Job and Summer Associate Positions for 2nd and 3rd Tier Forum

[dailygrind]

LOL at 15% at TTT getting biglaw, set yo sights more realistic and aim for shitlaw or walmart outside of top 5-10% LOLLL

Literally every time I see you post you are acting like a jackass. Seriously man, grow up.

[LawMan20]

LOL at 15% at TTT getting biglaw, set yo sights more realistic and aim for shitlaw or walmart outside of top 5-10% LOLLL

Literally every time I see you post you are acting like a jackass. Seriously man, grow up.

[MTal]

In life, there are those who "get it" and those who don't. I can think of a hundred other better things to do with my time than to get on a blog and say 101 things that don't benefit anyone. If you define your worth by having a big law job and your only definition of a good job is that, then so be it. That has nothing to do with the original purpose or questions asked in this post. I have a feeling that the reason you are on here wasting your precious life with such negative statements has everything to do with how you feel about yourself in real life. Obviously something you failed to learn from any school or from your parents is a basic respect for all people. Learn some class. No one, I don't care what school they chose to go to, deserves to be talked down to when at the end of the day our goal is the same ... to further our education and have a career we can be proud of and provide for ourselves. I hope you find happiness so that you don't feel the need to waste your precious time attempting to tear down other people. There are so many more worthy causes for you to put your time into.

I'll emphasize again, "Are you a recent grad who wasn't the top of your class with a job? Where do you work, where did you get offers from, what was your job application strategy, and what is your salary?"

Thank you to those who actually had something productive to say. At this point, there is no purpose in talking about the type of school you feel I or anyone SHOULD have gone to. That's irrelevant to this post.

Your views about yourself and the job market deserve to be crushed like a grape under a giant cement brick.

[traehekat]

In life, there are those who "get it" and those who don't. I can think of a hundred other better things to do with my time than to get on a blog and say 101 things that don't benefit anyone. If you define your worth by having a big law job and your only definition of a good job is that, then so be it. That has nothing to do with the original purpose or questions asked in this post. I have a feeling that the reason you are on here wasting your precious life with such negative statements has everything to do with how you feel about yourself in real life. Obviously something you failed to learn from any school or from your parents is a basic respect for all people. Learn some class. No one, I don't care what school they chose to go to, deserves to be talked down to when at the end of the day our goal is the same ... to further our education and have a career we can be proud of and provide for ourselves. I hope you find happiness so that you don't feel the need to waste your precious time attempting to tear down other people. There are so many more worthy causes for you to put your time into.

I'll emphasize again, "Are you a recent grad who wasn't the top of your class with a job? Where do you work, where did you get offers from, what was your job application strategy, and what is your salary?"

Thank you to those who actually had something productive to say. At this point, there is no purpose in talking about the type of school you feel I or anyone SHOULD have gone to. That's irrelevant to this post.

Truth is, OP, you aren't getting a lot of responses from people like that because few of them actually exist AND frequently post on this board. Instead of waiting for confirmation as to whether it is possible to get a job in your possible and how it can be done, you should just be doing what you think you need to do to improve your job prospects. There isn't some magical solution, like some guy at the bottom of his class at a TTT is going to come out of the woodwork with the secret to finding a job he has been keeping to himself this whole time. I mean if you really want advice from people in your position, talk to people at your school! Ask what they have done if you really need the specifics (here is a guess: if they work at all, they probably work for a small firm or in local government, they probably didn't have offers from many different places, their job application strategy was probably to target as many places as possible while not giving off the impression like they are actually ARE targeting every place known to man, and they probably make somewhere between $30-70k a year). But like pretty much everyone has said, you just need to be networking with a lot of attorneys and the like and finding ways to indicate to employers you are capable of doing the work.

Good grades from a good school are nice in that you can find a job with a relatively low amount of effort. For people without good grades and without a prestigious school on their resume, (some) jobs are still out there but they just have to work 10x harder to get them. It sucks because yeah you probably worked just as "hard" as everyone who received solid grades but now you have to work even harder on the job search, but like others have said, this is what you signed up for.

[kalvano]

Fine. Not quite a TT student yet (but working on it--thanks Dean Attanasio!), and definitely not going into a supersaturated market like NYC, but...

Median going into 2L, prior WE, and I have an SA lined up that I expect to lead to an offer. The process for a graduate is, I imagine, little different. How, you ask?

417 emails to firms, that's how. Does it suck? You bet your sweet bippy. Was it worth it? Damn straight. It only takes one interview with one guy who thinks you're a good candidate. Take the time to put everything together in a professional manner, send out a professional email, and generally make it hard on the firm to ignore you because you sound like someone they want to talk to.

There's no magic secret here. Work your ass off, and have a little bit of luck. If you expect results from any other method, you're fooling yourself.

[thesteelers]

Median going into 2L, prior WE, and I have an SA lined up that I expect to lead to an offer.

Congrats, lower T1 and median and have an SA lined up? What did you do besides the 400+ emails? I sent out about 500 emails over winter break, basically spammed New England, and got nothing. 1L at a T30 here, barely above median. Barely.

Edit: didn't mean to threadjack. OP, sorry about your situation, but you should realize that "good firms" aren't going to touch you unless you have insane networking skills. Or, as a 3L at my school likes to tell everyone, insane fellatio skills.

[wildhaggis]

So, the facts are, 85% of us are not in the top 15% of our graduating class. So where do we have the hopes of going to work 2L summer or even at graduation? I'm tired of only hearing about the job prospects for the T14 or top 10-15%.

What happens to the rest of us. What are some really good firms and programs that offer summer associate positions to student's from 2nd or 3rd Tier law schools? Are you a recent grad who wasn't the top of your class with a job? Where do you work, where did you get offers from, what was your job application strategy, and what is your salary?

I went to an ADA "boot camp" for new hires the other day. They were coming from Syracuse and Georgia State- not amazing law schools- All the same they got paid jobs. The only "downside" as it were is that they ended up in a city of less than 200K in a rural western state.

Still, I would suggest government work in a rural area. PD/DA offices, county/city attorney offices/legal aids/etc. in small communities throughout the country are hiring. Look for states with low law school to population percentages (mostly in the west and south) and start applying for internships.

A DDA at a DA's office in my state in the northern part (the same one running a boot camp) said they had NEVER received a summer internship request. I bet they aren't the only ones.

OP, if you're put off by some of the "negative" responses, read the above post. This is solid advice you can (and should) actually take action on.

Listening to some of the other responses is never a bad idea though - TLS posters tend to be harsh, but there is certainly truth to what others have posted.

Best of luck.

[kalvano]

Median going into 2L, prior WE, and I have an SA lined up that I expect to lead to an offer.

Congrats, lower T1 and median and have an SA lined up? What did you do besides the 400+ emails? I sent out about 500 emails over winter break, basically spammed New England, and got nothing. 1L at a T30 here, barely above median. Barely.

I didn't really "spam" in the sense that I simply blasted out emails with my resume and hoped for a response. My initial emails were always more of a "do you have any type of summer program for law students, and if so, are you currently accepting applications?" If they said yes, I would then pass along whatever documents they requested. A lot of them were smaller firms with no set HR-type person, so I emailed a named partner in the firm, preferably either the first one named or the youngest-looking partner (since I figured they might be more receptive). A lot of them had no summer hiring at all, which I expected.

But I did have a damn near 100% response rate from people I emailed. Even if they didn't have a summer program, I got a bunch of contact info with requests to apply when I was looking for permanent employment, as well as some nice conversations with people who directed me to other firms that I hadn't considered, etc.

From there, it was just a matter of finding some interviews and nailing one. All it takes is one. Plus, in the event that I don't get an offer, I've kept up with some of the attorneys I contacted in my initial mailings, had some nice conversations, etc. If I end up without an offer, I have a nice list of firms that I can email, and I am not really just another anonymous name, I've got a bit of rapport going. Who knows, it may end up being nothing, but the place I ended up getting a summer job with was like #347 or something, so you never know.

[caputlupinum]

So, the facts are, 85% of us are not in the top 15% of our graduating class. So where do we have the hopes of going to work 2L summer or even at graduation? I'm tired of only hearing about the job prospects for the T14 or top 10-15%.

What happens to the rest of us. What are some really good firms and programs that offer summer associate positions to student's from 2nd or 3rd Tier law schools? Are you a recent grad who wasn't the top of your class with a job? Where do you work, where did you get offers from, what was your job application strategy, and what is your salary?

Most people on here on here only look at the NALP data but there are other jobs out there but much more so in smaller markets like the south and out west. NYLS is really hard because it has sooooooo much competition and NYC doesn't really have "mid law" firms that hire new grads. I know people on here don't believe me but what ever I would branch out to smaller markets if you have a connection at all anywhere. If you attending NYLS its going to likely be hell. If you have yet to start I would not attend not because I am a T14 or bust person but because I would look at the overall market(martindale is your friend) of the area you are trying to work in and see if you really have a shot regardless of ranking which NYLS really does not...