The most traditional path right out of law school is to get a job with a law firm and
all law firms participate in the same decades-old vetting and hiring process to get those law
firm jobs and they have very specific steps and very specific requirements and so that's
what we're going to go through in-depth today.
The first one is participating in OCI or on-campus interviewing where law firms come to campus
and you submit your resume, they accept you for an interview, and you participate in as
many interviews as you possibly can as many law firms who will accept your application.
And these interviews are going to be 20-minute interviews very fast, usually with two attorneys
and if you are looking for tips on how to maneuver these OCI interviews, I made a video
on that right here, which I will link to in the description below.
Then once you've gone through about that week, week and a half of OCI interviews, you're
going to start the call back process where law firms that you've interviewed with are
going to call you to come back to the office, meet more attorneys, see the office and have
a more in-depth interview experience and that's going to be about a half-day interview.
You're probably going to meet anywhere from 6 to 12 attorneys.
Usually it's going to include lunch, you're going to miss class.
It can get pretty stressful.
But as I talk about in this video about how you go about doing call-back interviews, I
give a lot of tips on how to prepare, but also give the tip that you should take as
many of those as you can to give yourself the best chance of getting a biglaw law firm
offer.
So after you do your call-back interviews, you're going to start getting calls from these
law firms offering you 2L summer clerkships.
So clerkships for the summer that's coming in about a year.
And so depending on if you have one offer or multiple offers, you will make a decision
on what law firm to choose.
Fast forward to the 2L summer you're going to have a summer clerkship with them which
usually takes place 10 to 12 weeks, almost a full summer in most cases, if you do really
well in that summer clerkship, which I made another video which I'll link in the description
on how to do well in the summer clerkship at the end of year 2L summer you're going
to get a permanent offer of employment.
That is the golden ring.
That is what you are trying to do from day one of law school all the way through your
1L year all the way through your 2L summer is to get that permanent offer of employment
because if you get it and you accept it, then you will start with that law firm the following
year after you've graduated and after you've taken the Bar exam.
Usually around September, October are the starting dates.
And from there you will then be working in a biglaw law firm and you will have completed
the entire process closed the entire circle.
So that's the traditional biglaw firm hiring process.
That being said, if you were in a position where your 1L grades did not make you competitive
to participate in the process, it's not the end of the line.
There are some biglaw firms that will will allow 3Ls to participate in the 2L traditional
2L hiring process, but that does mean a few things.
If you are going to try for a biglaw firm position as a 3L, you are going to need to
do the following during your 2L year.
During your 2L year, you're going to need to kill grades your first and second semester
to get your GPA up into those higher echelons that the big law firms are looking for.
You're also going to need to make yourself as a standout candidate, which means not only
grades but also extra curricular activity.
So we're talking law review or being a member of a competitive moot court, mock trial team
or being a research assistant to a professor or having a leadership role in a student organization
or even a combination of all of those.
You're also going to need to have a stand out 2L summer internship that is also substantive
legal experience, and the more niche you can get or the more focused you can get on a specific
area of the law, the better because you can show them that you have a focus, that you
have a vision, that you have an area of the law you're particularly interested in that's
going to help you out a lot as well.
You're also probably going to need to have an explanation in your back pocket prepared
for why you weren't competitive your 2L year because that probably is going to come up.
And whether that's because you had one bad grade that sank your entire GPA or your GPA
as a whole wasn't where you wanted it to be, you need to be able to come up with an explanation
that is understandable that gives insight into why that was the case.
Whether that is because you didn't understand the study process and the test-taking process
very well, or you thought you had a good handle on the information, but you were able to meet
with a professor and review the exams afterwards and now you understand the material much better.
Or you had any personal or financial or work issue that made, that took you away from studying
more than you wanted it to.
I would absolutely bring that up.
And you can use all of those things regardless of what their reason is to reestablish why
you'd be a good candidate for the law firm.
So that's the process.
That's the strategy.
That's the game for better or worse, that's how it works year after year after year in
law schools across the country.
And I know it's not everybody's goal to work in a big law law firm.
And so this video is specifically about that process and how to make yourself competitive
for those positions.
But I will be coming out with a video on how to get a job after law school period, in any
legal sector and any size of law firm, anything across the board that's not specific to this
very small niche that only a handful and only percentage of law students ultimately get
right out under graduation.
I hope you guys like this, give it a big thumbs up if you did, let me go on the comments and
of course if you have any follow-up questions about the process, about whether there are
any caveats to what I said, let me know in the comments section below and be on the look-out
for the next video in the series, which will talk about how to get a job after law school
period.
Not necessarily just in the big law firm.
So I don't see you guys in the next one.
Thanks for watching.
I'll see you next time.
Bye.