yawn

I've seen better from Ellen Barshevsky.

Clearly, not as impressive as he/she thinks.

180

...impressive.

If you sent me that cover letter, I would send a rejection by PDF, because while I want to do it quickly, that cover letter is not worth $0.42, much less the cost of a Fedex.

I love it. I wish law firms would just write "We don't want you because you suck." instead of the "We don't want you because you are so impressive!" bull.

This gets recycled every few years. I don't know what's worse: people thinking such a letter is original, or people writing such a letter knowing it's not original.

Next week, do a story about this: I can't believe it. Get this... how crazy! This guy... a friend of a friend... he got a rejection letter from a firm/school/etc, and he *responded* to it! And the response was all... "I reject your rejection!" Can you imagine? How clever! Because it's like... HE got the rejection, but then he turned it around on THEM! And he wrote his rejection letter with a style that parallels a typical rejection letter! Hillarious! Comedy gold!

bingham is a horrible place

First to say that cover letter was neither funny or impressive. 1) You let the firm know just how many other firms rejected you and 2) While you thought it was a funny cover letter you really only let them know how stupid you are. Of course other firms are going to tell you that you have impressive ______ when they reject you. But guess what? They are fucking lying! If you were that impressive you would have already had a job. I mean what do you expect a firm to say?

Dear applicant: You went to a mediocre school and got on their mediocre journal and could only crack the top 15% of their mediocre class. Good luck finding a job, youll need it."

This market is not the time to try a career in stand-up comedy. Or is it...

Whoever wrote the letter is in Atlanta. Perhaps a PH layoff from the first/second round?

It's funny. And I think it had no worse chance of scoring a firm job interview than any other available tactic right now.

I loved it, and would have scheduled an interview immediately. But perhaps that's why I don't, nor do I want to, work in Biglaw.

The hiring partners I've dealt with all find my backside to be "most impressive".

180 trillion

"They're boring to write, the excruciatingly boring to read"

Fix pls.

12, learn to read. This person is not a layoff, they are an immature law student.

11 = typical humorless UChicago Law student

Okay, now that's just hilarious

yaaaaaawwwwwn. Who the fuck cares about something like that??

GSU, UGA, or Emory? I say Emory. Surely GSU and UGA students aren't that delusional.

9 = tiny baby horsey

tool

There are no biglaw jobs right now, except in bankruptcy, litigation and IP. Even then they're getting inundated.

These Biglaw putzes have managed their way into a depression in the legal industry. When DPW is laying people off, its bad, very bad.

I agree, it's funny, but 9 is also correct. Has ATL really become so credulous? And as for 12, wow, are you joking or are you really such a tool? I think you're the latter, and so will no doubt have a successful, or are having a successful, somewhere in a biglaw law firm.

Tools!

- signed, non-laid off Biglaw associate waiting to make enough money to exit this miserable, humorless environment.

funny. anyone searching for a job right now has wanted to write that letter at some point.

11 = tool

Whether this was original or not, it's a hell of a lot better than the thousands of mundane cover letters out there. This guy has hundreds of other law firms waiting to reject him, why shouldn't he vent his frustrations a bit with the process to a law firm that's firing people anyways? People need to lighten up.

11 -

Either - Or
Neither - Nor

- mediocre student at mediocre school

BigLaw firms are terrible, soul-sucking places to work. I'm glad I got laid off. I'm no longer in a poisonous, ugly environment.

LOL at all the bitter humorless trolls on this website. Chill out and appreciate a funny thing once in a while, and stop trying to obsessively rank it or compare it to other letters.
Some of you people are really pathetic.

Funny, but pointless.

Sending resumes to BigLaw (instead of going through OCI) is a close to pointless exercise in the best market. If you don't have BigLaw on your resume in this market (which this person clearly doesn't because they think their top 15% class rank at whatever TTT they attended is important enough to mention), you're just wasting everyone's time.

I thought it was pretty funny. Don't hate.

pure gold.

11= racist tool

If this is original I would interview this person in a nanosecond.

*sends the v100 cover letters saying i'll kill self if they don't hire me*

-suicidal laid off 1st year

It's annoying that the loser who wrote it thought it was so clever he had to send it right in to ATL, instead of hoping someone at the firm might see some humor in it and pass it along.

My favorite letters were those that "regretted to inform" me that I hadn't gotten an offer. Please reserve that language for when the military informs me that my spouse/child has been killed in action!

Question: Has there been anyone in the history of big law that obtained a job through a mass mailing resume campaign? I have never interviewed ANYONE that does not come through our recruitment efforts, a headhunter, or a contact at the firm.

I tend to believe that mass mailings are a cruel joke perpetuated by Kinkos and the USPS.

point....
.
.
.
.
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#10's head

Made me laugh, the rest of you need to get over yourselves.

"McKee Nelson also express this view but do not limit its opinion to my qualifications."

Personally, I find proper noun-verb agreement to be "most impressive." Even if you think this drivel is funny (and any humor it has is LONG played out by the third or fourth example the writer provides), why would you hire a candidate who makes such an error in a cover letter seeking employment at a large firm?

The glaring nature of this mistake leads me to believe the letter was written (and the entire post contrived) by Elie.

As the official spokesman for the White Shoe Silk Stocking Law Firms, I have been authorized to give the following statement to Above the Law:

Bingham McCutchen is not a White Shoe Silk Stocking Law Firm; therefore we have no comment on this post. However, in one respect Bingham is like us, i.e., Bingham is not hiring, and we are not hiring, because there is a world-wide recession and WE ARE BROKE!

Love it!

Did Bingham say you were impressive?

41 -

I graduated in the top 6% of my admittedly lower tier school in NYC. My school didn't have much of an OCI, especially for third years, so I mailed my resume out to 70 or 80 firms. That ultimately got me 7-8 interviews and I ended up at a T20 firm. Not a stellar success rate, but not a failure either.

9 - "Hillarious" is hilarious

i personally know someone who got a fly-in interview based on an emailed cover letter that contained a lot of gumption. he now works in v20.

41, I used mass mailings for the DC market, did get several interviews and landed my summer offers from that bunch. I summered at one of the firms I mailed and worked there as an associate. So they do work.

41,

I got a few offers that way (from firms outside the region that didnt' come to campus).

I think ABL makes this up. I know of numerous people who have sent numerous tips and they all get ignored. This whole website is a sham.

I think ATL makes this up. I know of numerous people who have sent numerous tips and they all get ignored. This whole website is a sham.

The first paragraph was a good start, but it went downhill afterward. 4 paragraphs of "I've gotten a lot of form rejection letters" is probably the absolute last thing you want to put in one of these things. It doesn't say "I'm trying to stand out and I'm interested in your firm."

Rather, it says "fuck it, I give up and I don't care whether Bingham hires me or not." Even if the reader thinks it's funny and creative, it's hard to imagine going from that thought to calling the person in for an interview.

A touch of self-deprecating honesty might work; 4 banal paragraphs emphasizing how desperate and unsuccessful you are is sure to fail.

Have to say, thought it was well executed.

Plus, if you're getting dinged everywhere, might as well take a chance. All it takes is one.

While this may not be original, it is still hillarious

Recycled from this three-and-a-half month old cover letter, whch was itself merely a legal riff on a years-old meme.

http://blahlegal.blogspot.com/2008/12/desperate-times-call-for-desperate.html

Boooo...

I find it tragic that his guy was rejected by so many TTT firms.

I got my first job through mass mailing too. Probably sent 200 letters, got 10-12 interviews and 3 offers. Not a top 20 firm, but a top 50. And from my school, I consider that a HUGE success.

I actually got a good laugh from that!

I never even tried mass mailings, it's all about Craigslist baby!

11 and 41.

What's with the negativity? The guy is coping. Some things in life are out of our control. At some point in your life, you too will get screwed over by someone or some thing also.

Is that when you others to hate on you? Relax, the laid off job seeker was trying to have a little fun.

I thought it was a funny snark on not only how so many firms use "form" rejection letters, but that they tend to use the same form rejection letter, merely substituting "resume, background, qualifications, experience, etc." in front of or behind "impressive."

Disappointed to find that it was merely a cut and paste job from someone else's work (unless the person that sent it to ATL was Stan W).

Still, if I was sorting through cover letters and resumes for a hiring firm, I would at least give the guy a second look for having guts. But I know that most hiring partners would not be amused because they're old boy stick in the muds who barely know how to turn on their computer, let alone use it for anything other than clicking one icon for email.

(never mind me, i'm just annoyed because my boss wants me to dictate stuff than I can type faster than my secretary)

QUINN REMAINS unimpressed

62 -- you are right. After reading this sad case's blog linked at 57 it is just plain immoral to pile on a guy that is still blowing wads in my tighty whities.

It's funny enough, even though repetitive and un-original. The problem is it's not a serious request for a job, and the firm thought (correctly) that you were making fun of them. Stupid and pointless and guaranteed to get a rejection. It's also guaranteed to make that firm remember you always as a tool who doesn't take them seriously.

Terrible lack of humor amoung souless big law and hiring types? ABSOLUTELY. Doesn't change the fact that they aren't going to hire you when you make fun of them for it.

Ummmmm.... his tighty whities. Joke FAIL.

J.D. Candidate? WTF, long way to go.

A message from the ATL-reading Conjoined Twins:

Abigail: “To all the ATL readers who don’t like us, eat me.”
Britanny: “Yeah. Actually, eat us. If you don’t like us, or don’t get the joke, or don’t understand the obvious metaphors that we present, just skip over our posts, you fucking idiots.”
Abigail: “Yeah, and Elie, why did you block our IP address and account from posting? Don’t you realize it is a big production for us to have to go to a public library to use ATL? Elie, you obviously have a secret sexual thing for us.”
Britanny: “Yup. Elie probably has a conjoined twins fetish and is in denial about it, so he doesn’t want to face his perversion every time he sees our posts and feels compelled to read them.”
Abigail: "True that."

This letter was lame and not funny. Stop calling people trolls just because they recognize that someone did a crappy job of writing a "funny" cover letter that would have worked better as a Jerry Seinfeld bit...

"What's the deal with big law firms always telling you how impressive you are when they reject you? I mean, if I'm so impressive, why won't hire me?"

Good start but quickly degraded into "Hey, nobody wants me (here's a list of confirmed people who don't want me). Will you take me?"

I wouldn't.

Laid-off associates should inform 2Ls and 3Ls just how lousy their lives will be at big firms. Law students think that they know how miserable they'll be -- but no one who has not been there can appreciate the mental and physical torture, not to mention degradation and humiliation, that people endure for the $125K per year (plus lay-offs). You guys know the score; you've got nothing better to do -- why not organize and spread the word. A little recruitment sabotage is better than the law firm bastards deserve, and you'll be serving law student humanity.

41; I did, actually. Mass-mailing as a 2L after less-than-stellar results during OCI. V50 firm.

Bingham has a "sense of humor in the workplace" huh?

So is that what they were exhibiting when they laid me off last week?

17, you are a freak.

epic DING.

That's actually pretty clever. And amusing.

And impressive.

69-- I didn't block the persona. I might have blocked the IP address, and it might have been by accident. Email me and I can try to sort it out.
--Elie

The person who submitted this letter to Elle is in fact Stan W. I go to school with him. I believe that number 57 is a mutual friend.

that guy is full of win

Unemployed J.D. Candidate,

[Law Firm] is first-person singular -- always; not sometimes. Thus, you shouldn't include sentences like this in any cover letter: "McKee Nelson also express this view but do not limit its opinion to my qualifications."

Not impressive.

White Shoe Silk Stocking Law Firms = epic fail

absolutely hilarious. anyone who thinks otherwise is a dork.

The author used "thus" twice when he meant "therefore." Not impressed.

As someone who with 500 of these over the past 2 years, glad someone stuck it to them. The rejection letters are obnoxious and provide no constructive guidance whatsoever. I would prefer letters that said "we're not hiring you because you don't fit our affirmative action plan" or "we already have lots of New England prepsters, and your half-Japanese, half-Portuguese heritage does not qualify you for anything but status as a Caucasian. We just lost our last Japanese client."

#85, as amended. As someone with 500 of these from the past 2 years, glad someone stuck it to them. The rejection letters are obnoxious and provide no constructive guidance whatsoever. I would prefer letters that said "we're not hiring you because you don't fit our affirmative action plan" or "we already have lots of New England prepsters, and your half-Japanese, half-Portuguese heritage does not qualify you for anything but status as a Caucasian. We just lost our last Japanese client." Or, more realistically, "You did not graduate from a T14 school. Your school is ranked 15th according to U.S. News and World Report. Therefore, we really could care less if you go and jump off a building after your life turns into a vintage 20th century country tune."

41, I too used mailings to get my BigLaw associate gig after law school. I was HYS, and had a V5 offer from the firm I summered at; didn't want to return for "culture" reasons. I did a federal district clerkship after law school, and when I asked my career services office about the best way to approach firms, they said to mail in the apps, unsolicited. I applied to seven V25s - no connections at any of them, just addressed the packets to the firms' internal lateral attorney recruiters - and had six interviews and six offers within three weeks (this was a couple years ago, before the market tanked, of course.) I was actually surprised by how quickly the firms responded. They definitely read unsolicited applications -- they just probably screen them more quickly than other types of applications.

hey 86, just how much less could these law firms care? I think you meant "couldn't care less," not "could care less."

Humor in tough times. I love it.

I am a partner involved in hiring. I don't get to see 99% of the cover letters because administrative functions (with absolutely no humor) review 99% of the incoming resumes and letters.

If it gets to me, I prefer a genuinely personal letter that shows some imagination. None of these get through administration. Therefore -- send such a letter directly to a partner. He can get you into the short stack (assuming the stack exists at all).

This particular letter has imagination. If sent to a particular partner, it should connect with him somehow. Perhaps it will be the law school attended. It should evince particular attention to the firm.

Still, it can be impossible. If you don't have a background in holography or a Ph.D. related to stem cells, I am not really in a position to do anything. It would be best if you had both. Oh, and we like post-doc experience or industry experience.

Yes, this economy hurts everywhere. It even limits the possibilities in IP.

Even though all that he quotes is "dicta," the "holding" of the letters is implied enough that of course he's going to get rejected.

This cover letter is most decidedly NOT awesome.

I am the author of the letter.

I would like to acknowledge that the presence of a few egregious grammatical errors are decidedly unimpressive. However, in my defense, these errors were not in the original, unredacted version I sent to law firms. After hastily editing out all of the identifying information for the Above the Law post, I carelessly neglected to proofread my submission.

Comment 93 was a ghost writer. It was not me, the true author. I am not responsible for the grammatical error in her post.

It appears that a failure to proofread is a big problem at TTThis law school...

Have to agree with the comments that say the letter is a bore. Not original. The writer should stick with the law. He/she committed the mortal sin of rambling on about a point that could have been made in two sentences. Kept waiting for the punch line.

Have to agree with the comments that say the letter is a bore. Not original. The writer should stick with the law. He/she committed the mortal sin of rambling on about a point that could have been made in two sentences. Kept waiting for the punch line.

I would much rather interview this candidate than someone with no imagination with a pedigree.

The second paragraph needs to be a string citation. He can say that he's impressive, and then cite. (E.g., Kirkland and Ellis; King & Spalding; Holland & Knight). I'm surprised that a managing editor at a journal can't do that, because it's fairly simple, and shows real lawyering skills.

99: you're right. that's probably why he didn't get a callback.

A philosopher once wrote you need three things to have a good life. One, a meaningful relationship, two, a decent job of work, and three, to make a difference. And it was always that third one that stressed me, to make a difference. And I realise that I do. Every day, we all do. It's how we interact, with our fellow man.

I am on a firm's hiring committee. If it were a close call, this fellow would not get a callback because of the cover letter.

102: that's exactly what's so fucked up about law firms. Honesty is not valued. You would prefer to have someone blow smoke up your ass and hide the fact that he's been rejected by five times as many firms as this guy, who's at least trying to have a sense of humor in the shittiest economy he's likely seen in his adult life.

If law firms are so full of themselves that they think they are above a talented person who, just like thousands of other highly talented people these days, is suffering from a bout of bad luck but trying to smile about it, then they deserve for their house of cards to come tumbling down. I will watch it happen, from the comfort of my small firm job, with no small amount of schadenfreude.

As a top 10% student at a "mediocre" school with no job prospects right now, I thought this was hilarious. I often thought about keeping the rejections I recieved and framing them in a collage to keep me motivated. But then I decided to put them where they belong, in my pet's litter box...

For 3Ls, right now mass mailing are useless unless it is to small firms that have a regional tie to you or your school. Also, informational interviews are key right now, so lawyers are impressed with you and know who to call once they are hiring. I am hoping to get a job in the government this way, and have heard that once get settled in certain areas, these offices tend to hire whoever is interning for them at the time.

As a top 10% student at a "mediocre" school with no job prospects right now, I thought this was hilarious. I often thought about keeping the rejections I recieved and framing them in a collage to keep me motivated. But then I decided to put them where they belong, in my pet's litter box...

For 3Ls, right now mass mailing are useless unless it is to small firms that have a regional tie to you or your school. Also, informational interviews are key right now, so lawyers are impressed with you and know who to call once they are hiring. I am hoping to get a job in the government this way, and have heard that once get settled in certain areas, these offices tend to hire whoever is interning for them at the time.

93, the irony. I suppose you don't realize that you made yet another egregious grammatical error in this sentence: "I would like to acknowledge that the presence of a few egregious grammatical errors are decidedly unimpressive." The presence of your errors IS decidedly unimpressive.

Pretty clever. I kept all of my rejection letters for about a year (about 85 of them) and they say that I am equally impressive. I contemplated wallpapering my apartment with them as an ego booster but in the end I just used them as a fire starter to keep me warm.

Pretty clever. I kept all of my rejection letters for about a year (about 85 of them) and they say that I am equally impressive. I contemplated wallpapering my apartment with them as an ego booster but in the end I just used them as a fire starter to keep me warm.

I find it 'impressive' that someone has figured out what virtually every law student knows. If most firms possess a thesaurus, then the people writing the rejection letters have yet to find it. Advertising that you have time to whinge about such a universal problem may not be the best strategy for job-hunting.
p.s. Words from lawyers are cheap (unless billed to clients)

Silly Rabbit, don't you know that Big Law Firms have no sense of humor? Ditch the attitude and find someone who knows an attorney at a smaller firm. People hire people, not cover letters. Get yourself some more experience on real cases, not research memos. I've worked all over, and small firms are the best, period. Working at a smaller firm is the only way to develop real experience, assuming that's what you want.

What makes this funny is that nearly everyone has thought about writing this at some point or another. The author of this has obviously read some real rejection letters and has reason to be fed up with the lip service they got in the response. I agree, I'd rather get brutal honesty in a response letter thats actually helpful, instead of a fake compliment about how impressive I am. Tell me that my skills look deficient in the following areas. If I'm not big enough to get the rejection letter and honest response, I'm defintely not thick skinned enough to work at a law firm!!!

The funniest thing in this thread is the people who think he ruined his chances with the firm by writing this letter. First, he almost certainly had no chance no matter what he wrote. Second, my guess is he simply wanted to "stick it to the man" to make himself feel better.