Top Law Schools

Hey current students - just wanted to ask in your experience how difficult it is to land LA biglaw out of Columbia and Berkeley.

The numbers online aren't that helpful due to self selection. Also, it's hard to get numbers about Southern California specifically.

you shouldn't have a problem, especially if you're from southern california and your grades aren't pure shit.

I think in general you need to be leery about taking advice from Pontifical Catholic grads on these fora, but what Chimp said seems to be pretty much right on

What are you looking for exactly? I'm not really sure how anyone can quantify this for you. It's a decent sized market and these are good schools so do well in school and interview well and don't be unlucky and you'll probably be fine.

My school doesn't keep detailed info like "X many people targeted this market, Y many people got jobs there." But I don't go to a top school, maybe Berkeley/Columbia does track things that narrowly.

BigZuck wrote:I think in general you need to be leery about taking advice from Pontifical Catholic grads on these fora, but what Chimp said seems to be pretty much right on

What are you looking for exactly? I'm not really sure how anyone can quantify this for you. It's a decent sized market and these are good schools so do well in school and interview well and don't be unlucky and you'll probably be fine.

My school doesn't keep detailed info like "X many people targeted this market, Y many people got jobs there." But I don't go to a top school, maybe Berkeley/Columbia does track things that narrowly.

touché. i should most likely cease posting on these fora altogether so as to ensure that i do not corrupt and misinform the impressionable youth that frequent said fora.

Kharbooza wrote:Hey current students - just wanted to ask in your experience how difficult it is to land LA biglaw out of Columbia and Berkeley.

I worked at a big law firm in Los Angeles. We had identical grade cut-offs for Boalt and CLS. Some LA offices might be more inclined to hire CLS grads; others might be more inclined to hire Boalt grads. Overall, though, it's hard to discern a meaningful difference.

I don't think the anecdata is really going to help in this thread. The answer is that the two schools are "roughly the same" for landing LA big law. You're not going to learn anything more specific than that.

rpupkin wrote:

Kharbooza wrote:Hey current students - just wanted to ask in your experience how difficult it is to land LA biglaw out of Columbia and Berkeley.

I worked at a big law firm in Los Angeles. We had identical grade cut-offs for Boalt and CLS. Some LA offices might be more inclined to hire CLS grads; others might be more inclined to hire Boalt grads. Overall, though, it's hard to discern a meaningful difference.

I don't think the anecdata is really going to help in this thread. The answer is that the two schools are "roughly the same" for landing LA big law. You're not going to learn anything more specific than that.

please elaborate regarding the above-referenced grade cut-offs, good sir, as they would most likely be of use to the original poster in this thread and other readers of these fora.

chimp wrote:

rpupkin wrote:

Kharbooza wrote:Hey current students - just wanted to ask in your experience how difficult it is to land LA biglaw out of Columbia and Berkeley.

I worked at a big law firm in Los Angeles. We had identical grade cut-offs for Boalt and CLS. Some LA offices might be more inclined to hire CLS grads; others might be more inclined to hire Boalt grads. Overall, though, it's hard to discern a meaningful difference.

I don't think the anecdata is really going to help in this thread. The answer is that the two schools are "roughly the same" for landing LA big law. You're not going to learn anything more specific than that.

please elaborate regarding the above-referenced grade cut-offs, good sir, as they would most likely be of use to the original poster in this thread and other readers of these fora.

Top 25%. That was the threshold. To be clear, top 25% grades alone weren't enough to get a callback. But if you were below top 25%, you were definitely dinged barring an unusual circumstance.

ETA: That was just my firm, which is generally regarded as more grade-selective than most firms. I think median from either school gives you a solid shot at LA big law.

I didn't think it was that easy to get LA from Columbia my year (c/o 2015). Half of the people I knew from LA who expressed an interest in going back didn't get an LA offer through EIP. Hard to say how gung-ho they were about going back; maybe some of them finagled something later on. I think grades helped a lot.

Caveat--very limited sample size. Maybe 6-7 people.

I agree, landing Latham/GDC from Northwestern is pretty grade dependent (at least top third with exceptions). What kind of grades do you need for Latham/GDC from USC/UCLA? Always been curious.

cookiejar1 wrote:I agree, landing Latham/GDC from Northwestern is pretty grade dependent (at least top third with exceptions). What kind of grades do you need for Latham/GDC from USC/UCLA? Always been curious.

at least top 25%

You'll land something, assuming you are you aren't 1) extremely unlucky or 2) totally unable to relate to other human beings. Many CLS grads go to CA, and tons of CA offices come to EIP.

rpupkin wrote:

chimp wrote: please elaborate regarding the above-referenced grade cut-offs, good sir, as they would most likely be of use to the original poster in this thread and other readers of these fora.

Top 25%. That was the threshold. To be clear, top 25% grades alone weren't enough to get a callback. But if you were below top 25%, you were definitely dinged barring an unusual circumstance.

ETA: That was just my firm, which is generally regarded as more grade-selective than most firms. I think median from either school gives you a solid shot at LA big law.

yea, I know below median students from CLS at big firms in LA, so this is definitely firm-specific. It will range from places that will take anyone above 3.0 to essentially kent only.

My experience mirrors rpupkin's in that it's comparably easy/difficult to snag a summer associate position in Los Angeles via OCI from Cal or CLS. Now, if you want to broaden the scope a little and include mass mail/networking and lateraling after starting at a large firm in NY, Columbia definitely has many more of its graduating class floating around at market firms overall. You can either dismiss this entirely or consider it relevant.