Thanks for the good luck.

I do think he's got the right basic attitude here. Schools at the very top will provide great job opportunities for most everyone in the class, but below the elite schools, nobody is really guaranteed much of anything (I'm speaking for schools like mine in the 20's...I don't think anyone is under the illusion that everyone in the class will be in great shape upon graduation). Being near the very top of the class at his current school should certainly net him something solid, and with less debt incurred.

Do what we do in the SSSH stars regs thread, when you post someone's name do it like har vard or Colum_bia.

I'm kind of having a WTF?!?!?! moment here; is it possible/realistic for a top of the class from a 70-90 school to transfer to a top 10 or even top 5 school? After my 1L I was third in my class at a school that was, at the time, 70-80 and I didn't think much about transferring, partly because I lacked ambition and partly because I didn't think I'd be able to transfer someplace THAT high. No wonder my school threw 10k at me without me asking.....

Well, first of all if I can move into the T14, there is no incentive to go to a loewr ranked school. They won't offer $$.

I'd only consider Columbia-ish schools, because if I maintain top 5 or even top 10 % here, my job prospects are very, very good for 2L OCI. Top 5 % here may have better job prospects than doing an unranked OCI at GULC or UVA.

Top 10 % here destroys my job prospects unranked at anything less than a T14, maybe even T10 or T6.
lol you were likely in at a couple T6 schools with a shot at Harvard and a better shot at Stanford. lock to be in at at least one or two T14s.

I know of at least one girl who transferred from my TTT (Suffolk) to BU, and another one who transferred to Northeastern. Not quite the same as what you're talking about, but the distance transferred is a lot farther imo.

Better shot at Stanford? Why would that be? Harvard's transfer class is way bigger, I was under the impression that they were the "easiest" to get into of the big three.

Well I'll be damned. I have a great job and am pretty happy, or else this info would probably piss me off.

Question for 2/3Ls and practicing attorneys:

I haven't really found any good answers to my questions about 1L internships, so I turn here. Career services has been pretty vague and pessimistic, and I don't know who to (safely) ask in the 2L/3L class about this.

Obviously paid 1L positions are rare right now. Best case scenario I'd like to get a paid job with a BigLaw firm, but the odds of that are long. I'd just like to be paid and work a job where I get a lot of work writing and researching.

Everyone just generally says "you won't get paid," but I have to ask: now knowing I'm top 5 % of the class, how competitive will that make me for getting a paid 1L job? The reason I ask is there is a public interest career fair coming up laden with unpaid jobs, but I'd rather wait and take a shot at some big firms and other opportunities (CATO institute, for example) which are paid. How competitive will I be? Or am I just going to get trounced by everyone from T1, T30 and T14 schools?

Really, really don't want to TVB with this post, but I honestly don't know who else to ask. Everyone around here treats grades and class rank like they are a nuclear secret, and the career services office honestly hasn't been very helpful.

I don't know if things have changed, but in my day (i graduated in 06 or 07..i don't remember) it didn't matter wtf you did during your first year. My roommate was first in our class and worked as a caddy after his first year. He summered at Skadden his second year and still works there. I actually got a paying job at a law firm, so I took that. But it didn't matter during my OCI interviews; they only cared about my grades.

Sufolk has a bad-ass reputation in the boston area, according to my poker playing friend who is currently at Suffolk (full ride, paid 1L intership with well known Law firm in Andover )

My understanding is there are ZERO biglaw opportunities unless you are a minority. If you're a minority, most biglaw firms have diversity programs for 1Ls. I've never heard of biglaw firms doing "normal" 1L summer programs in the past, and with firms cutting summer programs down in general, I doubt there are 1L programs still out there, if there ever were.

I'm not familiar with other paid opportunities. I had a pretty nice setup that you might want to look into, depending on where you are. I took a summer course to get financial aide, and clerked/interned for a federal judge part time. Even though it was part time and short, biglaw firms loved it; it was all I ended up talking about during fall recruiting. Career services should know if internships are available.

What's TVB?

I think you'll be competitive with just about everyone else if you are top 5-10%. I don't really think your school matters all that much once you're top 10%. Some things just don't recruit/look at applications from schools outside a certain range, but that's just not that common aside from Big Law firms.

Even top 5% from top 10 schools probably don't get paying big firm jobs as 1Ls. This is definitely true now as there are about a million people ahead of you looking for those jobs who are 2Ls. Honestly you have no shot at any paid law firm job at a big firm. You may be able to get yourself paid $15/hr at a small firm, but even that is hard to get.

Take the best looking clerking for a judge related thing you can get. See if you school can give you a stipend for that time (some places do that). Prefer a city judge to a rural one (he's likely to have more connections) and/or one that is where you'd like to be some day geographically.

Seconded on the TVB thing.

Yeah I think that's true, but we're still 3rd/4th tier, which is all the clowns in (transfer) admissions probably care about. I guess I was just throwing out some anecdotal evidence of transferring like he was talking about happening.

Why the hell would you want to do do biglaw your first summer? I worked at a 30 attorney firm and thought it was great: learned a lot but still relaxed enough for my tastes. You have the rest of your life to work biglaw (and hate your life).

Oh, and because I finally got all my grades: took the max credits, 3.71gpa, dean's list, etc. happy.

Karak, you can be my PA over the summer. $15 per hour, 15 hours per week, + drinks on me. It will be a much more rewarding experience than any bs legal job. Oh, and you have to wear skimpy clothes.

Have you read his posting history? This jacks the wage up to like $50/hour. You may want to reconsider.

they pay very well and you don't do nearly as much work as real associate.

Hi guys.

The document review database I'm working in currently (as in I'm taking a 10 minute break) has 20,000,000 documents. For one client.

Thankfully I only have to go through like half of them.


Re: manupod's "why would you want to work at big firm 1L summer"

I've done more work this week than I did in my entire 12 week summer at a large firm. There was probably more lobsters eaten than hours billed. Those were the days.

Word. I'll look into that. I applied to a bunch of government and PI positions in the town here. I applied to a couple paid positions open to 1Ls, but I don't expect anything since they are open to 2Ls too.

TVB = Thinly veiled brag.

Yeah, I'm going to spend some time this weekend and carpet bomb for judicial externships in the area with resumes/cover letters.

True.

Awesome man. Grats.

lol

On Cherininsky's book. People are recommending his "Con Law, Principles and Policies"? Which means a 1200 page 'supplement.'

yeah but i heard it's a real easy read and an awesome supp. plus it's doubtful your prof covers the entire book

It's got like every case. Just read the ones you cover and then go back when you're studying and read the introductory kind of overarching stuff.

That's pretty much all I did for ConLaw, woulda been fine if my comp didn't crash in the middle AND the last question was all about that Hamdi/Hamdan/Boumediene Guantanamo Bay stuff that I specifically didn't read.

Yea I could see how that would suck. I went with one person I knew before, and like 6 people I'd barely met and everyone turned out to be really chill.

Co-Ed team is the way to go. A good chunk of the mens teams took stuff way too seriously. Funny to see like 80% of the schools with legit uniforms and gear for their A team.

I'll take this offer imo.