So you did not go to T14 - is there a chance after? Forum

[TLou21]

First of all, I apologize if this topic has been previously addressed.

Now on to the topic:

So you did not go to T14 to get that $160,00 salary and the prestige along with it as a first job in BigLaw. Is there any chance to achieve that goal hypothetically and empirically speaking later on in your career? Are all doors closed?

Thanks!

[h2go]

Yes, if you are IP and/or top of of your class.

[zot1]

I don't get the question. What goal?

Is it possible to attend a T14 later on? You mean transferring? If so, yes, but transferring isn't guaranteed and no one should go to law school with the plan that they will be able to.

Get biglaw if you're not in a T14? Yes.

Get biglaw after you've gone to a non T14 and didn't get a biglaw gig? Yeah, but the path there is more convoluted and it'll depend on your experience and what you would bring to the firm as someone more senior. A common route is to get a clerkship postgrad.

[TLou21]

I don't get the question. What goal?

Is it possible to attend a T14 later on? You mean transferring? If so, yes, but transferring isn't guaranteed and no one should go to law school with the plan that they will be able to.

Get biglaw if you're not in a T14? Yes.

Get biglaw after you've gone to a non T14 and didn't get a biglaw gig? Yeah, but the path there is more convoluted and it'll depend on your experience and what you would bring to the firm as someone more senior. A common route is to get a clerkship postgrad.

h2o and zot1, thank you for your replies.

I apologize for the confusion. I had to write fast as I was on the run. I specifically am wondering about if one who hypothetically did not attend a T14 or even T20 for economic reasons or because he/she did not satisfy the criteria for admission, if there is a possibility to become an associate for a prestigious law firm after a few years of work. What are some experiences or paths that one can take to hopefully get a foot in the door of the firm? I am asking because everything I have read so far as regards to BigLaw seems that it falls under the "make it as a recent grad or else you are doomed" statement.

I have also read that clerkships tend to be mostly for T14 grads. How strongly do you believe this holds? Obviously more elite law schools will have a wider array of options for them.

I just want to get a more realistic perspective of the career options one has four or more years after graduation as a non T14 or even T20 graduate.

Thanks!

[zot1]

This is all TLS overblowing stuff. UCI (top 28 as of this year, 30 before, and unranked before that) places grads in biglaw. So does loyola (yes lower in the list), Pepperdine, etc etc.

The difference is that you do have better odds at biglaw at a T14 than other schools, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you won't get a shot at other schools.

[808Law]

It's possible, but really tough, especially if you're school isn't near a larger market. If you're at the top of your class, you will likely get biglaw and federal clerkships if you want them. But your non-t14 school will limit your ability to get a clerkship and biglaw for sure. I would never go to school banking on being top 5%--it's such a large risk. Less risky is mastering the LSAT, going to a t-14 on a significant scholarship or an all expense paid trip to a non-t14.

[zot1]

It's possible, but really tough, especially if you're school isn't near a larger market. If you're at the top of your class, you will likely get biglaw and federal clerkships if you want them. But your non-t14 school will limit your ability to get a clerkship and biglaw for sure. I would never go to school banking on being top 5%--it's such a large risk. Less risky is mastering the LSAT, going to a t-14 on a significant scholarship or an all expense paid trip to a non-t14.

At UCI, you can be median and still get biglaw. Yeah you get more offers if you're top 30%, but it's not impossible.

[tomwatts]

As far as I can tell, the actual question was, "If your first permanent job out of law school was not biglaw, can you eventually lateral into biglaw?" The closest thing to an answer was: "Yeah, but the path there is more convoluted and it'll depend on your experience and what you would bring to the firm as someone more senior." This is true, but just to elaborate:

People do occasionally lateral (i.e., make a move from one permanent job to another) from midlaw to biglaw, and from certain kinds of government positions to biglaw. It's pretty uncommon to get the right kind of government position to lateral into biglaw (e.g., federal prosecutor -> biglaw white collar defense) unless you're already a pretty top candidate in the first place and could have gotten a biglaw job instead of the government job if you had wanted. There may be an easier path, but I don't know it.

Likewise, to go from midlaw to biglaw, you have to be a sufficiently accomplished lawyer (one way or another) that a large firm would want you, and you have to want to leave your mid-sized firm. (But if you're doing that well at your firm, why do you want to leave?) Or, really, I think one of the more common ways it happens is that a profitable practice group from an otherwise failing firm gets bought by another, more successful firm. (This also happens from one big firm to another; one could write a book about the Dewey Leboeuf exodus.)

So there's no obvious path that I'm aware of. But going into biglaw for the prestige is a pretty terrible idea in the first place.

[TLou21]

It's possible, but really tough, especially if you're school isn't near a larger market. If you're at the top of your class, you will likely get biglaw and federal clerkships if you want them. But your non-t14 school will limit your ability to get a clerkship and biglaw for sure. I would never go to school banking on being top 5%--it's such a large risk. Less risky is mastering the LSAT, going to a t-14 on a significant scholarship or an all expense paid trip to a non-t14.

At UCI, you can be median and still get biglaw. Yeah you get more offers if you're top 30%, but it's not impossible.

Very interesting. This exactly why I am asking. Tulane is a lower ranked school for example but their stats show a decent amount of students going into BigLaw and a significant amount in New York. I agree with the fact that if you want to practice BigLaw you should go to a larger metropolitan area. Thanks z01 for verifying that the information presented to prospective law students can be exaggerated.

But if you were unable to land a BigLaw job upon graduation, does anybody have feedback on how one can pursue BigLaw by starting small? How realistic is to lateral into BigLaw?

[808Law]

It's possible, but really tough, especially if you're school isn't near a larger market. If you're at the top of your class, you will likely get biglaw and federal clerkships if you want them. But your non-t14 school will limit your ability to get a clerkship and biglaw for sure. I would never go to school banking on being top 5%--it's such a large risk. Less risky is mastering the LSAT, going to a t-14 on a significant scholarship or an all expense paid trip to a non-t14.

At UCI, you can be median and still get biglaw. Yeah you get more offers if you're top 30%, but it's not impossible.

You're right. The higher your non-t14 school is ranked, the more likely you are to get biglaw. At a t-40–50 school, you'll likely have to be in the top 5-10%. At a school like UCI, which is higher ranked and near a large market, it's easier.

[808Law]

It's possible, but really tough, especially if you're school isn't near a larger market. If you're at the top of your class, you will likely get biglaw and federal clerkships if you want them. But your non-t14 school will limit your ability to get a clerkship and biglaw for sure. I would never go to school banking on being top 5%--it's such a large risk. Less risky is mastering the LSAT, going to a t-14 on a significant scholarship or an all expense paid trip to a non-t14.

At UCI, you can be median and still get biglaw. Yeah you get more offers if you're top 30%, but it's not impossible.

Very interesting. This exactly why I am asking. Tulane is a lower ranked school for example but their stats show a decent amount of students going into BigLaw and a significant amount in New York. I agree with the fact that if you want to practice BigLaw you should go to a larger metropolitan area. Thanks z01 for verifying that the information presented to prospective law students can be exaggerated.

But if you were unable to land a BigLaw job upon graduation, does anybody have feedback on how one can pursue BigLaw by starting small? How realistic is to lateral into BigLaw?

Federal clerkships can act as a backdoor to biglaw for those who didn't get it during 2L OCI. From what I understand, as far as firms go, it's much harder to go from a small firm to a big law firm.

[TLou21]

As far as I can tell, the actual question was, "If your first permanent job out of law school was not biglaw, can you eventually lateral into biglaw?" The closest thing to an answer was: "Yeah, but the path there is more convoluted and it'll depend on your experience and what you would bring to the firm as someone more senior." This is true, but just to elaborate:

People do occasionally lateral (i.e., make a move from one permanent job to another) from midlaw to biglaw, and from certain kinds of government positions to biglaw. It's pretty uncommon to get the right kind of government position to lateral into biglaw (e.g., federal prosecutor -> biglaw white collar defense) unless you're already a pretty top candidate in the first place and could have gotten a biglaw job instead of the government job if you had wanted. There may be an easier path, but I don't know it.

Likewise, to go from midlaw to biglaw, you have to be a sufficiently accomplished lawyer (one way or another) that a large firm would want you, and you have to want to leave your mid-sized firm. (But if you're doing that well at your firm, why do you want to leave?) Or, really, I think one of the more common ways it happens is that a profitable practice group from an otherwise failing firm gets bought by another, more successful firm. (This also happens from one big firm to another; one could write a book about the Dewey Leboeuf exodus.)

So there's no obvious path that I'm aware of. But going into biglaw for the prestige is a pretty terrible idea in the first place.

tomwatts thank you for the feedback - it helped a lot. When you posed the question "why would want to leave [your mid-sized firm]" it made me wonder. What would make one not want to leave? Wouldn't there be greater financial awards in BigLaw compared to MidLaw? Wouldn't there be more interesting work given the larger scale of the firm? I do not know if productions of scale and division of labor work with law firms.

[zot1]

Wait a second, wait a second. I do not want to give you confirmation that going to somewhere like Tulane is a good idea. You really need to do your homework.

Most schools have a breakdown of their career data. Most, I think, actually give you a breakdown (percentage of grads going to 500+ lawyers firms). Look at the breakdown for as many years as you can (because you want to look at consistency). They may also have a breakdown as to where the grads are employed.

If a school only places 5-10% of their grads in that category, you will be in a tough spot hoping that you will get there.

The only point I was trying to make was that going to a non-top 14 does not bar you from biglaw. I think you need to consider school and the market. For example, if I wanted a job in California and didn't get to a top 14, I wouldn't have gone to U of Alabama despite its relatively high ranking.

[TLou21]

It's possible, but really tough, especially if you're school isn't near a larger market. If you're at the top of your class, you will likely get biglaw and federal clerkships if you want them. But your non-t14 school will limit your ability to get a clerkship and biglaw for sure. I would never go to school banking on being top 5%--it's such a large risk. Less risky is mastering the LSAT, going to a t-14 on a significant scholarship or an all expense paid trip to a non-t14.

At UCI, you can be median and still get biglaw. Yeah you get more offers if you're top 30%, but it's not impossible.

Very interesting. This exactly why I am asking. Tulane is a lower ranked school for example but their stats show a decent amount of students going into BigLaw and a significant amount in New York. I agree with the fact that if you want to practice BigLaw you should go to a larger metropolitan area. Thanks z01 for verifying that the information presented to prospective law students can be exaggerated.

But if you were unable to land a BigLaw job upon graduation, does anybody have feedback on how one can pursue BigLaw by starting small? How realistic is to lateral into BigLaw?

Federal clerkships can act as a backdoor to biglaw for those who didn't get it during 2L OCI. From what I understand, as far as firms go, it's much harder to go from a small firm to a big law firm.

Would you mind elaborating on that statement? Why would it be that much more difficult? Would not one almost do the same tasks in either firm other than the amount of hours worked? Pardon my ignorance.

[zot1]

..... They're not at all the same.

[TLou21]

Wait a second, wait a second. I do not want to give you confirmation that going to somewhere like Tulane is a good idea. You really need to do your homework.

Most schools have a breakdown of their career data. Most, I think, actually give you a breakdown (percentage of grads going to 500+ lawyers firms). Look at the breakdown for as many years as you can (because you want to look at consistency). They may also have a breakdown as to where the grads are employed.

If a school only places 5-10% of their grads in that category, you will be in a tough spot hoping that you will get there.

The only point I was trying to make was that going to a non-top 14 does not bar you from biglaw. I think you need to consider school and the market. For example, if I wanted a job in California and didn't get to a top 14, I wouldn't have gone to U of Alabama despite its relatively high ranking.

I see where you are coming from now. It is somewhat what I have been already doing. I used Tulane for the sake of an example. I have an interest in going into BigLaw and just like many other prospective law students, I am trying to get the credentials to qualify for T14. But we are humans, unpredictable circumstances happen and our highest goals may not be always achieved. I am trying to understand that it is possible to enter BigLaw someway or another but with harder work and patience. I definitely plan on attending law school in a region I am interested in. Thanks for the help though. I will be more attentive as regards the placement of graduates!

[totesTheGoat]

It's possible, but really tough, especially if you're school isn't near a larger market. If you're at the top of your class, you will likely get biglaw and federal clerkships if you want them. But your non-t14 school will limit your ability to get a clerkship and biglaw for sure. I would never go to school banking on being top 5%--it's such a large risk. Less risky is mastering the LSAT, going to a t-14 on a significant scholarship or an all expense paid trip to a non-t14.

At UCI, you can be median and still get biglaw. Yeah you get more offers if you're top 30%, but it's not impossible.

Very interesting. This exactly why I am asking. Tulane is a lower ranked school for example but their stats show a decent amount of students going into BigLaw and a significant amount in New York. I agree with the fact that if you want to practice BigLaw you should go to a larger metropolitan area. Thanks z01 for verifying that the information presented to prospective law students can be exaggerated.

There are a few things to understand.

First, you can't reliably predict where you're going to end up in the class. You could be top 10%, you could be bottom 10%. NEVER make a law school attendance decision based on being anything better than somewhere between top 1/3 and median. If those students in the 40th or 50th percentile are consistently getting the outcomes you want, that's a school you can consider.

Second, Tulane gives you roughly a 10% chance of biglaw. (http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/tulane/2014/) Compensating for self-selection, you probably need to be in the top 15% of your class to even have a shot at biglaw. If you want biglaw, that's pretty risky. Referring back to the first point, don't plan on going to biglaw from Tulane. It may happen, but it's not likely.

Third, the only "exaggeration" is "t-14 or bust," and that's not even something that people regularly say. You can get biglaw from a T1 or T2 school. However, it gets difficult very quickly as you go down the law school rankings. Enough so that you really don't want to count on getting biglaw if you're going to a school at the bottom of T1.

Finally, understand that there's a difference between your "ceiling" and your "expected result." Your ceiling at Tulane may, in fact, be biglaw. However, your expected result probably a $60k midlaw job. You should not choose a law school based on your ceiling. You should choose based on your expected result.

EDIT: I see that you were using Tulane as an example. I'm sure you can generalize my points out to fit all of the schools that you're looking at. It's all about looking at the stats and getting an unbiased picture of what your expected result is, and then weighing that result against your expected outcome and your risk tolerance.

[PeanutsNJam]

Pretty sure the median outcome from Tulane is more like 40k/year doc review.

Also, if the OP wants "prestigious" biglaw, depending on his definition of prestigious, it's going to be impossible from Tulane, and would require top 10-5% grades from a school like U of I.

Federal clerkships are not a "backdoor" into biglaw. They are far more selective than biglaw. If you could get a federal clerkship, you could get biglaw.

Lastly, none of the advice given currently in this thread regarding lateraling into biglaw after taking a small law firm job after law school is coming from experience, or even anecdote. I have yet to hear of a single person who managed to move from some small shop to like White and Case in the past 5ish years. If it is possible, the statistics would be far more bleak than your odds of getting biglaw from Tulane.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Pretty sure the median outcome from Tulane is more like 40k/year doc review.

Also, if the OP wants "prestigious" biglaw, depending on his definition of prestigious, it's going to be impossible from Tulane, and would require top 10-5% grades from a school like U of I.

Federal clerkships are not a "back door" into biglaw. They are far more selective than biglaw. If you could get a federal clerkship, you could get biglaw.

Lastly, none of the advice given currently in this thread regarding lateraling into biglaw after taking a small law firm job after law school is coming from experience, or even anecdote. I have yet to hear of a single person who managed to move from some small shop to like White and Case in the past 5ish years. If it is possible, the statistics would be far more bleak than your odds of getting biglaw from Tulane.

It's not going to be impossible. Very difficult/a very small number of people, but not impossible.

[PeanutsNJam]

Yeah there are factors that may help a top 5% Tulaner get "prestigious" biglaw like:

- Diversity (purple heart vet? URM?)
- Work experience (financial industry experience? science background?)
- Some type of engineering or graduate STEM degree (for IP law)
- Strong ties to a tie-sensitive big law firm
- Strong network/close personal relationship with someone on the hiring committee
- Phenomenal interviewing skills

You'd need a combination of those things to have a shot at an SA. So I guess it'd be possible.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yeah there are factors that may help a top 5% Tulaner get "prestigious" biglaw like:

- Diversity (purple heart vet? URM?)
- Work experience (financial industry experience? science background?)
- Some type of engineering or graduate STEM degree (for IP law)
- Strong ties to a tie-sensitive big law firm
- Strong network/close personal relationship with someone on the hiring committee
- Phenomenal interviewing skills

You'd need a combination of those things to have a shot at an SA. So I guess it'd be possible.

Pretty sure the #1 or #2 student is going to have some options.

[BigZuck]

I know I'm just going to be told "Yeah well you're wrong, I know what I'm talking about because I have firsthand knowledge and you don't" here but color me super skeptical when it comes to median UCI students copping big law.

Maybe it happens on rare occasions or if the person has something super special going for them. But "you can be median and still get big law" implies that that is a common outcome and schmo-y median bros accomplish that with some degree of regularity and I'm just not sure I believe that.

(Queue being told that I'm wrong)

OP- If you want big law then go to a T14. That's what they're there for. Lots of other schools can make sense for different goals but if you want big law then you should be focusing on the T14.

[Mack.Hambleton]

It's possible, but really tough, especially if you're school isn't near a larger market. If you're at the top of your class, you will likely get biglaw and federal clerkships if you want them. But your non-t14 school will limit your ability to get a clerkship and biglaw for sure. I would never go to school banking on being top 5%--it's such a large risk. Less risky is mastering the LSAT, going to a t-14 on a significant scholarship or an all expense paid trip to a non-t14.

At UCI, you can be median and still get biglaw. Yeah you get more offers if you're top 30%, but it's not impossible.

lmao

[zot1]

I know I'm just going to be told "Yeah well you're wrong, I know what I'm talking about because I have firsthand knowledge and you don't" here but color me super skeptical when it comes to median UCI students copping big law.

Maybe it happens on rare occasions or if the person has something super special going for them. But "you can be median and still get big law" implies that that is a common outcome and schmo-y median bros accomplish that with some degree of regularity and I'm just not sure I believe that.

(Queue being told that I'm wrong)

OP- If you want big law then go to a T14. That's what they're there for. Lots of other schools can make sense for different goals but if you want big law then you should be focusing on the T14.

It has more to do with the composition of the class body and the firms requirements. Although a lot of people in the top are gunning for biglaw, there are also quite a bit gunning for public interest/government jobs. That leaves you with a little less competition. Then a good forty percent of the OCI firms' cutoff was at the median and some of the students who interviewed at median got biglaw. But like I said, you'd be better off top 30%.

[timmyd]

This is really pretty simple. If big law is your goal, you should focus on the law schools that make that outcome likely. Not possible, but likely. Now, if you're more apt to take risks and bet on yourself (nothing wrong with that; I'm the same way), you could defensively choose a school where the top third to top half outcome gives you a shot at big law. Beyond that, going to law school because of a prospective big law job is untethered to reason. Btw, people are very wrong abut Tulane. You can certainly attain "prestigious" big law from that school without receiving a purple heart or curing cancer. Still would avoid it if you're going to law school expecting a big law job.