Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to make you feel discouraged, but I am on the Legal Honors hiring committee for a federal agency (and not one of the popular ones like DOJ or State). It has been years since we hired anyone with below median grades. We get such a high quality applicant pool that we are able to hire new attorneys from top schools with top grades, law review/moot court and usually some kind of relevant work experience. I don't think you're going to have the luxury of being picky in this legal market.

I am on a similar committee, and we have a top 20 percent cutoff, no exceptions.

Does that differ by school? Could someone in the top twenty at AU be hired but not someone who was top third at Georgetown?

At our agency, the school doesn't count- the grades do. However, there is a degree of subjectivity to our scoring system and I admit, I can't help but be more impressed with an applicant from Harvard than some school I've never heard of. However, Georgetown vs. AU isn't going to make such a huge impression on me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

1) Spend the next few months (i.e. all of spring semester) showing up at firms personally with my application materials, in a suit, and requesting to talk to the hiring partner. They will likely either put me off, or tell me flat out no. I should ignore that and continue to show up personally once a week and reiterate my interest face-to-face. I should follow that weekly stalking visit up with phone calls/emails every week, basically harassing them but politely

This is an insane plan. A better idea would be to look for people who graduated from your law school, are at a firm, and are relatively junior. Reach out and ask them if they would be willing to meet for coffee to talk about how they found their position and any advice they may have.

I am in charge of hiring at a place where lots of young lawyers want to work. This is less crazy than the stalking idea, but I have to say that, if I met with everyone who asked me for an "informational" interview, I would never get any work done. I love helping young people find jobs, and used to do this with pretty much anyone who asked, but, as the job market has gotten worse, the number of requests is just out of hand. OP needs to understand that even this may be annoying to those he/she will ask. The bottom line is that there are lots of highly qualified lawyers with experience who are looking for work. I really can't tell someone who is fresh out of school how to compete with those people, because they can't. My advice is the same that I give to those who call me -- take any job/internship you can get that is remotely close to the field you want to be in, and do the very best job you can, and hope you impress someone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to make you feel discouraged, but I am on the Legal Honors hiring committee for a federal agency (and not one of the popular ones like DOJ or State). It has been years since we hired anyone with below median grades. We get such a high quality applicant pool that we are able to hire new attorneys from top schools with top grades, law review/moot court and usually some kind of relevant work experience. I don't think you're going to have the luxury of being picky in this legal market.

I am on a similar committee, and we have a top 20 percent cutoff, no exceptions.

Does that differ by school? Could someone in the top twenty at AU be hired but not someone who was top third at Georgetown?

At our agency, the school doesn't count- the grades do. However, there is a degree of subjectivity to our scoring system and I admit, I can't help but be more impressed with an applicant from Harvard than some school I've never heard of. However, Georgetown vs. AU isn't going to make such a huge impression on me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to make you feel discouraged, but I am on the Legal Honors hiring committee for a federal agency (and not one of the popular ones like DOJ or State). It has been years since we hired anyone with below median grades. We get such a high quality applicant pool that we are able to hire new attorneys from top schools with top grades, law review/moot court and usually some kind of relevant work experience. I don't think you're going to have the luxury of being picky in this legal market.

I am on a similar committee, and we have a top 20 percent cutoff, no exceptions.

A lot of top schools don't rank, so your post is BS. Federal agencies are full of mediocre lawyers and affirmative action hires.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
your advice is excellent; however the OP just doesn't seem to be anything special.

NP here- Is it just me or is the DCUM holiday spirit particularly nasty? What necessitated this statement? You just wanted to put down a complete stranger?

Anonymous wrote:17:28 said it all. Great advice.
Your option #1 is a horrible idea.
My three short pieces for an immediate plan would be, (a) network the hell out of the senior person at your small firm (or whomever you've impresed the most there); (b) start looking for state government jobs; (c) if you think you're cut out for trial work, look for a DA job or public defender job. Trial experience is a big accelerator on the track (assuming you do well). Prosecuting opens many more doors than defending, but trial experience is trial experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to make you feel discouraged, but I am on the Legal Honors hiring committee for a federal agency (and not one of the popular ones like DOJ or State). It has been years since we hired anyone with below median grades. We get such a high quality applicant pool that we are able to hire new attorneys from top schools with top grades, law review/moot court and usually some kind of relevant work experience. I don't think you're going to have the luxury of being picky in this legal market.

I am on a similar committee, and we have a top 20 percent cutoff, no exceptions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to make you feel discouraged, but I am on the Legal Honors hiring committee for a federal agency (and not one of the popular ones like DOJ or State). It has been years since we hired anyone with below median grades. We get such a high quality applicant pool that we are able to hire new attorneys from top schools with top grades, law review/moot court and usually some kind of relevant work experience. I don't think you're going to have the luxury of being picky in this legal market.

I am on a similar committee, and we have a top 20 percent cutoff, no exceptions.

Does that differ by school? Could someone in the top twenty at AU be hired but not someone who was top third at Georgetown?

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why big law is so attractive. It's really grueling and most new associates leave.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to make you feel discouraged, but I am on the Legal Honors hiring committee for a federal agency (and not one of the popular ones like DOJ or State). It has been years since we hired anyone with below median grades. We get such a high quality applicant pool that we are able to hire new attorneys from top schools with top grades, law review/moot court and usually some kind of relevant work experience. I don't think you're going to have the luxury of being picky in this legal market.

I am on a similar committee, and we have a top 20 percent cutoff, no exceptions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Let’s say your went to a DA’s office, they love you, and you’ve got a ton of trial experience. Perhaps if you stay a few more years you will be promoted to a senior or deputy position. Then maybe you can come into a firm as a senior associate or counsel, prove your worth, and make counsel.

When I graduated, which was admittedly 7 years ago, I could not get a job at a DA's office to save my life, though I did get offers from top 50 firms, and a federal clerkship after I worked at one of said firms for a year and hated it. It was truly disheartening since I went to law school with the aspiration of becoming a DA, and interned at the DA's office during school. No offices in the multiple cites I applied in were hiring. I'm not sure this is necessarily an easier path than a firm.

I did not mean to make it sound like getting a job at a DA was a piece of cake. I do think that in a lot of regions of the country it is less grade sensitive than are firms or federal judges (not because its easier, but because the office cares more about characteristics other than class rank). So it is plausible to me that with the right background, someone who has no shot at a large firm job could be a plausible candidate at a DA's office.

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to make you feel discouraged, but I am on the Legal Honors hiring committee for a federal agency (and not one of the popular ones like DOJ or State). It has been years since we hired anyone with below median grades. We get such a high quality applicant pool that we are able to hire new attorneys from top schools with top grades, law review/moot court and usually some kind of relevant work experience. I don't think you're going to have the luxury of being picky in this legal market.