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

[Kikero]

The Legal Employment series thing is supposed to be that I think, LRGhost, but iirc they were just like if you are at median mass mail. If you are top 25% you're good for any Chicago firm. And between median and top 25% you're good for everywhere except like Kirkland, Sidley, Jenner type firms. Sort of reductive, but they didn't seem to have the urgency that TLS does.

So lol at that. I'm going to stick with TLS.

As someone who knows many people between median and top 25% you're not necessarily good for anywhere in Chicago. You've definitely got a fair shot at most Chicago firms, but there are plenty of people in that range who didn't get any Chicago offers who wanted them.

[kennethellenparcell]

Just though the 2 and 3 LSAT would like to know The whole 1L class is being openly shamed for our lack if attendance at employer events at this mandatory meeting.

2Ls were also shamed for not filling out their interview trackers. Your apathy reflects poorly on all of us guys, let's get it together.

ETA: More importantly though, Dave took off the gloves and declared war on TLS conventional wisdom for bidding. He said most of his time in meetings with students going over bid lists was spent dispelling misinformation they had read on TLS.

Ah yes, this totally sucks for you guys cause you get skewed data. Sorry guys! You will see though when Career Services sends you the interview tracker this summer how much of a pain in the ass it is to fill it out and maintain the data when you're flying back and forth or dealing with the insanity of callbacks. I definitely had to keep my own spreadsheet which I later put that data into the Career Services spreadsheet. If they could somehow make data entry easier for people going through OCI craziness, they probably would get a lot more responses.

[terriers]

The Legal Employment series thing is supposed to be that I think, LRGhost, but iirc they were just like if you are at median mass mail. If you are top 25% you're good for any Chicago firm. And between median and top 25% you're good for everywhere except like Kirkland, Sidley, Jenner type firms. Sort of reductive, but they didn't seem to have the urgency that TLS does.

So lol at that. I'm going to stick with TLS.

This is categorically not true, the callback medians for Sidley/Kirkland/Mayer are usually around 3.8 which is well into top 15% and I know a bunch of people w/ great grades that struggled to get callbacks in Chicago.

As far as bid lists go, I think the TLS wisdom trumps OCS tbh, OCS tends to be overly confident IMO.

[rayiner]

OCS is less conservative about bidding than TLS, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. By the time I bid I was already a TLS megaposter, and Bill Chamberlain told me to bid more aggressively, and he was right. I'm not saying to ignore TLS, but rather that you should give OCS's advice due weight.

Also note that group versus individual dynamics plays a part. For example, bidding New York can be a smart play at median because there's less competition for that market at OCI. But if everyone does it, then that's bad because at the end of the day there are a lot more interview slots in Chicago than for New York.

[homestyle28]

The Legal Employment series thing is supposed to be that I think, LRGhost, but iirc they were just like if you are at median mass mail. If you are top 25% you're good for any Chicago firm. And between median and top 25% you're good for everywhere except like Kirkland, Sidley, Jenner type firms. Sort of reductive, but they didn't seem to have the urgency that TLS does.

So lol at that. I'm going to stick with TLS.

This is categorically not true, the callback medians for Sidley/Kirkland/Mayer are usually around 3.8 which is well into top 15% and I know a bunch of people w/ great grades that struggled to get callbacks in Chicago.

As far as bid lists go, I think the TLS wisdom trumps OCS tbh, OCS tends to be overly confident IMO.

I'd take it to mean if you're top 25% you're grades won't be your issue, but that doesn't mean employment is secure.

[Dr. Filth]

When do we get median callback stuff?

Like I said, I was being a little flippant with the Chicago advice. It was a little more nuanced than that, but they were, on the whole, significantly more optimistic than TLS. I've read too many people say they or their friends struggled in Chicago to be anything other than terrified.

[09042014]

When do we get median callback stuff?

Like I said, I was being a little flippant with the Chicago advice. It was a little more nuanced than that, but they were, on the whole, significantly more optimistic than TLS. I've read too many people say they or their friends struggled in Chicago to be anything other than terrified.

Both what the Career services and TLS say is true. Top quarter is enough to put you in the running for every chicago biglaw firm. But it's not going to win you callbacks and offers on it's own. Grades matter, but they aren't even close to the whole game.

[Dr. Filth]

When do we get median callback stuff?

Like I said, I was being a little flippant with the Chicago advice. It was a little more nuanced than that, but they were, on the whole, significantly more optimistic than TLS. I've read too many people say they or their friends struggled in Chicago to be anything other than terrified.

Both what the Career services and TLS say is true. Top quarter is enough to put you in the running for every chicago biglaw firm. But it's not going to win you callbacks and offers on it's own. Grades matter, but they aren't even close to the whole game.

So what is the most conservative way to bid? I know y'all have said there are no "safeties"

Is it just bid the firms with the biggest class size that are within your grade range according to CSO?

[basilseal]

LR is significantly more work than JCLC. My boyfriend is on LR and comparatively did a lot more than I did. I would say JCLC and JTIP are probably pretty on par in terms of the number of source and cites. The journals that have the least amount of work are probably JIHR and JLSP. Not super sure about JILB.

Like, significantly so. JCLC's work reputation has been exaggerated beyond reason.

[09042014]

Did JIHR start publishing again after Phil left?

[lgleye]

.

[Blumpbeef]

The Legal Employment series thing is supposed to be that I think, LRGhost, but iirc they were just like if you are at median mass mail. If you are top 25% you're good for any Chicago firm. And between median and top 25% you're good for everywhere except like Kirkland, Sidley, Jenner type firms. Sort of reductive, but they didn't seem to have the urgency that TLS does.

So lol at that. I'm going to stick with TLS.

As someone who knows many people between median and top 25% you're not necessarily good for anywhere in Chicago. You've definitely got a fair shot at most Chicago firms, but there are plenty of people in that range who didn't get any Chicago offers who wanted them.

I'm not sure what GPA is considered top 25%, but lol at thinking you are "good" at Chicago firms with that, never mind between 25% and median. I think you can say that it is worth taking the time to interview with Chicago firms with those GPA ranges, but you certainly aren't guaranteed anything, and you shouldn't be complacent when it comes to also bidding NY or mass mailing.

I just noticed that I was scooped by DF on the above, but I'll add that ties are really important. Regardless of your GPA, if you don't have a good reason for wanting to be in Chicago you probably won't do too well. And I've also found that generally where people do have strong ties to somewhere or to a practice area they can punch above their GPA.

So what is the most conservative way to bid? I know y'all have said there are no "safeties"

Is it just bid the firms with the biggest class size that are within your grade range according to CSO?

Is that what they told you?

You should bid firms you want to work at in cities you want to live in, as long as your GPA is a rational choice for those offices. Those are going to be your best interviews. If you don't want to work at a 1000 person firm then look at smaller ones. If you want to work at an IP boutique or a tax boutique then bid those (but really, you can pick up most of the boutiques without bidding them very high or even at all). You can game the system a bit by ranking DC/CA firms below Chicago and NY firms, but as a first cut you should be narrowing it down to offices that you are actually interested in rather than just bidding on the biggest firms (many of which are very grade selective). Other people in this thread have posted a lot about bidding strategy, but it really comes down to GPA selectiveness vs. number of interview slots. Firms with low GPA medians and a limited number of slots relative to class size will generally need to be bid very high.

And you should also apply to firms you don't want to work at in cities you don't want to live in cause shit happens.

[whereskyle]

Is receiving $$$ to travel for CBs a thing? Either from the school or from employers? Am I going to have to max out loans 2L for this purpose?

[Blumpbeef]

Is receiving $$$ to travel for CBs a thing? Either from the school or from employers? Am I going to have to max out loans 2L for this purpose?

They'll pay for flights, hotels, reasonable expenses and also probably unreasonable expenses.

[whereskyle]

Is receiving $$$ to travel for CBs a thing? Either from the school or from employers? Am I going to have to max out loans 2L for this purpose?

They'll pay for flights, hotels, reasonable expenses and also probably unreasonable expenses.

Woot! Then Ill live like a pauper for yet another year (when I'm not at a CB). Thanks for the response, but who is they? Employers or NU?

[Cobretti]

Is receiving $$$ to travel for CBs a thing? Either from the school or from employers? Am I going to have to max out loans 2L for this purpose?

They'll pay for flights, hotels, reasonable expenses and also probably unreasonable expenses.

Woot! Then Ill live like a pauper for yet another year (when I'm not at a CB). Thanks for the response, but who is they? Employers or NU?

employers. they book and pay for the flight and hotel for you so its really easy. they normally reimburse transportation/food too.

[splitsplat]

Is receiving $$$ to travel for CBs a thing? Either from the school or from employers? Am I going to have to max out loans 2L for this purpose?

They'll pay for flights, hotels, reasonable expenses and also probably unreasonable expenses.

ny firms, with big programs- reimburse anything. you can even go crazier when you are doing a multi-firm callback. it's great

[lgleye]

.

[Flips88]

I kinda regret not bidding any NYC firms. I woulda been up for a free trip to see some friends.

[zugzwanger]

On the topic of OCI, how do you express strong interest in transactional work during an interview without having any real experience in the field? Litigation makes sense especially in light of coursework and 1L summer. I have my reasons/fascinations for wanting to do corporate/M&A maybe PE, but they are just personal interests that generally coincide with my background, but I don't think that is sufficient to express to a potential employer. Do you guys have any suggestions? I'm hoping not to go down the "thrill of the deal" route haha

[Flips88]

On the topic of OCI, how do you express strong interest in transactional work during an interview without having any real experience in the field? Litigation makes sense especially in light of coursework and 1L summer. I have my reasons/fascinations for wanting to do corporate/M&A maybe PE, but they are just personal interests that generally coincide with my background, but I don't think that is sufficient to express to a potential employer. Do you guys have any suggestions? I'm hoping not to go down the "thrill of the deal" route haha

employers truly don't expect you to be that firmly committed to an idea when you're interviewing after just 1 year in law school and 2 months of legal work. So you want to say something like "Well, you know, I obviously can't say I'm dead set on doing one over the other. The law school curriculum is more geared to the litigation side so that's all I know right now. But I'm certainly fascinated by transactional work based on [background interest] and would be really interested in learning what transactional lawyers do. If I had to pick one or the other though, I think I'd certainly lean strongly toward transactional"

[Bumi]

LR is significantly more work than JCLC. My boyfriend is on LR and comparatively did a lot more than I did. I would say JCLC and JTIP are probably pretty on par in terms of the number of source and cites. The journals that have the least amount of work are probably JIHR and JLSP. Not super sure about JILB.

Like, significantly so. JCLC's work reputation has been exaggerated beyond reason.

Law Review is more work than JCLC. JCLC is more work than JTIP, though. JTIP did eyeballing, what, like once this year? Frankly, I wish the journals could just say how many assignments they give of each type, because nobody really knows how much work other journals do. For example, every journal seems to have a different page number requirement for comments.

[09042014]

JTIP is easy because its so incompetent that no matter how shitty of a job you do, nobody ever gets on your case about it.

[homestyle28]

JILB probably falls below JCLC, you'll have 3 source and sites but deadlines on comment tend to be soft. And your comment can be pretty bad and still stand a fair shot of being published

[crumpetsandtea]

From my understanding, the workload for journals looks like this (from most to least)

LR
JCLC
JTIP/JILB
JIHR/JLSP

FWIW, my friends on JCLC have gotten 4x as much work as my friends on JIHR/JLSP this past year. And I've heard that JILB is just a fucking MESS this year, really unorganized - they cancelled their symposium, assigned a bunch of things during spring break, and a lot of people never got their 1st or 2nd drafts of their notes back from their editors on time or at all. So next year if they have their shit together they might give more work/be more strict.