UC Hastings Students Taking Questions Forum

[Moonlight]

East Bay or South Bay are both better options price per value wise.

[hiima3L]

A 250 sq ft studio does not sound pleasant.

It's not, but there is a lot to be said about being a 5 min walk from campus. And as a 1L, all you should care about is your grades and doing whatever you can to make them the best they can possibly be. Commuting can easily take 1-2hrs out of your day. That is valuable study time.

[a male human]

I know people read on the commute and still did well (though I was not one of them).

[Moonlight]

I know people read on the commute and still did well (though I was not one of them).

And the way I treated commute in undergrad was my break away from work and books, so I figure it can't be that bad in law school. Like if I use it as a break time again and then hit the books when I get home I should be good.

[Shortterm12]

A 250 sq ft studio does not sound pleasant.

It's not, but there is a lot to be said about being a 5 min walk from campus. And as a 1L, all you should care about is your grades and doing whatever you can to make them the best they can possibly be. Commuting can easily take 1-2hrs out of your day. That is valuable study time.

That's true but there is no need to live outside of SF. You can get to Hastings from Taraval and 19th on the L train in only twenty minutes. In the sunset (a nice, safe area) you are able to get a full-sized apartment for the price of a studio closer to Hastings. Just some food for thought for those who aren't really familiar with San Francisco.

[Lasers]

A 250 sq ft studio does not sound pleasant.

It's not, but there is a lot to be said about being a 5 min walk from campus. And as a 1L, all you should care about is your grades and doing whatever you can to make them the best they can possibly be. Commuting can easily take 1-2hrs out of your day. That is valuable study time.

the value of waking up at 7:45am for conlaw at 8am cannot be overstated.

[kapital98]

the value of waking up at 7:45am for conlaw at 8am cannot be overstated.

This is the way I feel for all classes before 11pm.

[hiima3L]

A 250 sq ft studio does not sound pleasant.

It's not, but there is a lot to be said about being a 5 min walk from campus. And as a 1L, all you should care about is your grades and doing whatever you can to make them the best they can possibly be. Commuting can easily take 1-2hrs out of your day. That is valuable study time.

That's true but there is no need to live outside of SF. You can get to Hastings from Taraval and 19th on the L train in only twenty minutes. In the sunset (a nice, safe area) you are able to get a full-sized apartment for the price of a studio closer to Hastings. Just some food for thought for those who aren't really familiar with San Francisco.

LOL @ the Muni ever taking 20 mins to and from the Sunset on a consistent basis. The L is better than some other lines (I'm looking at you, N train), but I would not expect 40 mins being your total amount of Muni time per day if you're living in the Sunset. The Sunset is a very underrated area, though. If you're okay with commuting at least an hour every day, the Sunset is great.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to live further to get a bigger place for as much or less than living in the scenic Tenderloin. But I would err on the side of discomfort as a 1L if it means you can live in the bubble that is the 100-200 block of McAllister. As a 2L, I lived in an area that was a 20-min bus ride away on a good day, but an hour-long bus ride on a bad one (and most were bad). There were many, many times that I really regretted living where I did just to save a couple hundred bucks per month for a bigger place. I would never want to do that as an overly stressed 1L.

[lisavj]

I commuted from walnut creek during 1L (45 minutes by BART). I liked living off campus (granted I came with a house and a spouse so that weighted the scales in favor of not moving to a 1br in the t-loin), it helped me remember there is more to life than law school...I read on the train and did just fine during 1L.

[lisavj]

the value of waking up at 7:45am for conlaw at 8am cannot be overstated.

This is the way I feel for all classes before 11pm.

Sorry for the double post - this is a very valid point. Because I wake up at 5a most days, the commute didn't bug me...but I did get cranky if my train home happened after about 8pm...ask my study group from 1L. (Please, please don't ask them how many stupid carl's hamburgers I ate...)

[GunnerBingo]

A 250 sq ft studio does not sound pleasant.

It's not, but there is a lot to be said about being a 5 min walk from campus. And as a 1L, all you should care about is your grades and doing whatever you can to make them the best they can possibly be. Commuting can easily take 1-2hrs out of your day. That is valuable study time.

A commute is not life or death during 1L. Sure it's nice to be closer, but as long as the commute is within reason (less than 1 1/2 hours) there is no way it will be a detriment to anyone's studies. Sure there is work to be done, but your first year is much more about learning how to take exams than spending every waking hour of the day studying the material/cases. Further, 1L is also about cultivating relationships, building a network, and carving out a social life. All this can be done while still getting top grades. The hours I spent pouring over the cases were the worst spent at school. The make or break of each semester is that month before finals when you teach yourself the law, make outlines, and do practice tests.

There is no need to discourage people from living off campus by saying that they'll need every possible hour to study. 1 or 2 hours lost in commute is perfectly fine if one's priorities are in order.

[Kellanj]

Did anybody ITT get a big scholly to Hastings? I've heard in general they're pretty stingy.

Also did anyone take a scholly at Hastings over a t14?

[kapital98]

Did anybody ITT get a big scholly to Hastings? I've heard in general they're pretty stingy.

Also did anyone take a scholly at Hastings over a t14?

I really, really doubt anyone in here got a large scholarship. I received the max need-based aid and that was a little over $13k per year. I've heard of some people not getting the maximum need-based aid because they saved money in their bank account before school.

Merit aid is tiny. Like $5 or $10k.

[Kellanj]

Did anybody ITT get a big scholly to Hastings? I've heard in general they're pretty stingy.

Also did anyone take a scholly at Hastings over a t14?

I really, really doubt anyone in here got a large scholarship. I received the max need-based aid and that was a little over $13k per year. I've heard of some people not getting the maximum need-based aid because they saved money in their bank account before school.

Merit aid is tiny. Like $5 or $10k.

Unfortunately that's what I was expecting to hear.

[a male human]

Did anybody ITT get a big scholly to Hastings? I've heard in general they're pretty stingy.

Also did anyone take a scholly at Hastings over a t14?

I really, really doubt anyone in here got a large scholarship. I received the max need-based aid and that was a little over $13k per year. I've heard of some people not getting the maximum need-based aid because they saved money in their bank account before school.

Merit aid is tiny. Like $5 or $10k.

I got 10k in merit aid. I believe that was the max because they are cheap and poor. Joke's on them because I placed below median.

0 in need based because I spent 2 years eating frozen dinners to save for law school because I didn't know how aid worked. I remember talking with the dean of financial aid on the phone, where he said if I didn't have 20k in the bank I would have gotten aid.

Moral: Funnel away (or irresponsibly spend) your cash to someone else before applying for aid. Maybe spend it on taking extra LSATs or giving kickbacks to people in better schools.

[SFSpartan]

Did anybody ITT get a big scholly to Hastings? I've heard in general they're pretty stingy.

Also did anyone take a scholly at Hastings over a t14?

I took 19.5k/year at Hastings over UM at sticker. However, that was based on my ability to live rent free if I went to Hastings (making my debt load at UCH very low), and the fact that UM pulled me off the waitlist two weeks before school was going to start.

[caligirl8]

How does printing at the library work? Is it free?

I'll be living in the Tower next year and I'm trying to decide if I need to purchase a printer or not. Thanks!

[ilovesf]

How does printing at the library work? Is it free?

I'll be living in the Tower next year and I'm trying to decide if I need to purchase a printer or not. Thanks!

You can print cases for free through lexis or westlaw, i forget which one (one of them stopped doing it), but otherwise you have to pay for printing in the library.

[SFSpartan]

Just got all 1L grades back. I'm close to the Top 25% cutoff but may be just below (No class rank yet). Fairly devastating, as I did worse second semester, though not surprising given some (non-recurring) personal issues I had second semester. Given my class standing, I'd appreciate advice in two areas:

1. OCI- Before I got my CrimLaw grade, I was staring at Top 10-15%, and had a list of firms I wanted to bid on at OCI. I'm now below most of the posted cutoffs. What should be my bidding strategy, and should I even bother with OCI?

2. Dropping Out- Dropping out has crossed my mind, though that's partially due to the shock of the grades I just got. At this point I'm thinking not, but I'd love to hear the perspective of 2L/3L/alumni.

FWIW, I'm taking out between $50-75k in debt, depending on how things shake out this summer. Goals are corporate transactional work and/or emerging tech. I currently have an offer to work with a startup accelerator this summer, but am holding out for a position at a mid/biglaw firm, where I have a final interview tomorrow. The current offer will not be revoked (I have an ongoing professional relationship with the people at the accelerator) If any other info is relevant to advice, please let me know.

[hiima3L]

Just got all 1L grades back. I'm close to the Top 25% cutoff but may be just below (No class rank yet). Fairly devastating, as I did worse second semester, though not surprising given some (non-recurring) personal issues I had second semester. Given my class standing, I'd appreciate advice in two areas:

1. OCI- Before I got my CrimLaw grade, I was staring at Top 10-15%, and had a list of firms I wanted to bid on at OCI. I'm now below most of the posted cutoffs. What should be my bidding strategy, and should I even bother with OCI?

2. Dropping Out- Dropping out has crossed my mind, though that's partially due to the shock of the grades I just got. At this point I'm thinking not, but I'd love to hear the perspective of 2L/3L/alumni.

FWIW, I'm taking out between $50-75k in debt, depending on how things shake out this summer. Goals are corporate transactional work and/or emerging tech. I currently have an offer to work with a startup accelerator this summer, but am holding out for a position at a mid/biglaw firm, where I have a final interview tomorrow. The current offer will not be revoked (I have an ongoing professional relationship with the people at the accelerator) If any other info is relevant to advice, please let me know.

Class of 2012 grad here.

Do you have an IP background? If so, you will probably be okay. If not, you're in the same boat as just about everyone not in the top 15% or so: it's going to be a huge uphill battle. Whether you get a job doing tech type stuff will be hugely contingent on networking (i.e., luck). Unless you have a tech background of some sort, I would not bank on entering the field outside of getting on the biglaw gravy train.

I can't comment on bidding strategy at OCI, really, but I would not get your hopes up. Absolutely do it to the best of your ability. If you don't get big law through OCI and you're fully committed to that, drop out. It's almost certainly not happening post-OCI. Midlaw right out of law school is next to impossible. I know of exactly one person who did it--a friend who's a Berkeley grad, who had to "beg his way into the position," as he put it.

Some people will say something like "oh the debt is not that much," and that would justify staying enrolled. I went into about that much and I assure you my monthly payments are nothing to sneeze at. You're still looking at $600-900/mo payments. The jobs out there outside of OCI are not only far and few between, but most don't pay nearly enough to support a decent life given the COL in the Bay Area, especially if you've got sizeable loans (I would qualify $50k as sizeable).

PM me if you'd like to discuss more confidentially. The market is really, really, really fucking bad for lawyers nowadays. You truly won't be able to appreciate it until you spend the next 2 years job-seeking and end up graduating without anything like more than half of the past few classes at UCH.

[kapital98]

Just got all 1L grades back. I'm close to the Top 25% cutoff but may be just below (No class rank yet). Fairly devastating, as I did worse second semester, though not surprising given some (non-recurring) personal issues I had second semester. Given my class standing, I'd appreciate advice in two areas:

1. OCI- Before I got my CrimLaw grade, I was staring at Top 10-15%, and had a list of firms I wanted to bid on at OCI. I'm now below most of the posted cutoffs. What should be my bidding strategy, and should I even bother with OCI?

2. Dropping Out- Dropping out has crossed my mind, though that's partially due to the shock of the grades I just got. At this point I'm thinking not, but I'd love to hear the perspective of 2L/3L/alumni.

FWIW, I'm taking out between $50-75k in debt, depending on how things shake out this summer. Goals are corporate transactional work and/or emerging tech. I currently have an offer to work with a startup accelerator this summer, but am holding out for a position at a mid/biglaw firm, where I have a final interview tomorrow. The current offer will not be revoked (I have an ongoing professional relationship with the people at the accelerator) If any other info is relevant to advice, please let me know.

Class of 14' here (transferred out). I had the same grades as you.

1) Should you drop out? That's a question that comes down to what type of employment (and possible unemployment) you are willing to accept. With those grades you will be scrambling for what everyone else is going for (county gov't, small firms, etc). It's also possible you could have an extended period of unemployment and post-graduate internships. Fortunately, you have a low debt load. Especially for UCH.

If you want to be a lawyer you should keep plugging away. If you don't, drop out. If you got into law school for the $$$ then you should drop. You are looking at best at a middle class income for your first 5+ years out of law school. After debt that is not much.

2) You should do OCI. You should do it for 2 reasons. First, you always have an outside shot. You never know if you can impressive interviewers. I got a callback by doing that even though my grades were the same as yours. Second, it is good interview experience. You can't get enough of that.

[Mick Haller]

I think you won't get anything through OCI being top 25% unless you have something unique about you (tech background, unique skills/experience that match a firm's needs, personal connections, diversity hire, are a hot girl).

If you aren't unique, and big law money and corporate transactions is what you are dead set on doing, I'd probably drop out. I don't know any ordinary people in the 15-25% range that got something through OCI. If you stay then OCI will probably be a waste of your time. Unless OCI hiring has increased significantly in the last 2 years or so. It would be helpful to get feedback from c/o 2014 and 2015 people.

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

I've always been more upbeat than some of the others, but I do completely agree with the notion that you should think about dropping out if you were "biglaw or bust."

Our difference of outlook probably has to do with who we know; I personally know two Hastings grads from my class ('14) that are starting at midlaw shops. I also know at least one person (again, Hastings '14) who ended up with a biglaw job midway through 3L year (though, admittedly it's Amlaw 100 but not v100, even though that's hardly a distinction outside of TLS preftige whoring).

The key in all three cases, however, was totally giving up on any sort of specific goal and just committing themselves to finding a job in the legal field; in all three instances the students were also willing to work for firms during the school year, often taking significant risks/making significant sacrifices when doing so (they were paid something that looked suspiciously like minimum wage, there was no guarantee of a job at the end of it, and the hours were so demanding that their grades suffered).

In terms of an OCI bidding strategy - when I went through OCI two years ago there were somewhere between 5 and 10 smaller firms that came to OCI and didn't attract as many bids from people in the top 20% of the class (the career office ended up extending bidding to try and get more bids for at least 1 of them). Most people in the top 20% will spend all their bids on as many biglaw shops as they can, leaving spots open at the smaller places, and at top 25% you're likely competitive there.

The flipside, and I have to empahsize this - there are very few of these places (literally between 5 and 10 when I went through, compared to something like 40 firms in the biglaw range), and even if you get a summer job with them through OCI several are upfront about not extending offers of post-grad employment based upon one summer alone (this feeds into the whole "If we like you, you can keep working through the year and we'll see what things look like when you graduate" it's unbelievably frustrating, but I've also never heard of it failing to pay off for someone at Hastings - though the employment forum here on TLS is filled with stories of such arrangements falling through).

Since you'll have a lot of bids, it probably wouldn't hurt to spend some on the lesser-competitive biglaw firms that come to OCI (firms like Fox Rothschild or Sedgwick), but at top 25%, those may still be a reach absent something significant you can offer them (e.g. tech background for IP, as hima3L suggested, or perhaps something comparable - like an accounting background and a willingness to do tax law).

To summarize - in order I think you need to ask yourself "Was I biglaw or bust? Am I okay going into a different area of law? How can I sell myself to the handful of smaller firms that come to OCI?" Seriously consider dropping out if you can't live without biglaw, or can't see yourself practicing a different type of law. But, if you're flexible, I do believe you still have a shot (though even I will admit that you'll have to hustle).

[GunnerBingo]

Could I PM someone who's gone through OCI at Hastings? Just got my grades back and I've got some questions about the process and my options.

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

Sure, feel free to pm me.