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yyyuppp wrote:

Previous anon you chastised for not having JD, Sidley, K&E, and Winston Chi offices in my bid list despite me having a Chicago preference as a transactional bidder.

This any better?

1. Baker McKenzie (Chi)
2. Katten (Chi)
3. Sidley (Chi)
4. White & Case (NY)
5. Kirkland (Chi)
6. Jones Day (Chi)
7. Mayer Brown (Chi)
8. Winston Strawn (Chi)
9. Fried (NY)
10. Weil (NY)
11. McDermott (Chi)
12. Shearman (NY)
13. Arnold & Porter (NY)
14. Milbank (NY)
15. Willkie (NY)
16. Cadwalder (NY)
17. Ropes & Gray (NY)
18. Seward & Kissel (NY)
19. Dechert (NY)

My only real concern is will I lose JD or Mayer Brown at 6 and 7 respectively?

Also, I know you said you're not up to snuff on NY, but is White & Case at 4 a possibility or not? I know previous years have missed out at 5 and 6 before, but I'd really like to get them because they match well with my practice preference/GPA range/summer size.

Anonymous User wrote:

yyyuppp wrote:

Previous anon you chastised for not having JD, Sidley, K&E, and Winston Chi offices in my bid list despite me having a Chicago preference as a transactional bidder.

This any better?

1. Baker McKenzie (Chi)
2. Katten (Chi)
3. Sidley (Chi)
4. White & Case (NY)
5. Kirkland (Chi)
6. Jones Day (Chi)
7. Mayer Brown (Chi)
8. Winston Strawn (Chi)
9. Fried (NY)
10. Weil (NY)
11. McDermott (Chi)
12. Shearman (NY)
13. Arnold & Porter (NY)
14. Milbank (NY)
15. Willkie (NY)
16. Cadwalder (NY)
17. Ropes & Gray (NY)
18. Seward & Kissel (NY)
19. Dechert (NY)

My only real concern is will I lose JD or Mayer Brown at 6 and 7 respectively?

Also, I know you said you're not up to snuff on NY, but is White & Case at 4 a possibility or not? I know previous years have missed out at 5 and 6 before, but I'd really like to get them because they match well with my practice preference/GPA range/summer size.

You’re not getting Mayer that low. Either move them up or replace them with another decent Chicago transactional group like Paul Hastings or Greenberg Traurig. If you’re not in their GPA target then I’d say just drop them.

What are people's thoughts on mass mailing NY firms who will be coming to OCI? I will be targeting Chicago at OCI but will probably throw in a few NY bids as well. Should we only mass mail firms who aren't coming or is it fine to mail all NY firms and bid on them again at OCI as long as we haven't gotten a hard no from them?

Anonymous User wrote:What are people's thoughts on mass mailing NY firms who will be coming to OCI? I will be targeting Chicago at OCI but will probably throw in a few NY bids as well. Should we only mass mail firms who aren't coming or is it fine to mail all NY firms and bid on them again at OCI as long as we haven't gotten a hard no from them?

Yeah you can start mass mailing them now. Some firms like to jump the gun on OCI and offer people before OCI season starts (something career services won’t tell you.)

Anonymous User wrote:

yyyuppp wrote:

Previous anon you chastised for not having JD, Sidley, K&E, and Winston Chi offices in my bid list despite me having a Chicago preference as a transactional bidder.

This any better?

1. Baker McKenzie (Chi)
2. Katten (Chi)
3. Sidley (Chi)
4. White & Case (NY)
5. Kirkland (Chi)
6. Jones Day (Chi)
7. Mayer Brown (Chi)
8. Winston Strawn (Chi)
9. Fried (NY)
10. Weil (NY)
11. McDermott (Chi)
12. Shearman (NY)
13. Arnold & Porter (NY)
14. Milbank (NY)
15. Willkie (NY)
16. Cadwalder (NY)
17. Ropes & Gray (NY)
18. Seward & Kissel (NY)
19. Dechert (NY)

My only real concern is will I lose JD or Mayer Brown at 6 and 7 respectively?

Also, I know you said you're not up to snuff on NY, but is White & Case at 4 a possibility or not? I know previous years have missed out at 5 and 6 before, but I'd really like to get them because they match well with my practice preference/GPA range/summer size.

You could probably move Sidley to six and Kirkland to 7, then move Mayer to 3 and jd to 5. You should have offices like Winston and jd on your list because they rank pretty well in Chicago transactional work on chambers, they regularly cb folks with around your gpa for transactional, and they have relatively bigger classes than your Paul Hastings of the world, so getting an offer is more likely. Also, consider if you want Jenner in there somewhere. I’m pretty sure they take transactional folks closer to median, but they might go high cuz they are popular with lit folks and I don’t think they have a ton of interview slots.

Also, maybe think about throwing firms like Paul Weiss, STB, and cleary where your lists leave off, if you think you can get them there (might be dicey). You will def be in the running for cbs if you want transactional (though maybe a bit of an uphill battle)

I wish some old posters like Mullens, star fox, and cookie jar were still around to help you guys out.

Anonymous User wrote:What are people's thoughts on mass mailing NY firms who will be coming to OCI? I will be targeting Chicago at OCI but will probably throw in a few NY bids as well. Should we only mass mail firms who aren't coming or is it fine to mail all NY firms and bid on them again at OCI as long as we haven't gotten a hard no from them?

Yes send your stuff to New York firms that are coming to OCI

Anyone have good templates/tips/etc for cover letters?

Anonymous User wrote:

yyyuppp wrote:

Previous anon you chastised for not having JD, Sidley, K&E, and Winston Chi offices in my bid list despite me having a Chicago preference as a transactional bidder.

This any better?

1. Baker McKenzie (Chi)
2. Katten (Chi)
3. Sidley (Chi)
4. White & Case (NY)
5. Kirkland (Chi)
6. Jones Day (Chi)
7. Mayer Brown (Chi)
8. Winston Strawn (Chi)
9. Fried (NY)
10. Weil (NY)
11. McDermott (Chi)
12. Shearman (NY)
13. Arnold & Porter (NY)
14. Milbank (NY)
15. Willkie (NY)
16. Cadwalder (NY)
17. Ropes & Gray (NY)
18. Seward & Kissel (NY)
19. Dechert (NY)

My only real concern is will I lose JD or Mayer Brown at 6 and 7 respectively?

Also, I know you said you're not up to snuff on NY, but is White & Case at 4 a possibility or not? I know previous years have missed out at 5 and 6 before, but I'd really like to get them because they match well with my practice preference/GPA range/summer size.

Honestly, it's probably worth throwing in some Paul Weiss, STB and other NYC-type firms on your list where yours drops off. You won't get any of the smaller Chicago offices that low, but might get some of the NYC ones, and you're more likely to get CBs there. I was "above median" at a lot of the smaller Chicago firms (think Greenberg, Quarles, Locke Lord), and just never heard back from them. Much more likely to get CB from those NYC firms that have tons of slots to fill.

From NY and only applying to NY for transactional work with a 3.45, with relevant pre-law school job and current internship. Please let me know what you all think : )

1. Simpson Thacher
2. Kirkland Ellis
3. Weil
4. Sidley
5. Ropes and Grey
6. White & Case
7. Proskauer
8. Fried Frank
9. Milbank
10. Mayer Brown
11. Seward & Kissel
12. Paul Hastings
13. Winston & Strawn
14. Fenwick
15. Wilson Sonsini
16. Baker Mckenzie
17. Shearman Sterling
18. Pilsbury
19. Wilkie
20. Wilmerhale

3.5 dude who is interested in restructuring and real estate (also now thinking about M&A), back again. Here's my list for now. I'll try not to spam up this thread, so I won't post another list for a while.

I am mostly interested in (1) if I'm bidding too many high-GPA Chicago firms (2) if I should move up the median friendly firms like Vedder Price (3) what to do about NYC ordering; I have no idea what I'm doing there.

1. Katten Muchin Rosenman (Chicago)
2. Baker McKenzie (Chicago) (maybe move to #1? Would prefer Katten though)
3. Jenner & Block (Chicago)
4. Mayer Brown (Chicago)
5. Kirkland & Ellis (Chicago)
6. Sidley Austin (Chicago)
7. Winston & Strawn (Chicago)
8. McDermott Will & Emery (Chicago)
9. Ropes & Gray (Chicago)
10. Jones Day (Chicago)
11. DLA Piper (Chicago)
12. Greenberg Trauig (Chicago)
13. Foley & Lardner (Chicago)
14. Vedder Price (Chicago) (too low?)
15. Schiff Hardin (Chicago) (too low? remove for a lower GPA friendly firm?)
16. Cravath (New York)
17. Weil (New York)
18. Proskauer Rose (New York)
19. Fried Frank (New York)
20. Kasowitz (New York)
21. Milbank (New York) (too low? I think they'll be popular this year)
22. Allen & Overy (New York)
23. Cadwalader (New York)
24. Dechert (New York)
25. White & Case (New York)
26. Willkie (New York)
27. Wilmerhale (New York)
28. Shearman & Sterling (New York)
29. Orrick (New York)
30. NYC firm - no idea
31. Thompson Coburn (St. Louis)
32. Husch Blackwell (St. Louis)
33. Stinson Leonard Street (St. Louis)
34. Bracewell (Houston)
35. V&E (Houston)
36. Shook Hardy & Bacon (Kansas City)
37. Ice Miller (Ohio)
38. Porter Wright & Morris (Ohio)
39. No idea
40. No idea

Where are the 3.7 3.8 3.9 folks?

Anonymous User wrote:3.5 dude who is interested in restructuring and real estate (also now thinking about M&A), back again. Here's my list for now. I'll try not to spam up this thread, so I won't post another list for a while.

I am mostly interested in (1) if I'm bidding too many high-GPA Chicago firms (2) if I should move up the median friendly firms like Vedder Price (3) what to do about NYC ordering; I have no idea what I'm doing there.

1. Katten Muchin Rosenman (Chicago)
2. Baker McKenzie (Chicago) (maybe move to #1? Would prefer Katten though)
3. Jenner & Block (Chicago)
4. Mayer Brown (Chicago)
5. Kirkland & Ellis (Chicago)
6. Sidley Austin (Chicago)
7. Winston & Strawn (Chicago)
8. McDermott Will & Emery (Chicago)
9. Ropes & Gray (Chicago)
10. Jones Day (Chicago)
11. DLA Piper (Chicago)
12. Greenberg Trauig (Chicago)
13. Foley & Lardner (Chicago)
14. Vedder Price (Chicago) (too low?)
15. Schiff Hardin (Chicago) (too low? remove for a lower GPA friendly firm?)
16. Cravath (New York)
17. Weil (New York)
18. Proskauer Rose (New York)
19. Fried Frank (New York)
20. Kasowitz (New York)
21. Milbank (New York) (too low? I think they'll be popular this year)
22. Allen & Overy (New York)
23. Cadwalader (New York)
24. Dechert (New York)
25. White & Case (New York)
26. Willkie (New York)
27. Wilmerhale (New York)
28. Shearman & Sterling (New York)
29. Orrick (New York)
30. NYC firm - no idea
31. Thompson Coburn (St. Louis)
32. Husch Blackwell (St. Louis)
33. Stinson Leonard Street (St. Louis)
34. Bracewell (Houston)
35. V&E (Houston)
36. Shook Hardy & Bacon (Kansas City)
37. Ice Miller (Ohio)
38. Porter Wright & Morris (Ohio)
39. No idea
40. No idea

i'll give this a shot, but I was in a different position than you so my bid list was way different, so I'm no expert and I will help where i can.

you likely won't get ropes at 9. i think it went at like 3 or 4 last year. Diddo for DLA, its going to be popular. I looked at some old posts from the last few years and I think vedder went higher too. I think you could bump winston down to 10, bump kirkland to 7, move jenner to 8 and McDermott to 11, move mayer to 5, ropes to 3, and JD to 4. Really, i think it might be safe to bid winston and mcdermott at like 11 and 13 and start sprinkling in some NYC firms.

baker always goes super high they went the highest of any firm last year Im guessing. people missed them at 1. if you're gonna bid them, put Katten at 2 and them at 1.

im worried you aren't gonna get a lot of the NY firms you bid. Proksaur (went like 8 a few years ago), FF, Milbank think are going to go higher, as is weil. you might get cravath there. Sherman and Willkie will be tough gets down there too. Its hard to tell without interview slots yet, but a lot of those firms have like 20 interview slots. White and Case always goes ridiculously high cuz too. At some point you are going to have to make sacrifices in the 10-17 range and get some of those NY firms much higher. i didn't bid those firms last year so i don't really know, but just basing it on GPA info/cuttoffs I'm guessing this is the case.

I hope others with some more experience on this can chime in. Definitely you should be making an appointment with your advisor too. if its the case where she or he thinks you have a GPA below the 25th at too many of your top 10 firms, maybe they can give some guidance on how to arrange this. I feel like a 3.5 is a pretty solid place to be going in to OCI, you just gotta maximize your chances.

hope this helps.

^ also, as soon as the interview schedules are posted (when you find out what screeners you nabbed), you should be emailing the firms you missed and letting them know you are still interested in interviewing with them and ask if there is any chance you could jump in some place in the schedule or whatehaveyou. This is true even if you sent materials pre-OCI.

and, as always, you should be sending pre-OCI stuff out. at 3.5 you are competitive for it. For example, I know for a person with a worse GPA than yours who got a Weil CB and and White and Case phone screener through mailing. If you can get an offer pre-OCI, this whole bidding thing becomes a whole lot easier, because you can just chop off a lot of firms you wouldn't work for over the one whose offered you, and you can maximize your screeners at firms that might be reaches, but you'd really prefer. OCI is stressful and exhausting, and you will quickly find out that less screeners is awesome if you managed to come in with an offer.

yyyuppp wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:3.5 dude who is interested in restructuring and real estate (also now thinking about M&A), back again. Here's my list for now. I'll try not to spam up this thread, so I won't post another list for a while.

I am mostly interested in (1) if I'm bidding too many high-GPA Chicago firms (2) if I should move up the median friendly firms like Vedder Price (3) what to do about NYC ordering; I have no idea what I'm doing there.

1. Katten Muchin Rosenman (Chicago)
2. Baker McKenzie (Chicago) (maybe move to #1? Would prefer Katten though)
3. Jenner & Block (Chicago)
4. Mayer Brown (Chicago)
5. Kirkland & Ellis (Chicago)
6. Sidley Austin (Chicago)
7. Winston & Strawn (Chicago)
8. McDermott Will & Emery (Chicago)
9. Ropes & Gray (Chicago)
10. Jones Day (Chicago)
11. DLA Piper (Chicago)
12. Greenberg Trauig (Chicago)
13. Foley & Lardner (Chicago)
14. Vedder Price (Chicago) (too low?)
15. Schiff Hardin (Chicago) (too low? remove for a lower GPA friendly firm?)
16. Cravath (New York)
17. Weil (New York)
18. Proskauer Rose (New York)
19. Fried Frank (New York)
20. Kasowitz (New York)
21. Milbank (New York) (too low? I think they'll be popular this year)
22. Allen & Overy (New York)
23. Cadwalader (New York)
24. Dechert (New York)
25. White & Case (New York)
26. Willkie (New York)
27. Wilmerhale (New York)
28. Shearman & Sterling (New York)
29. Orrick (New York)
30. NYC firm - no idea
31. Thompson Coburn (St. Louis)
32. Husch Blackwell (St. Louis)
33. Stinson Leonard Street (St. Louis)
34. Bracewell (Houston)
35. V&E (Houston)
36. Shook Hardy & Bacon (Kansas City)
37. Ice Miller (Ohio)
38. Porter Wright & Morris (Ohio)
39. No idea
40. No idea

i'll give this a shot, but I was in a different position than you so my bid list was way different, so I'm no expert and I will help where i can.

you likely won't get ropes at 9. i think it went at like 3 or 4 last year. Diddo for DLA, its going to be popular. I looked at some old posts from the last few years and I think vedder went higher too. I think you could bump winston down to 10, bump kirkland to 7, move jenner to 8 and McDermott to 11, move mayer to 5, ropes to 3, and JD to 4. Really, i think it might be safe to bid winston and mcdermott at like 11 and 13 and start sprinkling in some NYC firms.

baker always goes super high they went the highest of any firm last year Im guessing. people missed them at 1. if you're gonna bid them, put Katten at 2 and them at 1.

im worried you aren't gonna get a lot of the NY firms you bid. Proksaur (went like 8 a few years ago), FF, Milbank think are going to go higher, as is weil. you might get cravath there. Sherman and Willkie will be tough gets down there too. Its hard to tell without interview slots yet, but a lot of those firms have like 20 interview slots. White and Case always goes ridiculously high cuz too. At some point you are going to have to make sacrifices in the 10-17 range and get some of those NY firms much higher. i didn't bid those firms last year so i don't really know, but just basing it on GPA info/cuttoffs I'm guessing this is the case.

I hope others with some more experience on this can chime in. Definitely you should be making an appointment with your advisor too. if its the case where she or he thinks you have a GPA below the 25th at too many of your top 10 firms, maybe they can give some guidance on how to arrange this. I feel like a 3.5 is a pretty solid place to be going in to OCI, you just gotta maximize your chances.

hope this helps.

Awesome, thanks for the advice!

So the amount of interview slots are up. How popular are Sidley and Kirkland? They both have 40 slots, which wasn't as much as I thought they would have. Stunned to see McDermott and Winston have 80 slots each.

Anonymous User wrote:So the amount of interview slots are up. How popular are Sidley and Kirkland? They both have 40 slots, which wasn't as much as I thought they would have. Stunned to see McDermott and Winston have 80 slots each.

Popular. Put them in your top 3.

Sidley and Kirkland are both listed as being there for two days. Could it be 40 each day for a total of 80? That number seems more in line with past OCI threads.

Please be careful when utilizing the Career Center for OCI help. David Diamond is RABID misogynist and racist. He will NOT give the same advice he gives to a white male. I'm not going to out myself or anyone with stories, but we have them. People have complained to the school but they won't listen. It's just a good ole boys club up there. This is hearsay but I was told the OCI person is someone that follows in Dave's footsteps. I guess he worked here before and there were a lot of issues.

I personally won't go back to the Career Center but if you have to, I'm told Sandy and Puja are cool. Though if they're safe, you think they'd try to stop him. Maybe they have.

If you've experienced bigotry there, know you're not alone. Please consider speaking up. Someday they'll have to listen.

Career services is terrible outside of racism or misogyny. Sucks to hear they are bad in those ways too. I'm sorry people have to deal with that.

Anonymous User wrote:Please be careful when utilizing the Career Center for OCI help. David Diamond is RABID misogynist and racist. He will NOT give the same advice he gives to a white male. I'm not going to out myself or anyone with stories, but we have them. People have complained to the school but they won't listen. It's just a good ole boys club up there. This is hearsay but I was told the OCI person is someone that follows in Dave's footsteps. I guess he worked here before and there were a lot of issues.

I personally won't go back to the Career Center but if you have to, I'm told Sandy and Puja are cool. Though if they're safe, you think they'd try to stop him. Maybe they have.

If you've experienced bigotry there, know you're not alone. Please consider speaking up. Someday they'll have to listen.

Really sorry you had to experience that :/. My experiences with OCS the past two years have been universally awful. Their staff is toxic and incompetent; what should be a mission-driven, passionate group of administrators is instead a cesspool of indifferent bureaucrats. I fully support a student-led effort to approach the new Yuracko administration with a serious request to prioritize a performance review of the entire office.

What did David Diamond do?

Anonymous User wrote:Please be careful when utilizing the Career Center for OCI help. David Diamond is RABID misogynist and racist. He will NOT give the same advice he gives to a white male. I'm not going to out myself or anyone with stories, but we have them. People have complained to the school but they won't listen. It's just a good ole boys club up there. This is hearsay but I was told the OCI person is someone that follows in Dave's footsteps. I guess he worked here before and there were a lot of issues.

I personally won't go back to the Career Center but if you have to, I'm told Sandy and Puja are cool. Though if they're safe, you think they'd try to stop him. Maybe they have.

If you've experienced bigotry there, know you're not alone. Please consider speaking up. Someday they'll have to listen.

Are you saying he's giving URMs different advice or that he's preferencing white men in some way?

You should absolutely bring your concerns to the powers that be. Dave Diamond is the Toby Flenderson of Northwestern Law, though, and I doubt he's transcended mere incompetence into MAGA territory.

I also strongly dislike Diamond. His incompetence is stunning and I’ve actually discussed with the head of recruiting at my firm about how incompetent he is. I honestly don’t know how he still has a job.

That being said, no one should rely on career services. Everyone should take control of their own job search and put as much effort into it as if it was a graded class. In fact, it matters far more than classes or grades. Far too many people rely on OCI and don’t lay the groundwork ahead of time. Don’t be one of those people.

Anonymous User wrote:Sidley and Kirkland are both listed as being there for two days. Could it be 40 each day for a total of 80? That number seems more in line with past OCI threads.

Anyone have thoughts on this? 40 Kirkland or Sidley spots would mean we probably have to put them first and would look horrible on our career services center. It has to be 40x2, right?

Why don't you just ask OCS?