Top Law Schools

Apparently a rumor on auto admit had 50% of Duke 2Ls still looking to line up a gig for next summer. Is this really true? How about the rest of the lower T14?

Word on the street at Cornell is that about 40% have jobs.

Anonymous User wrote:Word on the street at Cornell is that about 40% have jobs.

I assume it was upwards of 90% last year?

I'm curious how much of this has to do with the fact that some students refuse to settle for anything but biglaw or more specifically, NYC/DC biglaw.

Anonymous User wrote:Word on the street at Cornell is that about 40% have jobs.

More recent word is 50%. Some people seem to have snapped up a bit of secondary market or government action.

Still pretty shitty, though.

legends159 wrote:I'm curious how much of this has to do with the fact that some students refuse to settle for anything but biglaw or more specifically, NYC/DC biglaw.

Settle for what? Most secondary markets don't do OCI at the schools and are reluctant to hire someone not from the area. I struck out and I know I applied everywhere I arguebably had a shot.

Georgetown is at ~25% with offers last I heard.

Word on the street at NU is roughly 50%.

At Virginia, it seems a bit over 50% for BigLaw. There are also a few with smaller law firms, although I'm not sure what this exactly means. With government jobs, I'd bet the number is around 60%.

I just heard that U Chicago has around 2/3 with offers.

Georgetowner here. I've accepted an offer for next summer at an NY biglaw firm, but there are plenty of people in the class that got killed in OCI that are freaking out. Definitely kids that would have gotten offers in years past. Seems like this is a year where you either got multiple offers (like 3+) or got shut out from offers or callbacks. Brutal. I have some friends that were totally banking on a biglaw job and now are literally wondering what the hell they are going to do. Career services has told us from the summer to have a "plan B or plan C" but no one took that seriously, or really came up with an alternate plan. I don't know what the % of the class of Georgetown is with offers right now, but I can only assume it is maybe close to but definitely below the reported Duke and Cornell numbers.

Penn seems over 60% with firm jobs

thedogship wrote:Georgetowner here. I've accepted an offer for next summer at an NY biglaw firm, but there are plenty of people in the class that got killed in OCI that are freaking out. Definitely kids that would have gotten offers in years past. Seems like this is a year where you either got multiple offers (like 3+) or got shut out from offers or callbacks. Brutal. I have some friends that were totally banking on a biglaw job and now are literally wondering what the hell they are going to do. Career services has told us from the summer to have a "plan B or plan C" but no one took that seriously, or really came up with an alternate plan. I don't know what the % of the class of Georgetown is with offers right now, but I can only assume it is maybe close to but definitely below the reported Duke and Cornell numbers.

Incredibly solid sources put it at 25% as of late Oct., and the word is they would be thrilled if it his 30% when all is said and done.

Anonymous User wrote:

thedogship wrote:Georgetowner here. I've accepted an offer for next summer at an NY biglaw firm, but there are plenty of people in the class that got killed in OCI that are freaking out. Definitely kids that would have gotten offers in years past. Seems like this is a year where you either got multiple offers (like 3+) or got shut out from offers or callbacks. Brutal. I have some friends that were totally banking on a biglaw job and now are literally wondering what the hell they are going to do. Career services has told us from the summer to have a "plan B or plan C" but no one took that seriously, or really came up with an alternate plan. I don't know what the % of the class of Georgetown is with offers right now, but I can only assume it is maybe close to but definitely below the reported Duke and Cornell numbers.

Incredibly solid sources put it at 25% as of late Oct., and the word is they would be thrilled if it his 30% when all is said and done.

Any word on school percentages outside the T14? Specifically, in the 15-30 range? I assume that at below 30 it's pretty awful, and not more than the top 5-10% of the class, unless with regional employers.

2L at USC here. It's hard to say because I don't like bringing it up in case people don't have one and don't want to talk about it, but I'd say it's around the 30% here. This also includes people for IP who got offers just because they were IP even though they were in the bottom half of the class (not that many, but I know a few).

I personally am right at the median and have not received an offer, if that's any indication.

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I go to a lower T100 that usually places around 15% on average in big law (10% in past slower years, 20% in the boom).

This year 2% landed big law gigs. Shitty time to be a 2L.

2E (evening student... basically 1L) at GULC here... I wouldn't be shocked with a 25% offer rate at this point. The people I know who landed biglaw jobs were either top 10% and got a bunch of callbacks in NY/DC, or they went to secondary markets (ex: one 2L who was a little above median grades landed a great biglaw job in Minneapolis, and was thrilled). I think the comment earlier about only selecting big markets and losing your chances is accurate. Kids with better grades pigeonholed themselves in one city and lost out. I think the "backup plan" should start with more cities.

I wouldn't be shocked with a 25% offer rate at this point.

GULC 3L here (just for another opinion)

I would say it's about 50/50 for 2Ls on my secondary journal (probably not entirely representative since the journal takes grades into account for selection)
By contrast, I think 100% of 3L editorial board of my journal has a biglaw offer. I'm guessing 60% of 3Ls generally on the journal have one.

My guess is about 1/3 ended up with some sort of biglaw type summer associate position. Back in 2007, that number was 79%. Yeah, it's bad. I'm pretty convinced I wouldn't have a biglaw offer now if I had waited a year to go to law school.

jchoggan wrote:2E (evening student... basically 1L) at GULC here... I wouldn't be shocked with a 25% offer rate at this point. The people I know who landed biglaw jobs were either top 10% and got a bunch of callbacks in NY/DC, or they went to secondary markets (ex: one 2L who was a little above median grades landed a great biglaw job in Minneapolis, and was thrilled). I think the comment earlier about only selecting big markets and losing your chances is accurate. Kids with better grades pigeonholed themselves in one city and lost out. I think the "backup plan" should start with more cities.

I will second this. I can't tell you how many friends I have at school (that are without offers) have said how much they regret focusing on DC only, and how dumb that strategy appears in retrospect. DC was apparently the most brutal market this year - I guess it was pure supply and demand. They are feeling royally screwed now - some of them have spouses and families and were banking on $160K! Now they are scrambling for anything. oof.

I chose to focus purely on NYC (i'm from DC so I didn't have a smaller "hometown" market to fall back on, so that Careers Services "advice" rang hollow), and fortunately it worked out for me. But it could have blown up in my face too, and I knew it was a gamble going in. I wasn't top 10% at GULC (closer to top 1/3), nor am i a minority, but I had other things on my resume that made up for grades. I feel really bad though for people without jobs at this point. Future employers are not going to give a crap about the excuse that "I had to do OCI in Fall 2009" even though it almost should serve as an legitimate asterisk. I can't tell you how frustrating it was to do callbacks this year and hear young attorneys at the firms say how in 2006/2007 they were fighting off firm offers with a stick. You could basically fall ass-backward into $160K then with a top firm. Now you're lucky to get a $130/145K offer from any place.

someone mentioned chicago with 2/3 with offers. anyone know anything about the rest of CCN? some columbia posts have been scary; haven't heard anything about nyu. anyone?

facetious wrote:someone mentioned chicago with 2/3 with offers. anyone know anything about the rest of CCN? some columbia posts have been scary; haven't heard anything about nyu. anyone?

From what is being said on autoadmit and from Chicago and CLS students they did pretty good. It seems as if NYU didn't fare quite as well---probably due to it's massive class size.

Career services has told us from the summer to have a "plan B or plan C" but no one took that seriously, or really came up with an alternate plan.

I think it's easy to tell people to come up with a plan B or C, but can be much harder to do in practice. Some people just don't have strong ties to a secondary market. Others have a resume that screams biglaw and nothing else. I was in that boat and didn't have a backup plan. Short of falsifying information, there was nothing I could have done to my resume last summer to make it even slightly palatable to PI or government. For example, if you're from NYC, went to Fordham undergrad, majored in finance, and are on the tax journal, what exactly are you supposed to do?

I am lucky have a biglaw spot, but know many classmates who are still looking. I would probably guess 1/3 have law firm spots at this point, but more than that probably have something at lined up if you include government and PI.

I know several classmates who have all but given up and are really banking on clerkships after graduation.

I would bet that more than 1/2 of the 3L's on my journal have nothing at this point. They're all scrambling.

I will second this. I can't tell you how many friends I have at school (that are without offers) have said how much they regret focusing on DC only, and how dumb that strategy appears in retrospect. DC was apparently the most brutal market this year - I guess it was pure supply and demand.

I would second this, too. Everyone seemed to want DC this year. It was crazy competitive!

Anonymous User wrote:

I know several classmates who have all but given up and are really banking on clerkships after graduation.

Aren't judges going to be looking for kids with good grades that presumably got hired by law firms but will defer for a year to do a clerkship? Not the kids that law firms didn't want? The judges I've worked for have all had clerks that either deferred working for a firm, already worked at a firm, or summered at a top firm and realized they didn't want biglaw, but still had absurd resumes.

Aren't judges going to be looking for kids with good grades that presumably got hired by law firms but will defer for a year to do a clerkship? Not the kids that law firms didn't want? The judges I've worked for have all had clerks that either deferred working for a firm, already worked at a firm, or summered at a top firm and realized they didn't want biglaw, but still had absurd resumes.

The folks I'm thinking of have "good" grades (I don't know their exact grades, but I would guess at least top 1/3) and mostly got unlucky. Both only bid on DC and only really have ties here.

I'm not sure how judges will consider their lack of a summer associateship, but both are trying to bring up their grades as much as possible, work closely with professors on research projects, and publish. It's certainly not a sure thing, but I've heard of worse plans.

(anonymous b/c I don't want to divulge my last post)