Law School Discussion

Quick question for all of you: are big law firms the only jobs you are considering? 

I ask because there are GREAT jobs out there working for gov't agencies that you might be missing if you concentrate on OCI.  There are also many 20 lawyer firms that don't have the resources/time to participate in OCI that are great places to work.

Relying on OCI to get a job is like relying on the pull out method for birth control.  I have seen it work, but it isn't reliable.

I agree with YBR....the class of 2009 (or at least those going to firms) got hosed.  Lots of firms no-offered about 10% of their summer associates.  That's crazy!

On the other hand, it's probably the 10% who just got lucky with grades, but didn't have the legal reasoning ability or writing ability to do all those damn memos who didn't get offers.

I was offered a firm job recently and the hiring attorney told me that everyone they hire is on law review, but they wanted me because I worked as a Westlaw representative.  (Apparently they wanted someone to teach the older lawyers in the office how to use Westlaw more - needless to say, I didn't take the job)

It was nice for me to earn $1,000 a semester working for West, and I am the fastest legal researcher ever having had the experience of teaching others. 

Law review is still way more important for most purposes though.  The clinic I am in is also pretty helpful as it has given me a lot of good practical experience.  I am doing a judicial externship in fall.

Did you learn the material?  I think that sometimes it is easy to forget that at the end of our law school days, having gained the tools to be good lawyers is what is probably the most important thing you can do.  Don't forget that in 20 years you will be more proud of yourself if you worked hard and learned the stuff and just didn't write good exams, than if LS came easy for you and you were a crappy lawyer b/c you  were only good at writing exams, not practicing.

Just trying to insert a little pollyanna into a bad situation. 

That is amazing!  We have a less strict curve for classes with less than 25, but there is still a curve for everything.