Top Law Schools

I browsed through several pages of posts to see if this question has been recently answered. I found a few people asking about their personal circumstances, but not much regarding the general job prospects for paralegals. How hard is it to get into a firm as a paralegal, legal assistant, or receptionist/secretary? What kinds of people actually get hired for these jobs? Are you completely screwed if you did not graduate from a prestigious school?

Bonus points if you can address my personal situation. I would ideally like to work in an immigration firm, but I would be just fine working at a miscellaneous small firm. I am not particularly looking for biglaw paralegal jobs and am not set on NYC, DC, etc.

Am I going to get autorejected from everything in NYC, DC? How about everything in immigration? Everything period?

Here's what I've got.

The good:
-4.0 GPA in my BA
-Fluent Spanish
-Partial fluency in three other languages
-"Work experience" -- three summers at a nonprofit and two years peer mentoring/basic counseling

The bad:
-BA from a random public university
-No legal experience, not even an internship
-Graduated in August, so no post-BA work experience

I realize that I probably sound utterly ridiculous, but I am actually asking if I have a shot. Am I wasting my time applying for work in DC, NYC, etc because of where I went to school?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 4&t=195995

Good info in the above thread answers most of your questions.

As to your educational background, there are definetly firms that say they only hire from ivies/top ugs. I think that's more the case in primary markets.

I work at a big firm in a secondary market and the paralegals/legal assistants usually had good grades (3.5+) from a state school, went to a top ug (maybe not ivy, but Northwestern, Emory, etc.), or have connections.

Thanks for the reply and the link!

P.S. If anyone wants to share additional insight into paralegal hiring outside the biglaw firms on the East Coast, I remain very interested in hearing from you. I get the impression that most TLS users aim to work in biglaw, but if there is anyone out there who knows what happens outside the world of East/West Coast biglaw, I would love to hear from you.

Here is your firm. Make it happen: http://www.fragomen.com/

Thanks!

A 4.0 GPA & English/Spanish fluency should get you many more interviews than you can handle--especially if targeting immigration and/or criminal law. Nevertheless, many large law firms target grads from the Ivies, baby-Ivies, & other elite undergraduate schools like Chicago & Northwestern so you will have to undertake a lot of legwork to get into the primary markets of NYC, DC & Chicago. Good luck !

you can also try temp agencies that specialize in legal recruiting. that's how i got my paralegal gig before law school. started as a temp and then was hired full time

to clarify it was at a nyc big law firm

Thanks to both of you for the tips!

stressed2010 wrote:you can also try temp agencies that specialize in legal recruiting. that's how i got my paralegal gig before law school. started as a temp and then was hired full time

TITCR