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I'm a AA female with below average grades, around the bottom 1/4 of my class at a t14 other stats:

Will be a 1L SA at a law firm in HK.
Secondary journal experience.
Have 1yr w/e as a corporate paralegal.


What are my prospects if any for OCIs, what type of firms should I be targeting for my bid list?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Bid lists are pretty school-specific. I'd talk to your career counselors, upperclassmen. What makes sense at NYU might not at say, GULC. But you're right for suspecting that Sullivan & Cromwell or Cravath or w/e are likely not in the cards

Ask OCI.. there should be a list somewhere with median GPAs of people getting offers, even if they won't give you the list.

And practice interviews. I don't mean mock interviews really but just developing a thick skin by blasting people with emails for random coffee chats. It's super awkward but you don't want OCI to be your first time having awkward chats about your hobbies and weaknesses.

As a 3L at Georgetown, there are definitely firms that recruit below median (as in OCI reports that their average GULC summer associate gpa is below median, several more if you consider the 25th percentile for the firms). Look at your oci materials and target firms knowing their preferences (NYC is easiest, some firms care less about gpa).

It would seem to me that a 1L in HK is a unique and probably valuable experience. Plus paralegal experience? I would suspect your odds are better than you would expect.

Practice interviews if you can. Network/coffee when you can. Use your alumni network. And do it sooner rather than later (nobody wants to hear from you a day before your screener for advice).

I've seen AA F bottom 1/4 get anywhere from Jones Day to Cleary/Cravath. The stronger your softs the better.

Your prospects actually aren't bad. Is your 1L firm a top NY firm? If so, just try your best to secure a 2L position with them, perhaps splitting between HK and NY. Otherwise, target firms that normally make offers to students with a 3.4 GPA and below (e.g., White & Case NY, Weil NY, Milbank, Wilkie, etc.). It would be helpful if you posted your current bid list.

Figure out some firms that are in your range, and in the city you want to target, and see if there are any AA partners that you can grab lunch with when you're back from HK, or who you can at least arrange an informational interview with, discuss their career, etc. I've interviewed at OCI before, and if a partner puts in a good word for someone (even where it's literally just an associate had cold emailed them and then had lunch/talked on the phone and made a decent impression), it doesn't even matter if we wouldn't otherwise give the person a callback, they're getting a callback. Once you get a callback, that's half the battle. Find out where the AA alumni from your school are working, and start sending emails asking to chat for five minutes about their careers.

By AA, you mean African American and not Asian American, correct?

The HK thing threw me off a bit (I know you don’t need to speak a foreign language to work there, but still).

2013 wrote:By AA, you mean African American and not Asian American, correct?

The HK thing threw me off a bit (I know you don’t need to speak a foreign language to work there, but still).

Yeah this is pretty important...

LBJ's Hair wrote:

2013 wrote:By AA, you mean African American and not Asian American, correct?

The HK thing threw me off a bit (I know you don’t need to speak a foreign language to work there, but still).

Yeah this is pretty important...

Yes, I mean African American. In retrospect I should have realized that my post may have caused some confusion, especially with the HK bit. Should have made it clear at the beginning.

anxious2L wrote:

LBJ's Hair wrote:

2013 wrote:By AA, you mean African American and not Asian American, correct?

The HK thing threw me off a bit (I know you don’t need to speak a foreign language to work there, but still).

Yeah this is pretty important...

Yes, I mean African American. In retrospect I should have realized that my post may have caused some confusion, especially with the HK bit. Should have made it clear at the beginning.

No worries, I think that's how all the posters read it. (Or that's how I read it, at least)

Wild Card wrote:I've seen AA F bottom 1/4 get anywhere from Jones Day to Cleary/Cravath. The stronger your softs the better.

This is generally TCR, IMO. But I'd still advise OP to err on the side of safety and focus on the less grade-selective firms. She can/should certainly try a few Hail Marys at the Clearys/Cravaths of the world, but if I were in her shoes, unless her T14 is YS I would not have a "V10-heavy" bidlist (using "V10" as shorthand for "grade-selective firm," which I acknowledge isn't a perfect proxy by any stretch).

QContinuum wrote:

Wild Card wrote:I've seen AA F bottom 1/4 get anywhere from Jones Day to Cleary/Cravath. The stronger your softs the better.

This is generally TCR, IMO. But I'd still advise OP to err on the side of safety and focus on the less grade-selective firms. She can/should certainly try a few Hail Marys at the Clearys/Cravaths of the world, but if I were in her shoes, unless her T14 is YS I would not have a "V10-heavy" bidlist (using "V10" as shorthand for "grade-selective firm," which I acknowledge isn't a perfect proxy by any stretch).

^That. I agree that I've seen some AA Females (in particular) punch above their weight class, especially in non-NYC markets. But those have almost uniformly been AA Fs with strong backgrounds/connections. But as an AA Male from a T14 (GULC) who had perfectly average grades, I would go even a step further than Q and advise you to aim conservatively. If you want to hail mary at some higher order firms, I'd put them at the mid-to-bottom of your bid list (if that's how your school OCI works). If you're at a T6 or higher, maybe you can be a bit more adventurous.

URM hiring cycles can be wildly unpredictable. Use that as your guiding light and accept that, while you may get an offer from a Cleary, you may wind up having to hustle just like anyone else in your grade range at your school. Based on your background, I imagine you're at least a decent interviewer--so to your question of prospects, I think you've got a strong shot at landing somewhere. I just advise caution because I think one of the worst things post-OCI is to feel like you got no-offered ONLY because you bid poorly. Wishing you the best of luck!