At what point in your legal career does where you went to law school and your law school grades stop mattering? Forum

[Anonymous User]

See message title. Genuinely curious about folks' perspectives on this.

[Anonymous User]

See message title. Genuinely curious about folks' perspectives on this.

Here’s my opinion. It doesn’t matter at all if you’re already the best of the best at a T1/T2 school. Because you have access to the same opportunities at day 1 (great SAs, Honors Programs, clerkships). When your working resume reads like every other T14 grad but your school is the only missing piece, most jobs won’t hesitate to hire you when you eventually want to lateral, go in house, transition to government etc. If you’re not a person that this clearly applies to (you will know if you were), then you’re just going to have to hustle to make your resume as excellent as it can be (probably through networking your ass off). Schools stop mattering once your resume can speak more to your abilities. But if your resume doesn’t measure up, it’s easy to fall back on your school as a way to judge.

[Anonymous User]

See message title. Genuinely curious about folks' perspectives on this.

I'm not sure it ever stops completely mattering because school/grades determines first job which then helps determine next career steps. However, if you're wondering if the partnership committee is really picking apart a c/o 2000's transcript the answer is no.

[Anonymous User]

It's something that's forever on your resume and bio. I don't think it ever stops mattering. It matters less than your experience once you have some but all else equal it'll always be a factor.

[Anonymous User]

School, never. Grades, a few years out. Some people rely on their school and grades to jump between firms often if they're not great at the work. Others have to work hard and create a reputation and body of work that can outweigh their school/grades. I think it probably matter more for lit than corp (after a few years), but corp people can feel free to correct me.

[Lopodop]

A friend arrived at BigLaw NYC and within a week he was on the flatliner track.
According to him, that's when his law school and grades stopped mattering.

It was the first time in his life that he failed at something.

[axiomaticapiary]

A friend arrived at BigLaw NYC and within a week he was on the flatliner track.
According to him, that's when his law school and grades stopped mattering.

It was the first time in his life that he failed at something.

Can you elaborate on this “flatliner track” and what it looks like when you’re on it?

Source: I fear failure

[Anonymous User]

A friend arrived at BigLaw NYC and within a week he was on the flatliner track.
According to him, that's when his law school and grades stopped mattering.

It was the first time in his life that he failed at something.

I worked in the litigation department of a "prestigious" New York biglaw firm (think PW/S&C/Deb) and honestly it sometimes felt like the folks from the lower ranked schools (Fordham, Cardozo, etc.) made for better junior associates because they were just so grateful to be there that they were willing to put up with anything and felt a really strong desire to prove themselves and be liked by other people. As opposed to arrogant Yalies who realized that their job as a junior associate wouldn't really entail sophisticated doctrinal analysis and that no one they worked with really cared about their fancy publications or intellectual ideas.

[Anonymous User]

A friend arrived at BigLaw NYC and within a week he was on the flatliner track.
According to him, that's when his law school and grades stopped mattering.

It was the first time in his life that he failed at something.

I worked in the litigation department of a "prestigious" New York biglaw firm (think PW/S&C/Deb) and honestly it sometimes felt like the folks from the lower ranked schools (Fordham, Cardozo, etc.) made for better junior associates because they were just so grateful to be there that they were willing to put up with anything and felt a really strong desire to prove themselves and be liked by other people. As opposed to arrogant Yalies who realized that their job as a junior associate wouldn't really entail sophisticated doctrinal analysis and that no one they worked with really cared about their fancy publications or intellectual ideas.

This smells like cope. There's not enough yalies biglaw to come to any conclusions. It is true that a lot of people from lower ranked schools do well but it's usually because they were hard working in those schools and could have done well at better schools too.

[Anonymous User]

A friend arrived at BigLaw NYC and within a week he was on the flatliner track.
According to him, that's when his law school and grades stopped mattering.

It was the first time in his life that he failed at something.

Within a week makes no sense, sorry. Everyone fumbles around at first, because biglaw training sucks. Some people will never make it and they usually figure it out on their own. But they seem to find other jobs so I wouldn't say the pedigree didn't matter.

[Anonymous User]

A friend arrived at BigLaw NYC and within a week he was on the flatliner track.
According to him, that's when his law school and grades stopped mattering.

It was the first time in his life that he failed at something.

I worked in the litigation department of a "prestigious" New York biglaw firm (think PW/S&C/Deb) and honestly it sometimes felt like the folks from the lower ranked schools (Fordham, Cardozo, etc.) made for better junior associates because they were just so grateful to be there that they were willing to put up with anything and felt a really strong desire to prove themselves and be liked by other people. As opposed to arrogant Yalies who realized that their job as a junior associate wouldn't really entail sophisticated doctrinal analysis and that no one they worked with really cared about their fancy publications or intellectual ideas.

I have heard from, and seen similar effects in top tier IB / PE where MDs commented like “state-school kids” more than ivies because they were more willing to stay, and more willing to take shit, since they grinded to get there. They also have less / no friends in above market paying firms or super sick exit opps at HFs / startups due to background, to resent their own hours put in.

On the legal side, especially in an industry that values hours to get paid, I’d assume that feeling is on steroids assuming a minimum baseline competency per hour, due to perceived willingness to work these extra few hundred hours per year.

[Anonymous User]

A friend arrived at BigLaw NYC and within a week he was on the flatliner track.
According to him, that's when his law school and grades stopped mattering.

It was the first time in his life that he failed at something.

Okay but what exactly is a flatliner track

[Anonymous User]

A friend arrived at BigLaw NYC and within a week he was on the flatliner track.
According to him, that's when his law school and grades stopped mattering.

It was the first time in his life that he failed at something.

Okay but what exactly is a flatliner track

Double secret probation??

[Mullens]

A friend arrived at BigLaw NYC and within a week he was on the flatliner track.
According to him, that's when his law school and grades stopped mattering.

It was the first time in his life that he failed at something.

I worked in the litigation department of a "prestigious" New York biglaw firm (think PW/S&C/Deb) and honestly it sometimes felt like the folks from the lower ranked schools (Fordham, Cardozo, etc.) made for better junior associates because they were just so grateful to be there that they were willing to put up with anything and felt a really strong desire to prove themselves and be liked by other people. As opposed to arrogant Yalies who realized that their job as a junior associate wouldn't really entail sophisticated doctrinal analysis and that no one they worked with really cared about their fancy publications or intellectual ideas.

This smells like cope. There's not enough yalies biglaw to come to any conclusions. It is true that a lot of people from lower ranked schools do well but it's usually because they were hard working in those schools and could have done well at better schools too.

This is a pretty well-known stereotype about Yalies in biglaw. Not true for all of them of course (it’s a stereotype after all) but a higher than average portion of them do seem to think they’re above junior associate work.

[Mullens]

To answer OP’s question: I don’t think school ever stops mattering but it does matter less and less as you advance in your career and the lines blur (there becomes no distinction between like CCN and T14 but there is always a strong positive factor from HYS and there is also always a negative factor from a TTTT).

Re grades, I think grades stop mattering after a few years of experience unless you had super high grades. That signal seems to hold strong for longer.

[Lopodop]

Re: Yale
Many BigLaw will not even interview there since so many Yalies go into govt or academia.

[Lopodop]

Flatliner track.
Since a few have asked.
There are only 3 or 4 law review articles on this topic, but from what I can piece together
1) Little meaningful mentoring
2) No partner takes an interest in your career
3) Mind-numbing paperwork
4) At the end of your usefulness you're politely but firmly told that your services are no longer required.

If anyone has an interest I can find the law review articles and forward them to you.

By the way, it's in BigLaw's best interest to keep things as vague as possible. So often the associate is clueless about where he stands.

As a general rule, if you're unsure if you're on partnership track or flatliner track, you're probably on the flatliner track. Sorry.

[otisreadingcomp]

Flatliner track.
Since a few have asked.
There are only 3 or 4 law review articles on this topic, but from what I can piece together
1) Little meaningful mentoring
2) No partner takes an interest in your career
3) Mind-numbing paperwork
4) At the end of your usefulness you're politely but firmly told that your services are no longer required.

If anyone has an interest I can find the law review articles and forward them to you.

By the way, it's in BigLaw's best interest to keep things as vague as possible. So often the associate is clueless about where he stands.

As a general rule, if you're unsure if you're on partnership track or flatliner track, you're probably on the flatliner track. Sorry.

Here's one of the law review articles: Wilkins & Gulati, Reconceiving the Tournament of Lawyers: Tracking, Seeding, and Information Control in the Internal Labor Market of Elite Law Firms, https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/vi ... cholarship

The idea is that there's two tracks in law firms -- those who are given the meaningful training opportunities (learning to advise, negotiate, draft more substantive documents, etc.) and those who are stuck on "paperwork," spending their entire time preparing signature pages, for example. I'd guess that flatlining implies the latter track although one week does seem awfully fast. If that's true the person must have very much shown a lack of interest/inattention to detail?

[Lopodop]

Yes, that's one of the law review articles.
And it's excellent.
Very eye-opening.
Thanks for putting that up.

[Anonymous User]

Re: Yale
Many BigLaw will not even interview there since so many Yalies go into govt or academia.

My boutique won't even interview YLS alums anymore. All three YLS associates we've hired in the past 5 years have ended up in academia or just been considerably better at the theory of the trade than the practice.

[Anonymous User]

Grades don't matter after your first job. School always matters.

[LittleRedCorvette]

Grades don't matter after your first job. School always matters.

Certain firms definitely care about lateral associate grades. GDC is one.

[Anonymous User]

Grades don't matter after your first job. School always matters.

Why do firms ask for law school transcripts during lateral hiring then? Just to confirm that you in fact went to the law school that you claim you did?

[Anonymous User]

Grades don't matter after your first job. School always matters.

Certain firms definitely care about lateral associate grades. GDC is one.

What are others?

[Lopodop]

Partners can engage in the "invisibility hypothesis", by keeping information about high quality associates secret from their fellow partners in an effort to monopolize the services of these talented lawyers.

Priceless

From Wilkins & Gulati law review article, referenced above, pg 1598 footnote 67