Northwestern 1L/2L/3L/Grads Taking Questions and Challenges Forum

[LRGhost]

They could certainly do more. You could hire people who work to foster relationships with partners and students and then try to go to bat for them. Obviously you wouldn't take a marginal student and try to place them at an absolute top firm, but they could do more than say 'apply broadly' or whatever. It'd be more work than revising resumes, but there was that whole ATL article about different ways to adjust Career Services at schools. It'd be an overhaul, not a tweak. There are some things that I don't know would be good ideas but may be novel like maybe trying to adjust people's notion of success being outside of $160,000 and a couple dozen firms in a three or four markets. Also providing actual career advice for how to succeed five and ten years after graduation and not just during OCI would be pretty good.

The gust of it is……. Although we can’t realistically expect Career Services to hand us the job offers, they certainly can do much more than simple resume review or interview coaching. I think one of the main problems is that we’ve got an OCS staff that’s working in a 2006 mode, rather than adjusting to the new legal economy. At NU and other schools, they’ve had it easy during the boom years, when going to even a T30 almost guaranteed multiple offers. That mode doesn’t work these days, and students get frustrated and angry when they feel that OCS seems dismissive or doesn’t have a clue.

NU makes a ton of money collecting fees from firms that come to OCI. That money should not be a simple revenue generator, but allocated directly toward making a more proactive OCS (better staff, more market research, hosting networking functions between firms and students, efforts to get feedback from students and their needs, etc.). Law school is subject to a market economy and the OCS gets paid to enhance our employability, and can’t simply hide behind a bd economy, but needs to take responsibility and change to meet the demands of its students.

http://abovethelaw.com/2013/03/revampin ... proposals/

The last suggestion isn't a perfect solution but I agree with the idea that it would encourage Career Services to do significantly more. At the very least, it demonstrates that there is more that they can do with minimal effort.

[Georgia Avenue]

agree generally with icculus' point - a lot of the stick OCS gets from our class comes from the 2012 OCI experience, where they didn't bother to replace an experienced counselor during the 5 months before OCI and tried filling the gap with someone who had no career services experience. that person proceeded to give advice that was either ignorant of the 2012 legal market or just flat out objectively bad to multiple people. so on that end, it's not like they can force firms to hire us, but you can certainly put students in a better place to succeed than what they did that year.

[Snape]

Everyone is being too nice about career services. This fact alone shows how little NU career services cares about law students: Every year at OCI around 4:30 or 5:00 (whenever the exact end time is), career services goes around at that exact moment and literally stops partners and hiring firms from talking to students seeking jobs. Career services rudely interrupts extended interviews and stops students from speaking with potential employers. There is no excuse for this. Any administrative excuse about Kellog hours is simply bull shit. And if any person from career services ever stops one person from speaking with a potential employer they should be immediately fired in this legal economy--however, the school mandates such action. If you want a job you have to be proactive and should NEVER think for a second think you can depend on career services.

[Micdiddy]

Everyone is being too nice about career services. This fact alone shows how little NU career services cares about law students: Every year at OCI around 4:30 or 5:00 (whenever the exact end time is), career services goes around at that exact moment and literally stops partners and hiring firms from talking to students seeking jobs. Career services rudely interrupts extended interviews and stops students from speaking with potential employers. There is no excuse for this. Any administrative excuse about Kellog hours is simply bull shit. And if any person from career services ever stops one person from speaking with a potential employer they should be immediately fired in this legal economy--however, the school mandates such action. If you want a job you have to be proactive and should NEVER think for a second think you can depend on career services.

I think the difference is whether you accept this statement and then think OCS is doing a good job on top of ones own proactive-ness, or whether you accept this statement and think that means OCS is failing. Either way, I think (hope) everyone understands and accepts the bolded.

[lgleye]

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[Pokemon]

agree generally with icculus' point - a lot of the stick OCS gets from our class comes from the 2012 OCI experience, where they didn't bother to replace an experienced counselor during the 5 months before OCI and tried filling the gap with someone who had no career services experience. that person proceeded to give advice that was either ignorant of the 2012 legal market or just flat out objectively bad to multiple people. so on that end, it's not like they can force firms to hire us, but you can certainly put students in a better place to succeed than what they did that year.

Wasn't the move orchestrated by D-Rod? That is what I heard then. And yes, that was an absolutely, amazingly, terrible mistake. One of the most experienced counselors, someone who had been in the trenches for years and had firm connections, really our main career services person, was replaced by someone who knew really nothing about this process. I still think the school has not done a good job replacing him.

[lgleye]

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[splitsplat]

For some reason, I feel like zero loyalty to NU... if I had the money to donate, I'd definitely give to my undergrad before law school.

Just for NU or any law/grad school? I dunno about zero loyalty, but yeah, I think I understand; most of us leave college with good memories of more innocent times ("finding" oneself, maturity, etc.). At grad school, however, we're usually there for a defined purposes (MBA, PhD, MS, JD, etc.)

That's why relationships between college roommates or buddies are usually stronger than for grad school..... after all, you're more likely to be competing for the same job.

I can't really extrapolate, since I'm just speaking to my own situation and NU is the only grad school I've attended. As to your second point though, I actually feel closer to some of my law school buddies than most undergrad friends, it's just the school, as an institution that I'm meh about.

[bjsesq]

Can't help thinking about Career Services' duty, proximate causation and damage: for those who got screwed by that snafu, how are they gonna be made whole?

[Icculus]

Can't help thinking about Career Services' duty, proximate causation and damage: for those who got screwed by that snafu, how are they gonna be made whole?

Look, I got objectively bad advice on my bid list from the person who temporarily replaced Bill in terms of how I bid my home market vs NY firms. I think it screwed out of a bunch of screeners. At the same time I don't blame all of OCS, rather I blame the administration for not getting someone with experience in there. I also think I should probably have just not listened and done what my gut said was right. Granted that is 20/20 hind sight. But like I said before, outside of a very few instances of actual bad advice from someone who probably should never have been in the office I can't see what OCS could really do that differently. And remember we are one of the few professions that employees just show up to interview potential employees, that is huge. It's not OCS's fault that the firms want particular grades, etc.

[lgleye]

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[parkslope]

I think that when people vent at OCS, here and at other schools, they’re not targeting the OCS people per se as much as at the school administration as a whole. With maybe a couple of exceptions, I found that the few times I went to the office last year, I was met by pretty courteous people. However, “nice” as these people may have been, there was never that reassuring feeling that I should have had at the end of the meeting. I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t purposely give me bad advice, so I can only conclude that they were not competent to do so. And when you get screwed by such incompetent advice, you end up hating the whole fucking world.......you know it's the school's fault for failing to help you, but OCS is a handy target.

Luckily for me and my friends, we had been forewarned by you 3L’s about the previous year, and we decided to make our bidlists based upon advice from upperclassmen. Some classmates, however, did hurt themselves by relying soleiy on OCS advice (especially the “bid broadly” BS). It’s safe to say that these people probably won’t have fond memories of NU.

I think OCS doesn't understand the difference between getting a biglaw job and getting the biglaw job you want. They are actually relatively good at maximizing NU's overall biglaw placement, but for people who have the GPA to be relatively "safe," they are not good at steering students to the firms that are right for that student.

[Micdiddy]

Does any 3L have a Calebresi ConLaw outline? All the ones I have are from like 1998...

[onionz]

Does anyone have a Law firm management/large law firm outline? It's the Lutz class on law firms but I think it's changed its name recently...

[splitsplat]

Does anyone have a Law firm management/large law firm outline? It's the Lutz class on law firms but I think it's changed its name recently...

if this is like any of other of his classes, spend less time trying to study and more time telling Lutz he is so awesome.

[LRGhost]

Does any 3L have a Calebresi ConLaw outline? All the ones I have are from like 1998...

Second, third, and fourthed.

[whereskyle]

Would anyone like to elaborate on their clinical experiences? Were you doing substantial work? Have the experiences helped with applications for SAs and beyond? Have you done more than one clinic? Thanks, all.

[Georgia Avenue]

I think OCS doesn't understand the difference between getting a biglaw job and getting the biglaw job you want. They are actually relatively good at maximizing NU's overall biglaw placement, but for people who have the GPA to be relatively "safe," they are not good at steering students to the firms that are right for that student.

to be fair 90% of students don't know what kind of biglaw job they really want when they go through OCI.

[Icculus]

Does any 3L have a Calebresi ConLaw outline? All the ones I have are from like 1998...

Second, third, and fourthed.

PM an email address to send it to.

[homestyle28]

I think OCS doesn't understand the difference between getting a biglaw job and getting the biglaw job you want. They are actually relatively good at maximizing NU's overall biglaw placement, but for people who have the GPA to be relatively "safe," they are not good at steering students to the firms that are right for that student.

to be fair 90% of students don't know what kind of biglaw job they really want when they go through OCI.

+1, we all just don't want to be poor/buried in our debt for 20+ years

[lgleye]

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[jn7]

For those of you 1L's who are interested, you might find this useful as a primer for OCI:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=195630
Also, if you're targeting NYC:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=213227

I know that focusing on grades is primary, but a bit of advanced reading in your spare time may help prevent you from becoming a neurotic like I was.

Thanks will definitely give it a read!

[lgleye]

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[homestyle28]

I guess someone has to do this: Here's the obligatory 3L warning that it is too fucking early to start worrying about this. There is exactly 1 thing you can control going into OCI: your grades (and you can only control that so much). Instead of worrying about OCI, study, read something, outline something, or take a minute to relax and refresh so you can read something, outline something, study something.

There will be more than enough time this summer to stress, arrange, rearrange, re-rearrange your bid lists in the summer. Also, it's an exercise in futility without a full 1L gpa.

So stop it.

[lgleye]

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