Cornell Degree in CA market Forum

[MAapplicant]

Accepted into Cornell today, hoping to eventually practice in California. Will finding a job in California be difficult if I attend Cornell?

[WSJ_Law]

Yeah california market is shit pure shit. Retake for SLS. Otherwise enjoy NYC biglaw

[tennisking88]

Cornell places well, but almost exclusively in the Northeast. Do you have Cali ties? I guess you could apply to Cali firms, but like the poster above says, the market is shit, almost everywhere, and the firms that do hire will go to T10, and even regional schools like USC/UCLA/Boalt and perhaps even Hastings/Davis/Irvine before they look at Cornell. I guess it wouldn't surprise me if you ended up getting a job in Cali from Cornell, but you'd have to do really well I think.

[FlanAl]

I know of at least one person with an SA in LA from OCI. I know a couple other people who interviewed with CA firms at OCI and got offers but decided to go for NY ones instead. California firms go to OCI at plenty of schools outside of the top 10. On that note Vandy killed it in SoCal recently. So yeah really depends on a lot of things but overall anecdotal sentiment at cornell is that it is doable but will require more legwork than getting a job in NYC. also you could probably find/ask for this kind of info in the Cornell taking questions thread and maybe get more informed answers from 2L's than I was able to provide.

[MAapplicant]

Cornell places well, but almost exclusively in the Northeast. Do you have Cali ties? I guess you could apply to Cali firms, but like the poster above says, the market is shit, almost everywhere, and the firms that do hire will go to T10, and even regional schools like USC/UCLA/Boalt and perhaps even Hastings/Davis/Irvine before they look at Cornell. I guess it wouldn't surprise me if you ended up getting a job in Cali from Cornell, but you'd have to do really well I think.

Thanks for the input. I have lived in California my whole life. Went to school in California, have worked here. Leaving for Cornell would be first time leaving California other then for a vacation. Don't know if this is what you mean by ties. Thanks for the advice!

[FlanAl]

that is what is meant by ties. upstate new york seems pretty similar to nor cal to me (i'm from so cal so I probably have a skewed vision of nor cal). A whole lot of tie dye and granola. There isn't really any of it at the law school but there's enough of it in town to get that feel if you like that. I'm not a hippie but i'd rather be surrounded by hippies than politicians (maybe georgetown is another option for you haha)

[Strange]

Can I ask a somewhat silly question.... if you lived in "SoCal" most of your life is that enough to crack the "NorCal" market given you have "cali" ties?

[FlanAl]

I have no idea but I do know that if you don't have a tech background the bay area in general and in law is not the easiest place to get a job.

[slsplease]

Cornell places well, but almost exclusively in the Northeast. Do you have Cali ties? I guess you could apply to Cali firms, but like the poster above says, the market is shit, almost everywhere, and the firms that do hire will go to T10, and even regional schools like USC/UCLA/Boalt and perhaps even Hastings/Davis/Irvine before they look at Cornell. I guess it wouldn't surprise me if you ended up getting a job in Cali from Cornell, but you'd have to do really well I think.

Cornell places about 11% of grads in the West/SouthWest... That's about as good as any T14 besides HYS and Boalt...

I suspect that people's assumption that Cornell grads don't have a good chance in CA is similar to people's assumption that Berkeley grads will have trouble going to the East Coast. Self-selection assuredly has a large impact. Cornell is near so many large markets that those who shoot for CA likely only do so because they are certain they want to live there.

[slsplease]

Gonna bump this because I'm really interested in what TLS has to say about Cornell's degree not in NYC.