Do Employers Care About Classes? Forum

[Flarmanarnar]

Quick question: Do employers care at all what classes you take beyond 1L - specifically, if applying for (hypothetically) tax jobs during 3L would it hurt to have not taken any tax classes if you've taken other classes of equal difficulty or should I just add tax to my fall classes?

Also, would it be "too difficult" to take, for example, evidence and income tax during the same semester?

Any advice is appreciated!

[cavalier1138]

Generally, the answer is no, but I think tax is the exception.

[Flarmanarnar]

Generally, the answer is no, but I think tax is the exception.

How about a class like Finance? Would employers care about that?

[QContinuum]

Quick question: Do employers care at all what classes you take beyond 1L - specifically, if applying for (hypothetically) tax jobs during 3L would it hurt to have not taken any tax classes if you've taken other classes of equal difficulty or should I just add tax to my fall classes?

Also, would it be "too difficult" to take, for example, evidence and income tax during the same semester?

Any advice is appreciated!

If you intend to apply to Tax jobs as a 3L, then definitely take Federal Income Tax asap, and try to take extra Tax classes as well.

It is entirely feasible to take Evidence and Income Tax during the same semester, depending on your other classes.

[nixy]

Mostly it doesn’t matter. I think tax is specialized enough, though, claiming you want to do tax without taking any tax would be unconvincing. (Also you can’t have any idea if you’d like tax without taking any.) Again, I don’t think for most general jobs it’s not an issue.

(I also don’t think evidence is that hard, even if it’s black letter.)

(Also I got scooped.)

I think Finance is fine but not required like tax is - I think you can learn finance more easily on your own (maybe depends on your background and how you prefer to learn). My suspicion is also that a class called “finance” could be taught a million different ways.

[QContinuum]

I think Finance is fine but not required like tax is - I think you can learn finance more easily on your own (maybe depends on your background and how you prefer to learn). My suspicion is also that a class called “finance” could be taught a million different ways.

Agree with nixy re: Finance. I think it's one of the (relatively rare) classes that has the potential to be useful in practice, and also tends to look great to employers. If limited to law students (as opposed to a b-school class with primarily MBA students), Finance classes also tend to be fairly easy (instructors generally know that lawyers aren't huge fans of maths). But I don't think having vs. not having Finance on the transcript is going to be a make-or-break thing (unlike, say, not having any Tax classes on the transcript when applying to Tax jobs as a 3L).

[Flarmanarnar]

Thank you for the advice! I think I might just try to take Fed Income Tax and Corp Finance during the fall - based on the above comments it doesn't sound like that is totally unmanageable.

[Splurgles23]

Generally, the answer is no, but I think tax is the exception.

There is no "general" right answer. It all depends on the type of employer and context. In one (post-clerkship) Biglaw interview, the partner looked at my transcript, mentioned that his firm does a lot of corporate/finance work, and asked whether I could speak to that based on my experience. In an interview at a boutique, a partner looked at my transcript and mentioned the pattern that she saw there and how it would fit at her firm. And you can bet that if you ever think about clerking down the road, many judges (and esp. their clerks, who do the first round of culling) look at not just your grades but your course selection during 2L and 3L. I'm sure there are anecdotes of people who land A3 clerkships without taking Fed Courts, etc., but it does stand out. It's tough to project your career out more than a few years, but employers looking at your choices is something you should factor in.

And yeah, it's absolutely doable to take both Evidence and Income Tax in the same semester, especially if memorization is your strong suit.

[cavalier1138]

Generally, the answer is no, but I think tax is the exception.

There is no "general" right answer. It all depends on the type of employer and context. In one (post-clerkship) Biglaw interview, the partner looked at my transcript, mentioned that his firm does a lot of corporate/finance work, and asked whether I could speak to that based on my experience. In an interview at a boutique, a partner looked at my transcript and mentioned the pattern that she saw there and how it would fit at her firm. And you can bet that if you ever think about clerking down the road, many judges (and esp. their clerks, who do the first round of culling) look at not just your grades but your course selection during 2L and 3L. I'm sure there are anecdotes of people who land A3 clerkships without taking Fed Courts, etc., but it does stand out. It's tough to project your career out more than a few years, but employers looking at your choices is something you should factor in.

So after doing a number of interviews for biglaw and clerkships, I can safely say that no one has ever asked me a single question about course selection on my transcript, just how [Insert Professor Here] was as a teacher. If you're aiming for a specific niche group--or if the firm is only looking to fill a position in a specific niche group--sure, maybe they care more about a specific course you took during school. But that is generally not the case.

[merde_happens]

You want to be a tax lawyer but you've never taken a single tax class in law school? Tax may be one of the few fields where law school is actually relevant to your practice.

[Flarmanarnar]

You want to be a tax lawyer but you've never taken a single tax class in law school? Tax may be one of the few fields where law school is actually relevant to your practice.

I used tax as a hypothetical when, in reality, I was more interested in asking about whether I would need to take a finance class for finance jobs in general. Apologies for the confusion.

[merde_happens]

You want to be a tax lawyer but you've never taken a single tax class in law school? Tax may be one of the few fields where law school is actually relevant to your practice.

I used tax as a hypothetical when, in reality, I was more interested in asking about whether I would need to take a finance class for finance jobs in general. Apologies for the confusion.

Got it - was just probably the worst hypo you could've picked since tax is pretty much the exception to the rule.

Generally, no, employers don't give a crap about what classes you take because they already expect to have to teach you everything on the job. Case in point: I did a ton of securities work at my big law firm but never took secreg. That said, having taken certain classes is a pretty easy way to demonstrate interest in the field, so if you don't have that going for you then you should be prepared to have other arguments at your disposal when you interview.

[ppatel5150]

Quick question: Do employers care at all what classes you take beyond 1L - specifically, if applying for (hypothetically) tax jobs during 3L would it hurt to have not taken any tax classes if you've taken other classes of equal difficulty or should I just add tax to my fall classes?

Also, would it be "too difficult" to take, for example, evidence and income tax during the same semester?

Any advice is appreciated!

I got my post-grad job at a big firm because I took relevant classes during 2L and 3L. If you don't end up interning in that relevant field, taking courses is the only relevant way to demonstrate an actual interest in the field. If you're sure you want to do tax, take classes, join your school's tax clinic, ect. I knew I was interested in corporate & securities so I took any relevant/interesting courses related to that area of the law. During the interview, they overlooked the fact that I had never interned at a big firm because my transcript showed that I was interested in that area.

[dvlthndr]

There are a few areas of big-law that are "niche" enough to have de-facto class requirements. But it's more about signaling your interest in the area, as opposed to learning the substantive law.

Would you believe somebody really wants to work in Trusts & Estates without ever taking a T&E class? Same goes for working in an IP group without any IP classes, or a Tax group without any Tax classes. You can learn things on the job -- but firms prefer to hire people that find the work interesting enough to do 24/7 for the next 5 years (or whatever a typical Big-law career is).

This becomes less important the closer you get to general litigation or generic corporate work. Doing random deals for large companies is the bread-and-butter of many firms. It's great if you can take some classes that signal an interest in Finance, M&A, Banking, etc., but they are close enough to general corporate work that you don't really need to do anything special in order to land one of those gigs (or get a position as a junior associate that funnels into those groups).

[SilvermanBarPrep]

They might. For example, if you're applying for a job doing intellectual property law they'd likely want to see both that you took those classes and that you scored well in them.

Sean (Silverman Bar Exam Tutoring)