Well, the calendar has turned to July, which would be difficult to believe if it were not for the fact that every trip outside of a climate-controlled room feels like a jaunt across the sun. For the American readers of this column — which I assume is everyone (if this column has foreign readers, please let me know both because I am curious and because I could always use another couch when traveling abroad) — I hope everyone had a happy Fourth of July. Enjoy the 242nd anniversary of independence, because the chances of getting to year 243 are looking a bit more dicey with each passing day. For many, July means fireworks, barbecues, and that most classic of American sports, NBA Summer League, or for those currently collecting Social Security, something called baseball.
But for those in the legal industry, July is of particular importance.
Those studying for the bar have long used July 4th as a line of demarcation, after which exam preparation takes, or at least should take, singular priority. For current summer associates, July marks either the halfway point of their full summer program or the beginning of a second half program. 0Ls see July as when final law school deposits are due, requiring a choice to be made as to where the next three (or at least one) years of their life will be spent. But most importantly for this column, July is when the Fall recruiting season truly gets underway, occupying not only rising 2Ls but the overwhelming majority of the legal recruiting world.
While there are numerous job fairs which take place throughout the summer, not to mention the almost wholly separate process for getting a public interest legal job, the bulk of Fall legal recruiting centers around on-campus interviews. Today’s column is the first of a multi-part series that will go through each step of the OCI process with a particular focus on how students can successfully navigate OCI. How many parts? Well, I am not entirely sure. Think of this as one of those Twitter threads marked 1/?.
Regardless of how a particular school structures their OCI, how interviews are allocated, or even what they call it, from NYU’s Early Interview Week (EIW) to UVA’s On-Grounds Recruiting (OGR), the first step a student should take to increase their chances of landing a summer offer is to research the employers. Why research, you might ask, if your goal for Fall recruiting is simply to end up with a summer opportunity that will pay and lead to post-graduation employment? Aren’t all law firms pretty much the same anyway, a full-service shop named for a couple of older (and likely deceased at this point) partners? While it can be tempting to think that when you are on your twentieth interview in five days, such a viewpoint could mean that despite a surplus of interviews, you will still find yourself unemployed at the end of the recruiting cycle.
Before a student can conduct any sort of meaningful firm research, they first have to figure out their own employment profile, i.e., what they want to do with their legal career, or at least at the beginning. This is not to say that every rising 2L needs to have a precise handle on their legal interests to the point that they can say they want to practice real estate law in Kansas City, Kansas, but would blanche at the thought of practicing in Kansas City, Missouri. Instead, you should have a general sense of what you want to do and where you want to do it. Do you want to litigate or do transactional work? Do you want to be in a particular part of the country, and if so, why? Once you know the answers to these questions, you will know what to be looking for with a particular employer.
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Much like the prior year when trying to decide on a law school, many rising 2Ls treat law firm rankings as the apotheosis of research. And while there is a litany of rankings one can find online, including here at Above the Law, much like their law school counterpart, these rankings are of limited value. If your reason for deciding to begin your legal career at Carlton Fields instead of Katten Muchin Rosenman is entirely based on the fact that the former is one spot higher in the ATL Power 100 rankings, then you are setting yourself up for a potentially disastrous start to your life as a lawyer.
This is not to say that there is no good law firm information available online. Indeed, while outfits like Chambers have firm rankings, they also have comprehensive information about hundreds of law firms across the country which is exceedingly valuable — much of this information, including from Chambers, is available in book form, but this is the 21st century and the last thing I imagine most law students want is another volume to carry around. Also, as previously mentioned in this space, the NALP Directory of Legal Employers is fantastic for getting a wide range of information about Biglaw firms, including granular data on firm demographics and summer associate program size. And while third parties can provide a more unbiased look a law firms, do not neglect the firm websites themselves which though aggrandizing at times, can show you which practice areas get the most emphasis as well the geographic area where certain types of work is more likely to be available. If you want to do appellate litigation in Los Angeles, but see that every appellate litigator at Firm X works out of the Washington, D.C., office, that should tell you the firm might not be a perfect fit. The sheer number of law firms, coupled with the reams of insights available, may seem like a daunting task to review in full prior to OCI, but this gets back to the previous point about first understanding what you want to do with your career. If you have determined that you have no interest in Maritime Law, then skip over those firms, or if you know that you want to practice commercial lending in Minnesota, then focus on precisely that.
However, information the public domain will only take a student so far. To truly research your OCI options, you need to talk to people. The best place to start is with rising 3Ls (or fellow 2Ls who summered as 1Ls) at your school who just came out of a particular firm’s summer program. As I tell my Vanderbilt students, while I am happy to tell you my experience as a summer associate (spoiler alert: it was awesome), that information is 11 years out of date. The most recent and accurate information about a summer program will come from those who were just there. For information about the firm that goes beyond the confines of the summer program, find some attorneys currently at the firm and network with them. As I mentioned in my column on networking way back in early April — you know, before the United States started taking children from their parents and locking them in cages — your best bet other than friends and family at a particular firm is to talk to alumni of your law school or even undergraduate institution. While they might provide a slightly rosy assessment, some pointed questions on your part can reveal a true picture of what is going on at that firm.
While this discussion of legal employer research has been focused on looking through the OCI/Biglaw lens, it is important to realize that these techniques can be utilized for any type of legal employer, be it Biglaw, smaller firms, public interest, non-profits, government, or even in-house positions. Obtaining as much information as possible about a potential employer is rarely a bad idea.
I understand the temptation to skip this research step. During the tail end of my own EIW experience, the extent of my research was whatever I could discern from a glossy brochure in the few minutes before I interviewed. That was a mistake. No matter what your grades or how many offers you might end up with, thoroughly researching OCI employers will make it far more likely you make an educated decision about which firms with whom to interview and ultimate work.
Next week, the OCI screener interview.
Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at [email protected].