URM but I am a veteran.

[Anonymous User]

Hello everyone. I am a JD/MBA at a lower T14 (9-11). I am just finishing my first MBA year (did 1L last year) and will now be participating in OCI and trying to land a corporate biglaw gig. My GPA is below median, I am rocking a 3.19. The OCI process will begin in the next month or so (networking mostly), and I am trying to strategize where I should focus. Ideally, I'd like to be in Texas (I have decent ties). I have been doing some reading though and it seems the usual recommendation is to focus mostly on NY biglaw because it tends to be less grade sensitive. I have little to no interest in going to NY so I was wondering what tips anyone had to break into regional biglaw firms with a less than stellar GPA? Are TX biglaw firms worth applying to for me, or should I start targeting midlaw? Thanks in advance! If it's helpful, I am not URM but I am a veteran.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness here - just spitballing some things that may be helpful.

Does career services at your school have a list of firms people got offers at in various GPA bands (or at least firms you would be competitive at in a particular grade band)? Mine did, and was hugely helpful for answering questions like this.

I don't know about your school specifically, but it sounds like you are slightly, but not significantly below median. Maybe above the bottom 20%? I don't think that disqualifies you from biglaw entirely. I know people who were in a similar situation from MVPB who somehow landed gigs in DC biglaw.

Do you have any ties to a particular city in Texas? If so, I would network the shit out of that city. Nobody knows your grades when you ping them and ask them to go get coffee, so if you can make a good impression they may be more forgiving of your GPA. Plus, I think Texas is somewhat less grade selective. I have a friend who landed STB in Texas who would have never received a second look at the mothership.

It doesn't hurt to bid some NYC biglaw as well, though don't waste your time aiming for prestige. If anything, you could spend a year in NYC and try to lateral to Texas. It's hard to tell what the market will do in a couple years, but if you were graduating now that's 100% doable.

Anyway, you don't have to pick a city/law firm just yet, so just start spreading your net wide and see what you pick up.

[Anonymous User]

Texas is definitely doable- come up with a good, believable pitch about how interested you are in energy and transactional work. Also probably stick to Houston and maybe Dallas- Austin is much tougher. Many people targeting Texas stick with their 1L firm and they aren't the most popular offices to bid on at T14 OCIs anyway, so you should have a good number of screeners. All it takes is one firm to really click with and your set.

The advice to bid heavy on NY is not wrong though. Focus on the firms with the biggest class sizes and within GPA bands your career services office should give you. You'll be in a much better position to lateral to a big TX firm after 2 years in NY than you ever will be from TX midlaw.

[Anonymous User]

Texas is definitely doable- come up with a good, believable pitch about how interested you are in energy and transactional work. Also probably stick to Houston and maybe Dallas- Austin is much tougher. Many people targeting Texas stick with their 1L firm and they aren't the most popular offices to bid on at T14 OCIs anyway, so you should have a good number of screeners. All it takes is one firm to really click with and your set.

The advice to bid heavy on NY is not wrong though. Focus on the firms with the biggest class sizes and within GPA bands your career services office should give you. You'll be in a much better position to lateral to a big TX firm after 2 years in NY than you ever will be from TX midlaw.

I'm the previous poster - agree with all of this. I didn't mean to suggest bid NYC heavy - just to put some big, not particularly selective firms in there as a backup. Maybe scroll through this list to see which ones have large numbers of attorneys with relatively low grade thresholds: https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2 ... f-lawyers/.

That said, if a firm has a Texas office, don't bid it in NYC unless the Texas office has like 5 attorneys in your area of interest, or the NYC office is FAR less selective (you could start in NYC and transfer in firm). Not sure if there are any firms that fit that bill, but worth confirming.

[Anonymous User]

Not sure what your career goals are but I think the single most important thing you can do to increase your chances is to express a strong interest in transactional work. If it matches up with your career goals then great, and if not you can always try to switch practice groups during the summer or after a year of practice. Big firms tend to be flooded with high achieving T14 grads who are dead set on doing litigation, while they often struggle to fill spots in their transactional departments. In my experience coming from CCN, I very nearly struck out at OCI with median grades and a strong preference for litigation, but my classmates with similar grades who decided to go into transactional work seemed to have no problem getting offers at V10s. Obviously there are other factors that go into this, but on balance I think you significantly increase your odds of employment by showing an interest in corporate work. The MBA should help you here.

[Sad248]

As others have also indicated, make a believable pitch you want into transactional work, even if you're not actually into it (assuming it's biglaw or die for you). Most want to do lit, since they don't know what transactional is, and it's just the truth hat transactional is hotter and more in demand now.

Then target firms intelligently, in your case Texas (because you have ties) and New York. Also start networking the firms that are in your GPA range. That way you can name drop some names during the interviews and get some insider scoops. You'll very likely will be fine, unless you have bad luck/are a bad interviewer.

[jotarokujo]

As others have also indicated, make a believable pitch you want into transactional work, even if you're not actually into it (assuming it's biglaw or die for you). Most want to do lit, since they don't know what transactional is, and it's just the truth hat transactional is hotter and more in demand now.

Then target firms intelligently, in your case Texas (because you have ties) and New York. Also start networking the firms that are in your GPA range. That way you can name drop some names during the interviews and get some insider scoops. You'll very likely will be fine, unless you have bad luck/are a bad interviewer.

is it really the case that the vast majority of summers can just do lit starting their 2L summer even though they said they wanted to do transactional in the interviews? if so, shouldn't everyone just say transactional unless the firm has more of a litigation emphasis

[Enchanted19]

Not sure what your career goals are but I think the single most important thing you can do to increase your chances is to express a strong interest in transactional work. If it matches up with your career goals then great, and if not you can always try to switch practice groups during the summer or after a year of practice. Big firms tend to be flooded with high achieving T14 grads who are dead set on doing litigation, while they often struggle to fill spots in their transactional departments.

This is good to know. I have 0 interest in litigation (it's why I added the MBA after 1L year), so my transactional interest should be a fairly easy sell. It seems like most of the students I meet at networking events are interested in transactional work, though that is probably because I rarely attend anything with lit-heavy firms. Thank you for the input! I appreciate it.

[Enchanted19]

Sorry for the stream of consciousness here - just spitballing some things that may be helpful.

Does career services at your school have a list of firms people got offers at in various GPA bands (or at least firms you would be competitive at in a particular grade band)? Mine did, and was hugely helpful for answering questions like this.

My school does provide this data. The problem is that the data outside of NYC/DC/CHI/LA is extremely sparse. I'm talking 1-2 data points per TX biglaw firm, if any. If I round my GPA up to 3.2 then I am seeing a couple of offers to past grads at those firms. That doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence though! Thanks for the reply.

[Anonymous User]

Sorry for the stream of consciousness here - just spitballing some things that may be helpful.

Does career services at your school have a list of firms people got offers at in various GPA bands (or at least firms you would be competitive at in a particular grade band)? Mine did, and was hugely helpful for answering questions like this.

My school does provide this data. The problem is that the data outside of NYC/DC/CHI/LA is extremely sparse. I'm talking 1-2 data points per TX biglaw firm, if any. If I round my GPA up to 3.2 then I am seeing a couple of offers to past grads at those firms. That doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence though! Thanks for the reply.

Do they give you percentages of those who applied who got offers, or just number of offers? You could also aggregate over all of them to see what the chances are in Texas in general, since you're presumably not going to target just one firm

[Anonymous User]

delete

[Sad248]

As others have also indicated, make a believable pitch you want into transactional work, even if you're not actually into it (assuming it's biglaw or die for you). Most want to do lit, since they don't know what transactional is, and it's just the truth hat transactional is hotter and more in demand now.

Then target firms intelligently, in your case Texas (because you have ties) and New York. Also start networking the firms that are in your GPA range. That way you can name drop some names during the interviews and get some insider scoops. You'll very likely will be fine, unless you have bad luck/are a bad interviewer.

is it really the case that the vast majority of summers can just do lit starting their 2L summer even though they said they wanted to do transactional in the interviews? if so, shouldn't everyone just say transactional unless the firm has more of a litigation emphasis

Might not completely understand your question, but the answer is probably yes. A big thing in OCI is that if you're flexible and tell the firm what they want to hear, you probably will get a job. It's the people that are dead set on white collar litigation in market X that are more likely to miss the boat. And that might be the right thing btw, there's a lot to be said for not going for a position you don't want. But on a grander scheme, it's an issue in biglaw hiring, where you see large spades of associates willing to do anything for a job, including joining practice areas they have zero interest in. Inevitably, you will be getting absolute mismatches. I'm also in a practice area that I do not enjoy, that I don't believe I'm particularly adept at because for me it was more important to get a job at all as opposed to getting the right position. I've also seen this happen in terms of geographical locations, where friends of mine have been sent out to areas they want to dip out of ASAP, whereas other friends would have killed to be in that area.

[jotarokujo]

As others have also indicated, make a believable pitch you want into transactional work, even if you're not actually into it (assuming it's biglaw or die for you). Most want to do lit, since they don't know what transactional is, and it's just the truth hat transactional is hotter and more in demand now.

Then target firms intelligently, in your case Texas (because you have ties) and New York. Also start networking the firms that are in your GPA range. That way you can name drop some names during the interviews and get some insider scoops. You'll very likely will be fine, unless you have bad luck/are a bad interviewer.

is it really the case that the vast majority of summers can just do lit starting their 2L summer even though they said they wanted to do transactional in the interviews? if so, shouldn't everyone just say transactional unless the firm has more of a litigation emphasis

Might not completely understand your question, but the answer is probably yes. A big thing in OCI is that if you're flexible and tell the firm what they want to hear, you probably will get a job. It's the people that are dead set on white collar litigation in market X that are more likely to miss the boat. And that might be the right thing btw, there's a lot to be said for not going for a position you don't want. But on a grander scheme, it's an issue in biglaw hiring, where you see large spades of associates willing to do anything for a job, including joining practice areas they have zero interest in. Inevitably, you will be getting absolute mismatches. I'm also in a practice area that I do not enjoy, that I don't believe I'm particularly adept at because for me it was more important to get a job at all as opposed to getting the right position. I've also seen this happen in terms of geographical locations, where friends of mine have been sent out to areas they want to dip out of ASAP, whereas other friends would have killed to be in that area.

i guess another part of my question is whether a summer is ever actually held to what they said in the interview. so say someone gets an offer from kirkland DC saying they want to do transactional. come the summer can they just say "actually i want to do litigation"? i imagine this works the vast majority of the time, like what are the odds they don't get litigation in that scenario? if so, there seems to be no downside to saying transactional in the interview regardless of what yo uwant to do (unless the firm does not have much transactiona)

[Sad248]

As others have also indicated, make a believable pitch you want into transactional work, even if you're not actually into it (assuming it's biglaw or die for you). Most want to do lit, since they don't know what transactional is, and it's just the truth hat transactional is hotter and more in demand now.

Then target firms intelligently, in your case Texas (because you have ties) and New York. Also start networking the firms that are in your GPA range. That way you can name drop some names during the interviews and get some insider scoops. You'll very likely will be fine, unless you have bad luck/are a bad interviewer.

is it really the case that the vast majority of summers can just do lit starting their 2L summer even though they said they wanted to do transactional in the interviews? if so, shouldn't everyone just say transactional unless the firm has more of a litigation emphasis

Might not completely understand your question, but the answer is probably yes. A big thing in OCI is that if you're flexible and tell the firm what they want to hear, you probably will get a job. It's the people that are dead set on white collar litigation in market X that are more likely to miss the boat. And that might be the right thing btw, there's a lot to be said for not going for a position you don't want. But on a grander scheme, it's an issue in biglaw hiring, where you see large spades of associates willing to do anything for a job, including joining practice areas they have zero interest in. Inevitably, you will be getting absolute mismatches. I'm also in a practice area that I do not enjoy, that I don't believe I'm particularly adept at because for me it was more important to get a job at all as opposed to getting the right position. I've also seen this happen in terms of geographical locations, where friends of mine have been sent out to areas they want to dip out of ASAP, whereas other friends would have killed to be in that area.

i guess another part of my question is whether a summer is ever actually held to what they said in the interview. so say someone gets an offer from kirkland DC saying they want to do transactional. come the summer can they just say "actually i want to do litigation"? i imagine this works the vast majority of the time, like what are the odds they don't get litigation in that scenario? if so, there seems to be no downside to saying transactional in the interview regardless of what yo uwant to do (unless the firm does not have much transactiona)

Yeah, that's also true, but I wouldn't bank on that actually working out. I have a few of my friends who tried that and are still trucking along in transactional. But I do agree, it's often better to get your foot in the door and then trying to use that to go into a different room, then to just shoot yourself in the foot and the door staying firmly shot.

Btw, this is something where informational interviews really help. I remember once, actually during OCI, I was getting along well with an associate of one firm at one of the events they were hosting. My interview with them was the next day. Told him I was interested in a certain practice area of theirs (in which they were pretty big). Told me straight up to not mention that in the interview, because a big partner in that practice just left and they had no idea what they were going to do with that practice in the short term with that partner gone. Sometimes these inside scoops can point you in the right direction of what area of law you want to indicate your interest in.

[jotarokujo]

Yeah, that's also true, but I wouldn't bank on that actually working out. I have a few of my friends who tried that and are still trucking along in transactional.

wow that's crazy. so did the firm like hold them to what they said? or when they got an offer during an OCI was it an offer for transactional specifically?

[Anonymous User]

Greenberg Traurig has hiring needs in all of its texas markets and would gladly take your stats. Don’t expect market comp after 2 years though (it would be easy to lateral in corp barring a recession). Good luck!

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, that's also true, but I wouldn't bank on that actually working out. I have a few of my friends who tried that and are still trucking along in transactional.

wow that's crazy. so did the firm like hold them to what they said? or when they got an offer during an OCI was it an offer for transactional specifically?

Not OP, just adding a data point summered at two different firms and at both places summers were definitely placed in tracks (based on first assignments, mentors, events) and at one firm you couldn't switch over and at the other only one person was able to switch from transactional to lit, but multiple easily were able to switch from lit to trans. Also had friends at another firm in the same (major) market and they went in saying litigation and so did a lot of their class. Halfway through the summer, one of the summers found out from a little too-loose lipped associate that the firm only had enough lit spots for half of those that wanted it, which made the back half of the summer miserable as people felt they were now competing for spots that the firm had told them during OCI existed. Had another friend say they wanted lit all summer and they were placed in the corporate group, they were able to get a clerkship during the school year and only then did the firm move them to litigation. Just saying this to illustrate that I think it's not as easy as it once was to just switch into lit.

[Anonymous User]

Willkie Farr Houston routinely takes 3.0s from T14 schools