Grades-question for biglaw employers Forum

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:28 pm

los blancos wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Yale? No, but Yale doesn't rank/have grades. :lol:

Bottom 1/4 or 1/3 of the class generally doesn't have honors attached to their name, and those clients do notice. That's not to say that someone in the bottom 1/3 can't get a job at a biglaw firm. (I say this as someone who graduated closer to the bottom than the top of my class.) They just have to have a resume that speaks louder than their grades. Firms do care what you look like on paper, and unfortunately, some resumes just don't have anything -- no law review, no latin honors, no work experience, no publications, etc. (I know folks don't like hearing their resumes are not as good as their peers', but it is a job market, and at the end of the day, people hire who they want to hired based on criterias they find important.)

So tl;dr if you didn't get a biglaw job this time and want one, go pad your resume. anyone can publish a paper or write onto law review, and these days, federal courts are practically giving away clerkships.

lol
I say this as someone who got 3 two clerkship offers in two days with below median grades at not-HYS. Also have friends of equal or lower class ranking with similar results.

You don't know until you try :lol: some judges honestly do not give a shit about your grades or ranking, unlike most law firms.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:31 pm

How did I miss that earlier? Motherfucking lol indeed.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:46 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:How did I miss that earlier? Motherfucking lol indeed.
you know who i am. come chat about it if you're curious :P

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:53 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
los blancos wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Yale? No, but Yale doesn't rank/have grades. :lol:

Bottom 1/4 or 1/3 of the class generally doesn't have honors attached to their name, and those clients do notice. That's not to say that someone in the bottom 1/3 can't get a job at a biglaw firm. (I say this as someone who graduated closer to the bottom than the top of my class.) They just have to have a resume that speaks louder than their grades. Firms do care what you look like on paper, and unfortunately, some resumes just don't have anything -- no law review, no latin honors, no work experience, no publications, etc. (I know folks don't like hearing their resumes are not as good as their peers', but it is a job market, and at the end of the day, people hire who they want to hired based on criterias they find important.)

So tl;dr if you didn't get a biglaw job this time and want one, go pad your resume. anyone can publish a paper or write onto law review, and these days, federal courts are practically giving away clerkships.

lol
I say this as someone who got 3 two clerkship offers in two days with below median grades at not-HYS. Also have friends of equal or lower class ranking with similar results.

You don't know until you try :lol: some judges honestly do not give a shit about your grades or ranking, unlike most law firms.
who r u lol I want to be u

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:55 pm

Anonymous User wrote: who r u lol I want to be u
there can only be one :P

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A. Nony Mouse

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Thu Aug 17, 2017 2:06 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:How did I miss that earlier? Motherfucking lol indeed.
you know who i am. come chat about it if you're curious :P
Oh, I benefited from judges' idiosyncratic hiring myself, so I know it happens. But "giving away" clerkships makes it sound like anyone with a pulse should be able to expect one, and frankly, putting it that way is kind of rude to people who send out a gazillion apps and get nothing. I get that there are judges who hire based on factors other than grades or rankings, but that's not the same as "giving away" clerkships.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Aug 17, 2017 2:16 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:How did I miss that earlier? Motherfucking lol indeed.
you know who i am. come chat about it if you're curious :P
Oh, I benefited from judges' idiosyncratic hiring myself, so I know it happens. But "giving away" clerkships makes it sound like anyone with a pulse should be able to expect one, and frankly, putting it that way is kind of rude to people who send out a gazillion apps and get nothing. I get that there are judges who hire based on factors other than grades or rankings, but that's not the same as "giving away" clerkships.
When people say recruiters care about grades, do they mean the hiring partners or the head hr people or the former lawyers now recruiters (whose role I've never quite understood) ?

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Aug 17, 2017 2:16 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:How did I miss that earlier? Motherfucking lol indeed.
you know who i am. come chat about it if you're curious :P
Oh, I benefited from judges' idiosyncratic hiring myself, so I know it happens. But "giving away" clerkships makes it sound like anyone with a pulse should be able to expect one, and frankly, putting it that way is kind of rude to people who send out a gazillion apps and get nothing. I get that there are judges who hire based on factors other than grades or rankings, but that's not the same as "giving away" clerkships.
When people say recruiters care about grades, do they mean the hiring partners or the head hr people or the former lawyers now recruiters (whose role I've never quite understood) ?

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Aug 17, 2017 3:46 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
los blancos wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Yale? No, but Yale doesn't rank/have grades. :lol:

Bottom 1/4 or 1/3 of the class generally doesn't have honors attached to their name, and those clients do notice. That's not to say that someone in the bottom 1/3 can't get a job at a biglaw firm. (I say this as someone who graduated closer to the bottom than the top of my class.) They just have to have a resume that speaks louder than their grades. Firms do care what you look like on paper, and unfortunately, some resumes just don't have anything -- no law review, no latin honors, no work experience, no publications, etc. (I know folks don't like hearing their resumes are not as good as their peers', but it is a job market, and at the end of the day, people hire who they want to hired based on criterias they find important.)

So tl;dr if you didn't get a biglaw job this time and want one, go pad your resume. anyone can publish a paper or write onto law review, and these days, federal courts are practically giving away clerkships.

lol
I say this as someone who got 3 two clerkship offers in two days with below median grades at not-HYS. Also have friends of equal or lower class ranking with similar results.

You don't know until you try :lol: some judges honestly do not give a shit about your grades or ranking, unlike most law firms.
I'm hiring clerks right now for a Judge who doesn't care very much about grades; even then, the competition is absurdly fierce and picking between applicants is a giant headache. Enough with this bullshit.

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PeanutsNJam

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by PeanutsNJam » Thu Aug 17, 2017 8:55 pm

I'd imagine putting less emphasis on grades makes picking 2-4 people out of thousands astronomically more difficult.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:43 am

PeanutsNJam wrote:I'd imagine putting less emphasis on grades makes picking 2-4 people out of thousands astronomically more difficult.
That's... precisely the point? That it's asinine to suggest that clerkships are being "given away" in either case? I had to dq a large number of applicants for failure to follow basic instructions, so we ended up with a much much smaller pool of applicants than I imagine most Judges have. Even then, the people that ended up getting interviews had either excellent paper credentials or very good paper credentials and something else that made them interesting or worth talking to. And just making the decision about who to interview was excruciatingly difficult.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:00 pm

When people say recruiters care about grades, do they mean the hiring partners or the head hr people or the former lawyers now recruiters (whose role I've never quite understood) ?

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:30 pm

To the clerkship guy: The point of the "giving away" statement was to encourage folks who a) feel trapped by striking out, or b) are daunted by grades-requirements to apply for clerkships. It wasn't to suggest that people in your position have an easy job -- I remember hiring my own replacement clerk; it was my least favorite part of the clerkship. So yes, clerkships are hard to get; no, they're not as hard to get as people make them out to be (also you don't know unless you try). Even if you are someone with bad luck at on-campus recruiting, clerkships may not be a bad option for you.
Anonymous User wrote:When people say recruiters care about grades, do they mean the hiring partners or the head hr people or the former lawyers now recruiters (whose role I've never quite understood) ?
Poor guy has asked this question three times. ^ It depends on the firm. Some firms have hiring partners that set a grade cutoff for each batch of schools, some use only attorneys-turned-recruiters/ recruiters. HR is not usually involved.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Aug 19, 2017 1:24 pm

1) What role do grades play in hiring once you have a callback? Is it possible to "ace" the callback but still not get an offer because other students with better grades also aced the callback?

2) After you have a callback, is it typical for firms to wait until the end of the recruiting season to formally reject you? I had a callback last week at a firm that made offers to people who had later callbacks.


I'd really appreciate the feedback of people who are in biglaw. Thanks.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Spot » Sat Aug 19, 2017 5:51 pm

1) Grades still matter at the callback stage. For better or worse, they're the best proxy we have for how smart you are.

Acing the interview can absolutely cancel out your grades. If it couldn't, we wouldn't give you the callback. The problem is that there's different ways to ace an interview. If your grades are just ok and you come in and "wow" us on substance, we'll overlook the grades. If you come in and wow us on personality, we may like you a lot but that doesn't tell us much about your intellectual firepower.

2) Different firms deal with this differently. But we make quick decisions on the obvious "yeses" and "nos." We take a lot longer to decide on the people we're just not sure of. As we see more candidates, we get a better sense of where you fall in comparison.

I would note that we often really like the people in our "hold" list, and they often come to our firm and do great work and nobody remembers or cares that they weren't on our "must have" list. So please don't take it personally or overthink if it's taking a while to get to you.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Aug 19, 2017 6:19 pm

Spot wrote:1) Grades still matter at the callback stage. For better or worse, they're the best proxy we have for how smart you are.

Acing the interview can absolutely cancel out your grades. If it couldn't, we wouldn't give you the callback. The problem is that there's different ways to ace an interview. If your grades are just ok and you come in and "wow" us on substance, we'll overlook the grades. If you come in and wow us on personality, we may like you a lot but that doesn't tell us much about your intellectual firepower.
What do you mean by "substance"? Through all of my screeners and callbacks, I dont think I've discussed the "law" once.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Monochromatic Oeuvre » Sat Aug 19, 2017 6:55 pm

Spot wrote:Acing the interview can absolutely cancel out your grades. If it couldn't, we wouldn't give you the callback. The problem is that there's different ways to ace an interview. If your grades are just ok and you come in and "wow" us on substance, we'll overlook the grades. If you come in and wow us on personality, we may like you a lot but that doesn't tell us much about your intellectual firepower.
LOL at "intellectual firepower."

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Aug 20, 2017 12:09 am

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:
Spot wrote:Acing the interview can absolutely cancel out your grades. If it couldn't, we wouldn't give you the callback. The problem is that there's different ways to ace an interview. If your grades are just ok and you come in and "wow" us on substance, we'll overlook the grades. If you come in and wow us on personality, we may like you a lot but that doesn't tell us much about your intellectual firepower.
How do we "wow" you on substance? Experience on resume? Intelligent and thoughtful answers? I would appreciate your honest feedback, as I'm not sure how to demonstrate intellectual firepower in a 30 minute law firm interview. I got into HLS and SLS, but my grades are likely bottom 15-20% of the class.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Aug 20, 2017 12:13 am

Anonymous User wrote:
Spot wrote:1) Grades still matter at the callback stage. For better or worse, they're the best proxy we have for how smart you are.

Acing the interview can absolutely cancel out your grades. If it couldn't, we wouldn't give you the callback. The problem is that there's different ways to ace an interview. If your grades are just ok and you come in and "wow" us on substance, we'll overlook the grades. If you come in and wow us on personality, we may like you a lot but that doesn't tell us much about your intellectual firepower.
What do you mean by "substance"? Through all of my screeners and callbacks, I dont think I've discussed the "law" once.
I think grades are much more a function of how much time you put in than how smart you are. Perhaps by smart you mean raw intelligence+effort. If not, I think there are better proxies. (See e.g., LSAT score+ unedited written work).

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Sun Aug 20, 2017 12:56 am

If grades are about the time put in, why don't more people put in the time to get good grades?

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Aug 20, 2017 1:00 am

Some people (like me) just don't give enough of a shit. But then I'm at HYS and don't need to.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by texas1100 » Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:52 am

Anonymous User wrote:
PeanutsNJam wrote:I'd imagine putting less emphasis on grades makes picking 2-4 people out of thousands astronomically more difficult.
That's... precisely the point? That it's asinine to suggest that clerkships are being "given away" in either case? I had to dq a large number of applicants for failure to follow basic instructions, so we ended up with a much much smaller pool of applicants than I imagine most Judges have. Even then, the people that ended up getting interviews had either excellent paper credentials or very good paper credentials and something else that made them interesting or worth talking to. And just making the decision about who to interview was excruciatingly difficult.
Lol. Sounds like you take who works at a job you'll no longer/never be at again, way too seriously

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Sun Aug 20, 2017 10:33 am

texas1100 wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
PeanutsNJam wrote:I'd imagine putting less emphasis on grades makes picking 2-4 people out of thousands astronomically more difficult.
That's... precisely the point? That it's asinine to suggest that clerkships are being "given away" in either case? I had to dq a large number of applicants for failure to follow basic instructions, so we ended up with a much much smaller pool of applicants than I imagine most Judges have. Even then, the people that ended up getting interviews had either excellent paper credentials or very good paper credentials and something else that made them interesting or worth talking to. And just making the decision about who to interview was excruciatingly difficult.
Lol. Sounds like you take who works at a job you'll no longer/never be at again, way too seriously
What a weird and inaccurate observation.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Aug 20, 2017 12:25 pm

Anonymous User wrote:Some people (like me) just don't give enough of a shit. But then I'm at HYS and don't need to.
This. Plus opportunity cost too high. I did more work in high school than I did during 1L. I likely did more hours of work at my summer gig post 1L than during the entire academic year.

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Re: Grades-question for biglaw employers

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Aug 20, 2017 12:28 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:If grades are about the time put in, why don't more people put in the time to get good grades?
Because there are more valuable learning opportunities.

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