UVA Law Students Taking Questions Forum

[chem]

How would you guys rate your career services? Pretty good? Or are you pretty much on your own if you strike out at OCI

[Morgan12Oak]

On your own. CSO seems to shift to 1L advice pretty much soon after the end of the callback period in early November and anecdotally, their advice largely comes in the form of "try and network."

[Cavalier]

How would you guys rate your career services? Pretty good? Or are you pretty much on your own if you strike out at OCI

Kevin Donovan is great, and I've heard he devotes a lot of effort to helping those who strike out at OGI. The other people in career services generally aren't as helpful, and one in particular is rather bad. It's worth noting that UVA provided jobless students in the class of 2011 with substantial assistance in paying for bar application and bar review course fees, and continues to give them monthly stipends (of $2500, I think) that enable them to take unpaid legal jobs while seeking paid legal employment.

[Morgan12Oak]

How would you guys rate your career services? Pretty good? Or are you pretty much on your own if you strike out at OCI

Kevin Donovan is great, and I've heard he devotes a lot of effort to helping those who strike out at OGI. The other people in career services generally aren't as helpful, and one in particular is rather bad. It's worth noting that UVA provided jobless students in the class of 2011 with substantial assistance in paying for bar application and bar review course fees, and continues to give them monthly stipends (of $2500, I think) that enable them to take unpaid legal jobs while seeking paid legal employment.

This is pretty true. I didn't mean to say CSO was "bad" with my earlier response. I just meant the resources they have aren't really enough to help everyone meaningfully who strike out so many are left pretty much on their own. If we had more than one Kevin Donovan, this would be different.

[desertlaw]

Can't speak to other situations, but Donovan's OGI prep (and packet they gave us) was extremely helpful. He and Patrice both had multiple calls and e-mail conversations with me whenever I needed.

In terms of bidding strategy, if you did your own research/work on TLS, that can be just as helpful as any OCS. OCS might be most helpful for mock interviews, especially Donovan.

[battle_tested]

Can't speak to other situations, but Donovan's OGI prep (and packet they gave us) was extremely helpful. He and Patrice both had multiple calls and e-mail conversations with me whenever I needed.

In terms of bidding strategy, if you did your own research/work on TLS, that can be just as helpful as any OCS. OCS might be most helpful for mock interviews, especially Donovan.

I'm a 1L, so I can't attest to OGI, but I've been to every private sector employment talk CSO has put on. Basically if your an avid TLS/ATL reader, they're not going to tell you something you don't already know.

I do think CSO is better here than at most other schools though, but I still don't think that's saying much. At the end of the day, no CSO is going to go out and get you a job. If your an 0L, and your from a secondary market, try to start building your network now. The problem with networking (especially with law students) is that ppl wait to long to start doing it. It takes years to build a strong professional network. Networking (plus being at UVa) got me 4 paid offers for this summer.

[005618502]

Are there any nice apartments close to UVA Law school (short dirve, like the woodlands, Jefferson Ridge, etc) that have nice 1 bedroom apartments? Jefferson Ridge does, but just looking for other options.

[Doritos]

How would you guys rate your career services? Pretty good? Or are you pretty much on your own if you strike out at OCI

Career Services here is phenomenal. They go above and beyond. Over the summer they will talk to you well past their closing time (like 7 in the evening) in order to help you with bids/interviews and whatnot. Ruth Payne the director of clerkships is simply amazing as well. Our placement has gone way up with her in charge. Overall, I'd say my experience with CSO has been nothing short of great.

With that said, don't rely on them too much. You gotta do your own research and put in the time required to make sure you are as successful as you can be. I put together my entire bid list and interview prep stuff solely from TLS info and had CSO review it.

edit to answer your last question. If you strike out you aren't on your own. I have friends who didn't do well at OGI and career services definitely did not give up on them. I know Donovan has made personal calls to firms to help students get placed well after OGI ended.

[5ky]

How would you guys rate your career services? Pretty good? Or are you pretty much on your own if you strike out at OCI

Career Services here is phenomenal. They go above and beyond. Over the summer they will talk to you well past their closing time (like 7 in the evening) in order to help you with bids/interviews and whatnot. Ruth Payne the director of clerkships is simply amazing as well. Our placement has gone way up with her in charge. Overall, I'd say my experience with CSO has been nothing short of great.

With that said, don't rely on them too much. You gotta do your own research and put in the time required to make sure you are as successful as you can be. I put together my entire bid list and interview prep stuff solely from TLS info and had CSO review it.

+1 for thesealocust being my personal CSO.

Also, I called Donovan at 10pm one night to ask him a few questions, so you're on the money about that one as well.

[dailygrind]

KD is a godsend.

[paulinaporizkova]

KD is a godsend.

He just seems like an awesome dude to know in general. When he was describing characteristics of introversion at the first CSO meeting in relation to firm culture I was like wow, this guy totally understands my life.

[gladiator]

Are there any nice apartments close to UVA Law school (short dirve, like the woodlands, Jefferson Ridge, etc) that have nice 1 bedroom apartments? Jefferson Ridge does, but just looking for other options.

They're going to build some on Arlington Blvd soon...unfortunately none yet though.

[joeshmo39]

I like the OGI preselect systems . Some employers have actually told me they prefer it too. A few reasons. First, it lets employers talk to who they want to talk to because they get to select them ahead of time. This makes you feel good as a student because you know that the firm you are talking to wants you and is willing to talk to you above some other students.

Sometimes this means you don't get selected by firms you really want to talk to, but you have to remember, firms have grade cut-offs. If you don't make the grade cut-off it's unreasonable to be a hero and waste a bid. The preselect system prevents this from happening to an extent. Still, if there is a firm you really want to get in front of you can do it. Go to the hospitality suite, hand out resumes, e-mail someone from the firm, etc

I think this year was a solid OGI with the 20 interview cap (soft cap, admittedly). I'm also willing to trade off an interview system that firms prefer for one that is a little paternalistic toward students.

[desertlaw]

We are all dying from Feb Club. I need to rally.

[Waterman47]

As far was whether there are athletes here, yeah there definitely are. There are ppl here that played D1 or high quality D3 athletics. At the same time, there are also a bunch of "wannabe" athletes, who only look decently athletic because they're playing slowpitch softball against girls and some guys who don't even watch sports, let alone play them. These are the same ppl that try too hard to live up to the "bro" mentality of UVA, and end up just being assholes (and yeah, there's a difference). Take for instance my recent trip to the gym. I was using a machine and I was in between sets. One of these wannabe bros comes up to me and says "are you down playing with your ipod? Because I need to use that machine." So i just answered "are you serious right now bro?" and looked at him like who the hell do you think you are? So he just said "whatever" and went back to his group of bro wannabes who were doing more chatting and laughing about dumb shit than they were lifting. Sure, this is a tirade, but this is also the thing that annoys me most about UVA. It's one thing if you're truly a "bro" and that's your personality. But if your just acting like an asshole because you think that's how bros act and that's how you have to act when you go to UVA, then you're doing it wrong.

A vague and misleading statement. I graduated last year and don't recall more than a handful of people that actually played a legit sport in college, i.e. not something random like squash.

There are tons of guys in law school that are "law school athletic" in that they lift weights and play pick-up sports decently well, but I wouldn't say there are a lot of athletes at UVa.

I didn't play any college sports and could not have if I wanted to, and I was among the most athletic kids in my class. Our intramural basketbal team, which went to the UVa school-wide finals, featured only 2 kids that had played college sports. One played Ivy football and the other D3 basketball. Neither was extraordinarily gifted as an athlete. The law school's soccer team, which played in the CVille city league, featured only 2 kids that played in college. One was legitimately awesome and the other was average.

Not sure it was worth weighing in on this, but the notion that there are lots of "real" athletes, or hipsters, or hot girls, or whatever else at UVa is highly misleading. Fact of the matter is, the vast majority of those who are athletic enough, or hot enough, or hip enough, to earn those labels out in the world, are not going to top 10 law schools. UVa is certainly no exception.

(I hope no one is basing their law-school choice on which school is thought to have the hottest and most athletic kids)

[t-ender]

I like the OGI preselect systems . Some employers have actually told me they prefer it too. A few reasons. First, it lets employers talk to who they want to talk to because they get to select them ahead of time. This makes you feel good as a student because you know that the firm you are talking to wants you and is willing to talk to you above some other students.

Sometimes this means you don't get selected by firms you really want to talk to, but you have to remember, firms have grade cut-offs. If you don't make the grade cut-off it's unreasonable to be a hero and waste a bid. The preselect system prevents this from happening to an extent. Still, if there is a firm you really want to get in front of you can do it. Go to the hospitality suite, hand out resumes, e-mail someone from the firm, etc

I think this year was a solid OGI with the 20 interview cap (soft cap, admittedly). I'm also willing to trade off an interview system that firms prefer for one that is a little paternalistic toward students.

Can you please explain "soft cap"?

[5ky]

I like the OGI preselect systems . Some employers have actually told me they prefer it too. A few reasons. First, it lets employers talk to who they want to talk to because they get to select them ahead of time. This makes you feel good as a student because you know that the firm you are talking to wants you and is willing to talk to you above some other students.

Sometimes this means you don't get selected by firms you really want to talk to, but you have to remember, firms have grade cut-offs. If you don't make the grade cut-off it's unreasonable to be a hero and waste a bid. The preselect system prevents this from happening to an extent. Still, if there is a firm you really want to get in front of you can do it. Go to the hospitality suite, hand out resumes, e-mail someone from the firm, etc

I think this year was a solid OGI with the 20 interview cap (soft cap, admittedly). I'm also willing to trade off an interview system that firms prefer for one that is a little paternalistic toward students.

Can you please explain "soft cap"?

If you got more than 20 pre-selects, you had to choose your top 20 and give up the rest. But, because the system is so complicated, in some cases, people got back some of the interviews they had to decline, just because of the way things worked out logistically. As well, late additions to OGI tended not to count against your cap of 20, either. Finally, even if you were at 20, if you could make a compelling case to use a special request (basically an appeal to be re-considered for an interview slot for a firm), often that would be allowed as well. I believe I ended up with 23 or 24 screening interviews, even though I initially had to pare that down to 20.

It's a very complicated system, don't worry too much about that yet.

[dailygrind]

Just throwing this out there, but does anyone have a Verdier outline for Banking and Financial Institutions? The SBA outline bank is failing me and I'm scared.

[thesealocust]

Just throwing this out there, but does anyone have a Verdier outline for Banking and Financial Institutions? The SBA outline bank is failing me and I'm scared.

Da; pm me your email address (AND I WILL FINALLY KNOW WHO YOU ARE MWAHAHAHA).

[desertlaw]

It's not even March and people are talking about outlines (on here and someone in class today). Everyone needs to chill.

[dailygrind]

It's not even March and people are talking about outlines (on here and someone in class today). Everyone needs to chill.

I've read probably 2/3 of the material for this class. I'm asking for an outline so I can catch up, not so I can get ahead.

[Cavalier]

Goal for this week: purchase remaining casebooks for spring courses.

[RVP11]

A vague and misleading statement. I graduated last year and don't recall more than a handful of people that actually played a legit sport in college, i.e. not something random like squash.

There are tons of guys in law school that are "law school athletic" in that they lift weights and play pick-up sports decently well, but I wouldn't say there are a lot of athletes at UVa.

I didn't play any college sports and could not have if I wanted to, and I was among the most athletic kids in my class. Our intramural basketbal team, which went to the UVa school-wide finals, featured only 2 kids that had played college sports. One played Ivy football and the other D3 basketball. Neither was extraordinarily gifted as an athlete. The law school's soccer team, which played in the CVille city league, featured only 2 kids that played in college. One was legitimately awesome and the other was average.

Not sure it was worth weighing in on this, but the notion that there are lots of "real" athletes, or hipsters, or hot girls, or whatever else at UVa is highly misleading. Fact of the matter is, the vast majority of those who are athletic enough, or hot enough, or hip enough, to earn those labels out in the world, are not going to top 10 law schools. UVa is certainly no exception.

(I hope no one is basing their law-school choice on which school is thought to have the hottest and most athletic kids)

This is all about right.

But what other posters might be getting at is this:

The law school has more athleticism than a random sample of 1000 people aged 22 to 27. Maybe considerably more.

The law school probably has more overall athleticism than other law schools.

The law school probably has more athleticism, per capita, than the undergrad if you remove the varsity athletes. See: success/dominance in intramural sports.

And yes, I'm using "athleticism" very loosely to include not just people who played college sports, but people who lift, run, or are just good at pickup or intramural sports.

[A Swift]

KD is a godsend.

+1. He is worth the price of admission.

[desertlaw]

KD is a godsend.

+1. He is worth the price of admission.

For the price of one J.D., you get KD and they throw in SeaLocust for free!! Pretty sure KD will be busier this summer with helping people's bid strategies once Sealocust leaves.