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Roundhill wrote:OL here. Can someone please explain what would be considered sufficient ties with regard to applying for big law? For example, would having gone to undergrad in the Chicago area and a regional law school like University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign be sufficient to overcome the "ties" factor for Chicago, despite having grown up on the East Coast?

Yes.

Some markets are less ties sensitive than others. For example, NYC does not require ties because they're merely looking for warm bodies with good grades. You can establish ties there by telling the firm that you want to live in NYC even if you're from rural Iowa and they'll say "sounds good."

Others are slightly more ties sensitive. Chicago, sure, but it's not like Chicago even requires very extensive ties. UG in Chicago and law school at UIUC is probably enough to convince a firm that you're serious about Chicago. Hell, growing up in the Midwest is probably good enough for Chicago. The problem with Chicago is that its legal market shrank significantly during the recession, hasn't fully recovered, and there are 2 T14 schools in the city and every other school in the Midwest (Iowa, UIUC, IU-B, Notre Dame, WUSTL, etc etc etc etc) has students that want to go to Chicago. Chicago knows it's the premiere destination in the Midwest so ties don't factor in as much, although they help.

Now, if you're someone who grew up in rural Nebraska, attend WUSTL, have no family west of the Rockies, and mass mail like Seattle or Portland trying to get big law, then you'll probably have some difficulty with that.

It's completely a sliding scale. Attending undergrad and law school in Illinois is better than nothing, but if you're going straight through, someone could just as easily read that as "meh - he just didn't want to move too far for law school." I haven't heard about Chicago being particular insular, though, so that works in your favor.

It'll come up (subtly or not) in interviews and during your summer clerkship(s), so be ready with some compelling reasons for why you want to live/work in Chicago after graduation. Obvious "plus factors" would be having grown up in/near Chicago, having family or a significant other there, already owning property there, etc.