Grades-question for biglaw employers Forum

[Interficio]

Second, even assuming arguendo that that's true, it could be for different reasons (maybe T-14 people are more likely to want their career trajectory to end someplace other than big law, or prioritize things besides partnership, like gov, academic, and in-house positions).

Doesn't this negate your "but I only have run into T-14 grads on my callbacks!!" point? You've attended law school at some point. Surely, you know what the phrase "assuming arguendo" means?

Also, the implication seems to be that T-14 students don't "want it" bad enough or are somehow less hard-working because they've gotten into higher-ranked schools, which is equally fallacious.

I would certainly say there's a higher percentage of them.Based on???

[EIWIsMyFetish]

Second, even assuming arguendo that that's true, it could be for different reasons (maybe T-14 people are more likely to want their career trajectory to end someplace other than big law, or prioritize things besides partnership, like gov, academic, and in-house positions).

Doesn't this negate your "but I only have run into T-14 grads on my callbacks!!" point? You've attended law school at some point. Surely, you know what the phrase "assuming arguendo" means?

Also, the implication seems to be that T-14 students don't "want it" bad enough or are somehow less hard-working because they've gotten into higher-ranked schools, which is equally fallacious.

I would certainly say there's a higher percentage of them.Based on???

1. I know what arguendo means and I shot it back at you. But if the point you're making is for illustration, I'm showing you that your illustration works in both ways and is thus moot.

2. When I was at my T-14, it was full of kids that were clearly successful when they were younger. They were stars in high school, some in college. But they had that ability to ace tests, even at Ivy undergrads, without doing much work. When they got to the T-14, they had punched their golden ticket. No matter what happened, they were going to go to big law.

When I actually went to my firm and met all these esteemed lawyers that went to lower ranked schools, I got a different picture. The same applied to my actual associate class. These were people that hustled in law school, usually against a tougher (read: less forgiving) curve and HAD to be top 5% and on LR to have a shot at working for a big firm. These were the people that, when 4am came around, understood that we couldn't just 'take another look at it in the morning' to succeed. If a comma was out of place, we needed to find it in a 120 page contract.

I guess I just question your level of exposure to people that aren't T-14. They're not all walking around, picking their noses and wondering which way is up. They're often people that took scholarships to lower ranked schools, crushed it there, and now they're looking you in the eyes, the next person in their path to success. I don't think T-14ers have the same scrappiness.

[Anonymous User]

Are law school grades more predictive of biglaw success than LSAT score+undergraduate GPA?
Overall, T6 law students in the bottom 1/4 of the class probably had better LSAT+undergrad GPAs than law students in the top 1/4 of the class at lower ranked school (T20 and beyond). Do biglaw firms prefer students who are in the top 1/4 of their law school classes at lower ranked schools or students in the bottom 1/4 at T6, and why?

At our firm, the answer to "do we prefer bottom 4th of top schools or top 4th of T20 or below schools" is neither, because both sets of students failed to understand the basic concept of "appear desirable to clients." Good grades and fancy law schools are really just ways of letting our clients know we're not completely wasting their money by staffing their cases full of inexperienced junior associates. If a prospective candidate can't even play the game at the admissions level, what exactly are partners supposed to tell their clients? "Don't worry, he's good at what he does, we promise?"

Besides, there are plenty of median students at top schools, enough to fill the summer spots around the country that were not taken by the top folks at their schools/ slightly lower ranked schools.

[A. Nony Mouse]

The whole "who makes partner" thing was already referenced here (and I have seen descriptions of this same study):

Someone did a quick study on this a while back (too lazy to look it up), but the bottom line conclusion was that people with great grades from lower-ranked schools who made it to biglaw (obviously relatively few compared to the top schools on a per-graduate basis) were MUCH more likely to make partner. T14 types were much more likely to leave biglaw, either because their credentials gave them better exit options or because they just couldn't compete with the grinders from lower-ranked schools (or some other reason).

There are still doubtless *more* T14 partners, as a total number, just because there are more T14 grads in biglaw to begin with. Also, no one has said it's only because students at lower-ranked schools are grinders and T14ers are not. The flip side of the whole "T14 students are going to biglaw no matter what so don't need to hustle/prove themselves like nonT14ers do" is that a lot of T14 students got there by grinding their asses off and you don't just drop that habit after a lifetime of developing it, so I'm sure there's some of both going on.

But really, there are plenty of non-T14 partners out there.

[Interficio]

The whole "who makes partner" thing was already referenced here (and I have seen descriptions of this same study):

Someone did a quick study on this a while back (too lazy to look it up), but the bottom line conclusion was that people with great grades from lower-ranked schools who made it to biglaw (obviously relatively few compared to the top schools on a per-graduate basis) were MUCH more likely to make partner. T14 types were much more likely to leave biglaw, either because their credentials gave them better exit options or because they just couldn't compete with the grinders from lower-ranked schools (or some other reason).

There are still doubtless *more* T14 partners, as a total number, just because there are more T14 grads in biglaw to begin with. Also, no one has said it's only because students at lower-ranked schools are grinders and T14ers are not. The flip side of the whole "T14 students are going to biglaw no matter what so don't need to hustle/prove themselves like nonT14ers do" is that a lot of T14 students got there by grinding their asses off and you don't just drop that habit after a lifetime of developing it, so I'm sure there's some of both going on.

But really, there are plenty of non-T14 partners out there.

This is a perfectly reasonable response. But, yes, some people here have been implying that T-14ers lack that extra "grit", which is just a nonsensical proposition; that's primarily what I wanted to push back against.

[84651846190]

The whole "who makes partner" thing was already referenced here (and I have seen descriptions of this same study):

Someone did a quick study on this a while back (too lazy to look it up), but the bottom line conclusion was that people with great grades from lower-ranked schools who made it to biglaw (obviously relatively few compared to the top schools on a per-graduate basis) were MUCH more likely to make partner. T14 types were much more likely to leave biglaw, either because their credentials gave them better exit options or because they just couldn't compete with the grinders from lower-ranked schools (or some other reason).

There are still doubtless *more* T14 partners, as a total number, just because there are more T14 grads in biglaw to begin with. Also, no one has said it's only because students at lower-ranked schools are grinders and T14ers are not. The flip side of the whole "T14 students are going to biglaw no matter what so don't need to hustle/prove themselves like nonT14ers do" is that a lot of T14 students got there by grinding their asses off and you don't just drop that habit after a lifetime of developing it, so I'm sure there's some of both going on.

But really, there are plenty of non-T14 partners out there.

This is a perfectly reasonable response. But, yes, some people here have been implying that T-14ers lack that extra "grit", which is just a nonsensical proposition; that's primarily what I wanted to push back against.

Obviously "grit" should be assessed on an individual basis. Not all T14ers lack it; not all non-T14ers have it.

BUT, having gone to a T14 myself and worked in biglaw with several non-T14ers, my personal impression of T14ers in biglaw is that they're more entitled than non-T14ers in biglaw. When things get tough, they seem more likely to start brushing up their resume and applying for an in house gig. Just my personal perception, but I know many who share this perception. The non-T14ers just seem hungrier to me.

[Anonymous User]

Second, even assuming arguendo that that's true, it could be for different reasons (maybe T-14 people are more likely to want their career trajectory to end someplace other than big law, or prioritize things besides partnership, like gov, academic, and in-house positions).

Doesn't this negate your "but I only have run into T-14 grads on my callbacks!!" point? You've attended law school at some point. Surely, you know what the phrase "assuming arguendo" means?

Also, the implication seems to be that T-14 students don't "want it" bad enough or are somehow less hard-working because they've gotten into higher-ranked schools, which is equally fallacious.

I would certainly say there's a higher percentage of them.Based on???

1. I know what arguendo means and I shot it back at you. But if the point you're making is for illustration, I'm showing you that your illustration works in both ways and is thus moot.

2. When I was at my T-14, it was full of kids that were clearly successful when they were younger. They were stars in high school, some in college. But they had that ability to ace tests, even at Ivy undergrads, without doing much work. When they got to the T-14, they had punched their golden ticket. No matter what happened, they were going to go to big law.

When I actually went to my firm and met all these esteemed lawyers that went to lower ranked schools, I got a different picture. The same applied to my actual associate class. These were people that hustled in law school, usually against a tougher (read: less forgiving) curve and HAD to be top 5% and on LR to have a shot at working for a big firm. These were the people that, when 4am came around, understood that we couldn't just 'take another look at it in the morning' to succeed. If a comma was out of place, we needed to find it in a 120 page contract.

I guess I just question your level of exposure to people that aren't T-14. They're not all walking around, picking their noses and wondering which way is up. They're often people that took scholarships to lower ranked schools, crushed it there, and now they're looking you in the eyes, the next person in their path to success. I don't think T-14ers have the same scrappiness.

I resent this post because it makes tons of unfair assumptions of people who worked their asses off to get to t14s. My undergraduate thesis advisor once told me the smartest students he teaches were "like ducks." They make it look easy on the outside, but they are in fact paddling like hell underneath it all.

How do you think people get into the t14 in the first place, do you think they all got in through legacy?

My parents do not speak fluent english. I did work study all through college and I took a scholarship to a t14. I worked hard there too. This scenario is not unique to me.

[84651846190]

I resent this post because it makes tons of unfair assumptions of people who worked their asses off to get to t14s.

Some people (me) are just lazy but good at the LSAT. I got into a T14 based almost solely on my LSAT score, and I know plenty of others in the same boat. I don't consider myself having "worked my ass off" to get into a T14.

[Anonymous User]

I resent this post because it makes tons of unfair assumptions of people who worked their asses off to get to t14s.

Some people (me) are just lazy but good at the LSAT. I got into a T14 based almost solely on my LSAT score, and I know plenty of others in the same boat. I don't consider myself having "worked my ass off" to get into a T14.

Well, you're lucky to have that natural aptitude, because I did every published LSAT exam to prepare for my actual LSAT. My friend who went to Harvard law did the same.

[EIWIsMyFetish]

nwi

[Anonymous User]

At our firm, the answer to "do we prefer bottom 4th of top schools or top 4th of T20 or below schools" is neither, because both sets of students failed to understand the basic concept of "appear desirable to clients." Good grades and fancy law schools are really just ways of letting our clients know we're not completely wasting their money by staffing their cases full of inexperienced junior associates. If a prospective candidate can't even play the game at the admissions level, what exactly are partners supposed to tell their clients? "Don't worry, he's good at what he does, we promise?"

Besides, there are plenty of median students at top schools, enough to fill the summer spots around the country that were not taken by the top folks at their schools/ slightly lower ranked schools.

Unless your firm is Wachtell or W&C/Munger Tolles or some elite lit boutique, you probably have more than a few people from T20s and below in the top 20%, and even some not in the top 20%.

[Anonymous User]

I resent this post because it makes tons of unfair assumptions of people who worked their asses off to get to t14s.

Some people (me) are just lazy but good at the LSAT. I got into a T14 based almost solely on my LSAT score, and I know plenty of others in the same boat. I don't consider myself having "worked my ass off" to get into a T14.

Well, you're lucky to have that natural aptitude, because I did every published LSAT exam to prepare for my actual LSAT. My friend who went to Harvard law did the same.

I have to agree with the guy above. Many T14 folks were lazy about their LSATS. I remember a few people who did well on the test, got full rides to a T10, only to strike out because they couldn't handle real life. I also remember one guy who got a 150 on his LSAT, did well during his first year, transferred to our school, and ended up with double digit offers.

So little to no point in hating on T14 kids for having it easy...

[Interficio]

I resent this post because it makes tons of unfair assumptions of people who worked their asses off to get to t14s.

Some people (me) are just lazy but good at the LSAT. I got into a T14 based almost solely on my LSAT score, and I know plenty of others in the same boat. I don't consider myself having "worked my ass off" to get into a T14.

Well, you're lucky to have that natural aptitude, because I did every published LSAT exam to prepare for my actual LSAT. My friend who went to Harvard law did the same.

I'm at HYS and I did the exact same thing. I trudged my way through UG and now through law school and my summer job. You seem to be projecting your own slovenly ways onto others. And the "ducks paddling like crazy" image is exactly what it's like at a top school. People pretend they're slacking off, act like they're not hungry, and are actually studying and working like crazy behind closed doors.

[Anonymous User]

I go to HYS and just because my classmates may not be gunning for partner does not mean they are not hungry. Some of us go into biglaw because we want to make partner; many of us are there for a short while before moving on to the other opportunity that brought us to law school in the first place (e.g. politics, public service, business, academia).

Unless you can distinguish hys lawyers in biglaw for the long haul from those with no intention of staying (but often are equally hungry- just not to make partner), it's silly to compare them to biglaw associates from lower ranked schools.

[Anonymous User]

I am not a big law associate yet (starting next month) but I'd like to add something to this conversation because I am one of the relatively small percentage of law school students who graduated from a T2 who is going to a V10.

I have wondered many many nights how I would have done had I gone to a higher ranked school. There really is no way to know. But I seriously doubt I would be at the top of the class at ANY T13.

But, there is no doubt in my mind that TLS actually overestimates the difficulty of doing well at lower ranked law schools. This is anecdotal I suppose, but it is backed up by LOTS of anecdotes, including my own personal experience. The big difference between a school like mine and HYS is not the top students. I probably would not be at the top of the class at HYS, but I doubt very much that I would have drowned because everyone was just "so much smarter than me," and I'm guessing the same is true of the rest of the top 10 at my school. The big difference is the bottom. The bottom of my school is full of people who are really incompetent. These are people with low-mid 150s on their LSAT and low 3 GPAs at no name UGs. I myself overestimated the competition at my school. After reading post after post on here about how it's much easier to improve your LSAT score than be at the top of your class in law school and how no one can accurately predict whether they'll be a good law student or not, I just assumed there was a strong chance I wouldn't do well, and went to my school anyway because I didn't have many other options.

But it's just not the case, at least not at my school (which is generally considered one of the better T2s, if that matters). The bottom of my school could just never do better than I did, and it's not because I'm special at all. It's a testament to the lack of quality at the bottom. I'm sure there are plenty of slackers in the T13 (though as mentioned, probably a lot less than some people think), but even those slackers are almost for sure above average intelligence (at the very least) because it's not possible to be stupid and get a 170+ on your LSAT. The same isn't true of the slackers at my school, or even many of the people who work hard. Many, unfortunately, just do not have the raw natural intelligence to succeed. I think dwindling applications has only made this worse, since median GPAs and LSATs have dropped.

To explain it a different way, my school gives out full schollys to roughly 15% of the class. I know a lot more of who these specific recipients are than I should. I don't know a single one not in the Top 25%. Sure, being "in the top 15% on scholarships" doesn't guarantee you'll be in the top 15% on grades, but I think it probably does guarantee you'll be in the top 1/3, barring something very very unusual. I doubt seriously whether the same is true in the T13. Obviously there aren't many if any full schollys given out at some of these schools so it's hard to compare, but even if you change it to partial schollys vs. no schollys, I'd guess the predictive value of these groups is still pretty trivial. That's because the difference between LSAT scores get less and less meaningful as the numbers go up. That is not to say that they're less important for application purposes--the diff. btwn a 172 and a 173 might very well be more important than the diff. btwn a 159 and a 160--but they are less important with regard to analyzing student intelligence.

I didn't slack off at my school, but I'd be lying if I said I thought I worked harder than the average T13 student. The competition I faced was just much much easier than it would have been at a top school. I think if you took a bunch of HYS admits, sent them to T2s, and made sure they put in the same amt. of effort they would have put in at HYS, you'd see nearly all of them at the top of the class.

So I disagree with A. Nony Mouse. I do not think it's unreasonable to assume that lower ranked students at top schools may actually be better students than top ranked students at whatever lower ranked school. I'm not sure it's definitely the case; indeed it may not be. It's just not unreasonable to assume that they MAY be better students. Obviously play with the numbers enough and it becomes easier to discern, e.g. the #1 ranked student at NYU is definitely a "better student" than the lowest ranked student at Harvard. But keep dropping down NYU to lower and lower ranked schools and it's not very clear, at least not to me.

There is a reason why below median at T13 still gives you a shot at big law but it doesn't at a T2. There are many students at the bottom of my school who literally can't write complete coherent paragraphs, and sometimes sentences. These people would be fired after a month at a big firm. The bottom students at T13s may be lazy, but I'm sure they largely do not have the same type of problems.

I do think on average, my fellow law review peers have a certain chip on their shoulder and/or work very hard. They didn't have to work as hard as they did on average, to do well, but it's instilled habit. These habits may make them better big law associates. Or, it may just make them equal to associates who are naturally smarter and can figure out things faster and easier. In any event, most of the top 10% at my school did not turn down a top 10 school to go to a T2 (though there were a couple), and didn't have all these great options and just chose my school for the money. I'm a good example. I had a 163 LSAT and a 4.0 at a no name super shitty local UG. I got a full ride at my T2, but expectedly was blanket rejected from the entire top 20 schools or so. Yea I got in to some lower ranked T1s with less or no scholly money, but none of those schools were markedly better (as I said I'm at one of the better T2s).

I think I backdoored my way into big law. Did I get lucky? Sure. Probably very in some ways. But the idea that top students at lower ranked schools are in fact, "better students" than below median students at T13 or even "harder workers," is a disingenuous claim, imo. It might be true, but I have lots of reason to believe it isn't, at least not definitively.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Are law school grades more predictive of biglaw success than LSAT score+undergraduate GPA?
Overall, T6 law students in the bottom 1/4 of the class probably had better LSAT+undergrad GPAs than law students in the top 1/4 of the class at lower ranked school (T20 and beyond). Do biglaw firms prefer students who are in the top 1/4 of their law school classes at lower ranked schools or students in the bottom 1/4 at T6, and why?

At our firm, the answer to "do we prefer bottom 4th of top schools or top 4th of T20 or below schools" is neither, because both sets of students failed to understand the basic concept of "appear desirable to clients." Good grades and fancy law schools are really just ways of letting our clients know we're not completely wasting their money by staffing their cases full of inexperienced junior associates. If a prospective candidate can't even play the game at the admissions level, what exactly are partners supposed to tell their clients? "Don't worry, he's good at what he does, we promise?"

Besides, there are plenty of median students at top schools, enough to fill the summer spots around the country that were not taken by the top folks at their schools/ slightly lower ranked schools.

Jesus Christ, I feel bad for the people interviewing at your firm.

[Anonymous User]

At our firm, the answer to "do we prefer bottom 4th of top schools or top 4th of T20 or below schools" is neither, because both sets of students failed to understand the basic concept of "appear desirable to clients." Good grades and fancy law schools are really just ways of letting our clients know we're not completely wasting their money by staffing their cases full of inexperienced junior associates. If a prospective candidate can't even play the game at the admissions level, what exactly are partners supposed to tell their clients? "Don't worry, he's good at what he does, we promise?"

Besides, there are plenty of median students at top schools, enough to fill the summer spots around the country that were not taken by the top folks at their schools/ slightly lower ranked schools.

Jesus Christ, I feel bad for the people interviewing at your firm.

Let's be real, you are wasting their time with inexperienced associates. Do you think your client will ask what number in the class at Yale the attorney was if s/he is professional and competent? How many clients ask to see the transcripts of their attorneys? I would think brand name top schools or top of the class at lower ranked schools would be enough

[A. Nony Mouse]

Whether you agree with anon's firm's approach or not, it doesn't make sense to argue with them about whether that actually is their firm's approach, presuming that you don't know what firm it is or work there yourself.

[Anonymous User]

Whether you agree with anon's firm's approach or not, it doesn't make sense to argue with them about whether that actually is their firm's approach, presuming that you don't know what firm it is or work there yourself.

I was questioning the validity of the rationale given. Serious question with respect to how clients would know an attorney is bottom 1/4 at HYS.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Whether you agree with anon's firm's approach or not, it doesn't make sense to argue with them about whether that actually is their firm's approach, presuming that you don't know what firm it is or work there yourself.

I was questioning the validity of the rationale given. Serious question with respect to how clients would know an attorney is bottom 1/4 at HYS.

That's fair, although if the firm believes that it matters and that clients might care, I don't think it really matters.

[Anonymous User]

Whether you agree with anon's firm's approach or not, it doesn't make sense to argue with them about whether that actually is their firm's approach, presuming that you don't know what firm it is or work there yourself.

I was questioning the validity of the rationale given. Serious question with respect to how clients would know an attorney is bottom 1/4 at HYS.

That's fair, although if the firm believes that it matters and that clients might care, I don't think it really matters.

It's never the answer people want to hear, but it's recruiting's approach. I've seen the recruiter toss applications solely for bad grades at top schools and mediocre grades at non-top schools. Two of my friends' apps got tossed for that reason, despite our recommendations. (That being said, the recruiter was instructed to and also tossed anything that wasn't on the sliding scale of wanted candidates, including applications from median students from Top 10 schools.) But to clarify my earlier comment, our firm has hired many folks who graduated in top 10% at a T15-25 school, just not top 25% of those schools. Clients like merits, whether candidates understand or not. A person who graduated with "law review" and "summa cum laude" attached to their name is generally preferred over someone who has neither.

[Anonymous User]

Let's be real, you are wasting their time with inexperienced associates. Do you think your client will ask what number in the class at Yale the attorney was if s/he is professional and competent? How many clients ask to see the transcripts of their attorneys? I would think brand name top schools or top of the class at lower ranked schools would be enough

Yale? No, but Yale doesn't rank/have grades.

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.

[LSATWiz.com]

Whether you agree with anon's firm's approach or not, it doesn't make sense to argue with them about whether that actually is their firm's approach, presuming that you don't know what firm it is or work there yourself.

I was questioning the validity of the rationale given. Serious question with respect to how clients would know an attorney is bottom 1/4 at HYS.

That's fair, although if the firm believes that it matters and that clients might care, I don't think it really matters.

It's never the answer people want to hear, but it's recruiting's approach. I've seen the recruiter toss applications solely for bad grades at top schools and mediocre grades at non-top schools. Two of my friends' apps got tossed for that reason, despite our recommendations. (That being said, the recruiter was instructed to and also tossed anything that wasn't on the sliding scale of wanted candidates, including applications from median students from Top 10 schools.) But to clarify my earlier comment, our firm has hired many folks who graduated in top 10% at a T15-25 school, just not top 25% of those schools. Clients like merits, whether candidates understand or not. A person who graduated with "law review" and "summa cum laude" attached to their name is generally preferred over someone who has neither.

This is why outside of the top-14 it always makes sense to choose the lower ranked school with the big scholarship. The difference in academic rigor and competition between Notre Dame and Chicago is negligible, but you need much better grades at the former.

Once you delve into the lower TT and beyond, a lot of schools only assign about 5-6 pages a night. I have a friend who said that a lot of his classmates struggled with basic reading, and he hit the top 1% at a lower TT. He made the mistake of transferring to somewhere like Notre Dame for sticker where he was median. This is anecdotal and not indicative of everyone's experience, but my observation is it's much easier to pull top 5% at a TT than top 15-20% at a t-30 so it's always going to make more sense to take the TT with money.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yeah, I think there's going to a range of possibilities depending on what lower ranked school you're talking about. The gulf between the T14 and then the next 10 or so schools is going to be pretty minimal (even at my school, which floats around the 30s-40s depending on what USNWR feels like in a given year, I feel like I had very few incompetent classmates). Of course as you get into the lower rankings where LSATs/GPAs are dropping further and further from the T14s, the proportion of students who aren't much different from the T14 is going to shrink, maybe a lot. (I'm sure there are still students at those schools who can compete, just fewer of them.)

None of this is meant to diminish the abilities/achievements of the really top students at the really top schools - there are just a lot of factors going into who's a good student and who ends up a good lawyer.

[los blancos]

Let's be real, you are wasting their time with inexperienced associates. Do you think your client will ask what number in the class at Yale the attorney was if s/he is professional and competent? How many clients ask to see the transcripts of their attorneys? I would think brand name top schools or top of the class at lower ranked schools would be enough

Yale? No, but Yale doesn't rank/have grades.

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