Top Law Schools

Now that grades are out, lets talk strategy, tips, updates, and—eventually—results!

Dates and Deadlines:

June 25: Deadline to submit your resume for review.

July 7: Deadline to meet with OCP to review your bid list.

July 12: Deadline to upload your resume to Symplicity.

July 13–20 at 5:00 PM: Bidding.

July 24: Interview schedules available on Simplicity.

July 25-28: Add/drop.

August 8-11: EIW!

gO bLuE aNd Go YoU!

HUGE! Bump.

Has anyone started putting together their bid list yet? I'm not really sure where to get started (other than firm GPA medians). Any tips?

Up around 3.75 and trying to figure out if I need to spend a couple of high bids on Sidley/Kramer Levin/Proskauer NY to be safe. Thoughts?

Who wants to be the first brave soul to post a list?

Up around 3.75 and trying to figure out if I need to spend a couple of high bids on Sidley/Kramer Levin/Proskauer NY to be safe. Thoughts?

I reckon you should do so re the Proskauer range, but not the sidley range. I still might be erring on the conservative side though.
3.75 is way up there, so it's hard to say.

I'm at 3.56 and similarly wondering how many median-ish NYC firms (Sidley, Willkie, Clifford Chance etc.) I bid top in my top 10.

PS am I top third? Top quarter?
Just trying to establish how bullish/bearish I should be feeling right now.

As I understand it, that would be around top-third @ graduation. So something slightly higher than that, but who knows?

Anonymous User wrote:

Up around 3.75 and trying to figure out if I need to spend a couple of high bids on Sidley/Kramer Levin/Proskauer NY to be safe. Thoughts?

I reckon you should do so re the Proskauer range, but not the sidley range. I still might be erring on the conservative side though.
3.75 is way up there, so it's hard to say.

I'm at 3.56 and similarly wondering how many median-ish NYC firms (Sidley, Willkie, Clifford Chance etc.) I bid top in my top 10.

PS am I top third? Top quarter?
Just trying to establish how bullish/bearish I should be feeling right now.

Anonymous User wrote:Up around 3.75 and trying to figure out if I need to spend a couple of high bids on Sidley/Kramer Levin/Proskauer NY to be safe. Thoughts?

Who wants to be the first brave soul to post a list?

don't use high bids on those firms if you don't wanna go. you will be able to pick up screeners outside of OCI with that GPA if you run into trouble.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Up around 3.75 and trying to figure out if I need to spend a couple of high bids on Sidley/Kramer Levin/Proskauer NY to be safe. Thoughts?

Who wants to be the first brave soul to post a list?

don't use high bids on those firms if you don't wanna go. you will be able to pick up screeners outside of OCI with that GPA if you run into trouble.

Hard agree.

3.83 No journal. Safe to bid 0 NY firms?

Anonymous User wrote:3.83 No journal. Safe to bid 0 NY firms?

I mean, why risk it? You can have 25 screeners through OCI, and pick up extras if needed. Why not work a few NY in there? Still leaves plenty of room for whatever market you prefer. Plus, certain of the elite NY firms have the reputation of offering a high percentage of people that meet their GPA cutoffs. No reason not to give yourself a safety net, and you might actually do a callback and find something you didn't expect to like.

Anonymous User wrote:3.83 No journal. Safe to bid 0 NY firms?

Depends which market you are targeting and whether you're willing to go to NY. I'm personally targeting Chicago/D.C. with a 3.82, and I'm not worried. I wouldn't touch NYC with a 100-foot pole though.

Can someone post a sample of the GPA cutoff for the top 30 or so firms?

Please don't. That information isn't intended for dissemination outside of the law school.

If you're considering Michigan and are curious about getting a firm job, ask admissions about the process.

Best of luck with your decision!

ZVBXRPL wrote:Can someone post a sample of the GPA cutoff for the top 30 or so firms?

I'm a 3.5-3.6 range person looking to head to SF or NYC (unclear re journal). Is swinging for pre-OCI interviews a viable option for me or should I just be waiting for EIW?

AND

Has anyone had bid list appointments yet? How did those go?

3.6, lit, no journal and only bidding on NY.

Can I feel safe moving firms like Paul Weiss, Davis Polk, Cravath, Cleary, Kirkland, Simpson Thacher etc. out of my top 5-10? Hoping to work at one of those but don't want to wind up with too few screeners.

Anonymous User wrote:3.6, lit, no journal and only bidding on NY.

Can I feel safe moving firms like Paul Weiss, Davis Polk, Cravath, Cleary, Kirkland, Simpson Thacher etc. out of my top 5-10? Hoping to work at one of those but don't want to wind up with too few screeners.

In the past they gave us a spreadsheet that shows the ratio of bids to interviews... do they not do that anymore? Generally speaking though, none of those should be in your top 5. You can get them below that.

Relatedly, a couple of those firms may be stretches for you GPA-wise, which makes it all the more reasonable not to put them top 5.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:3.6, lit, no journal and only bidding on NY.

Can I feel safe moving firms like Paul Weiss, Davis Polk, Cravath, Cleary, Kirkland, Simpson Thacher etc. out of my top 5-10? Hoping to work at one of those but don't want to wind up with too few screeners.

In the past they gave us a spreadsheet that shows the ratio of bids to interviews... do they not do that anymore? Generally speaking though, none of those should be in your top 5. You can get them below that.

Relatedly, a couple of those firms may be stretches for you GPA-wise, which makes it all the more reasonable not to put them top 5.

They don't do that anymore, it's been pretty difficult to come up with a list without it. They've just been telling us to rank by how badly we want to interview there.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:3.6, lit, no journal and only bidding on NY.

Can I feel safe moving firms like Paul Weiss, Davis Polk, Cravath, Cleary, Kirkland, Simpson Thacher etc. out of my top 5-10? Hoping to work at one of those but don't want to wind up with too few screeners.

In the past they gave us a spreadsheet that shows the ratio of bids to interviews... do they not do that anymore? Generally speaking though, none of those should be in your top 5. You can get them below that.

Relatedly, a couple of those firms may be stretches for you GPA-wise, which makes it all the more reasonable not to put them top 5.

They don't do that anymore, it's been pretty difficult to come up with a list without it. They've just been telling us to rank by how badly we want to interview there.

Do they publish how many screener-slots are available, at least? Obviously if Gibson and Latham have 180 slots available, that means you just have to rank them anywhere. If a firm lists 30 or 60 available, then they need to be in your top 5 or 10.

Do they publish how many screener-slots are available, at least? Obviously if Gibson and Latham have 180 slots available, that means you just have to rank them anywhere. If a firm lists 30 or 60 available, then they need to be in your top 5 or 10.

OCP sent out a list of the number of interview slots per firm/office. Go back through the EIW emails and you'll find it.

Anonymous User wrote:

Do they publish how many screener-slots are available, at least? Obviously if Gibson and Latham have 180 slots available, that means you just have to rank them anywhere. If a firm lists 30 or 60 available, then they need to be in your top 5 or 10.

OCP sent out a list of the number of interview slots per firm/office. Go back through the EIW emails and you'll find it.

I'm a grad with a job, was just trying to be helpful to this person and needed more info. I have the spreadsheet of bid-to-interview data from 2 years ago, but it's probably not helpful without knowing how many slots there are this year. The latter data is obviously the most critical.

Can I feel safe moving firms like Paul Weiss, Davis Polk, Cravath, Cleary, Kirkland, Simpson Thacher etc. out of my top 5-10? Hoping to work at one of those but don't want to wind up with too few screeners.

Same question. Where is a reasonable place to put Paul Weiss and Davis Polk?

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Do they publish how many screener-slots are available, at least? Obviously if Gibson and Latham have 180 slots available, that means you just have to rank them anywhere. If a firm lists 30 or 60 available, then they need to be in your top 5 or 10.

OCP sent out a list of the number of interview slots per firm/office. Go back through the EIW emails and you'll find it.

I'm a grad with a job, was just trying to be helpful to this person and needed more info. I have the spreadsheet of bid-to-interview data from 2 years ago, but it's probably not helpful without knowing how many slots there are this year. The latter data is obviously the most critical.

There are a few firms with 126+ but they're all offices combined. Average for the elite NY offices is 42

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Do they publish how many screener-slots are available, at least? Obviously if Gibson and Latham have 180 slots available, that means you just have to rank them anywhere. If a firm lists 30 or 60 available, then they need to be in your top 5 or 10.

OCP sent out a list of the number of interview slots per firm/office. Go back through the EIW emails and you'll find it.

I'm a grad with a job, was just trying to be helpful to this person and needed more info. I have the spreadsheet of bid-to-interview data from 2 years ago, but it's probably not helpful without knowing how many slots there are this year. The latter data is obviously the most critical.

There are a few firms with 126+ but they're all offices combined. Average for the elite NY offices is 42

Like Jones Day they have 168 slots for all offices. How can we tell how many slots they have for NY?

Reporting template (borrowed from GULC's EIW thread):

Approx. class rank:
Journal:
Moot Court, Mock Trial, etc.:
IP background?:
Significant work experience?:
#Years out of undergrad:
Prestigious undergrad:
Other relevant factors:
Target markets:
Type of work sought:
Self-assessed interviewing ability:
#Screeners or callbacks prior to EIW from mass-mailing:
#Screeners received for EIW:
#Callbacks received from EIW screeners:
#Offers received:
Offer Accepted:
Other/Commentary:

Does anyone have an idea of where to place bids for the non-elite Chicago firms (Katten, Jenner Block, Winston & Strawn, etc.)?