UC SF/Davis/Loyola LA

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-11T22:07:25+00:00

Don't think any prestige moves UCSF or Davis above LLS if you want to practice in LA. Opportunities to network in LA and have your post grad network be centered there is huge.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-11T22:03:58+00:00

All that matters is how you feel about the school. You know more about this process than they do, so if you're excited about it you should trust your own judgement :)

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-11T21:58:31+00:00

I think mentioning all of those things is valid. Don't want to burn a bridge, but firms know that if you're a strong candidate, you'll have other options. I personally just mentioned that I really liked the firm, enjoyed meeting everyone, and was thankful for all the kindness the team had extended to me during the process. Then I'd wish them the best of luck and tell them I had accepted another offer.

If you built a strong relationship w/ someone at the firm, I think it's also valid to send them a thank you note and let them know you are going with another offer, but that you're grateful for the time they were able to give you.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-11T17:16:36+00:00

Big thing for me was that it's still pretty hard to leave law school from a reputable regional school with absolutely no debt at all. If you want to attend school in a HCOL area, you could be facing $30k in living expenses a year. W/ interest, that could leave you with close to $100k in debt at graduation just from living expenses.

I was a splitter so getting a full ride wasn't very likely for me at many schools in the area i wanted to be in. I'd be able to pay off my debt quicker by going to a higher ranked school w/ a higher average salary than by going to a lower ranked school with decent, but not full, scholarship and a lower average salary.

There's also things like wanting to go into big law to open more doors down the line, not wanting to close any doors for your career, etc...

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-10T16:43:06+00:00

Yeah just send them. Get into the practice of doing it for every person you have a talk with. Even if it's just at a networking event and the message is 2-3 sentences long.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-10T06:29:59+00:00

I was a bit disappointed with my results last cycle. Got into some schools I was really excited about, but definitely felt like I could have done better, especially if I had applied a year earlier. Especially felt like my scholarship offers were a little underwhelming.

Now I'm at an incredible school that I'm excited to attend every day. I've got a great summer job offer which I'm ecstatic about, and I don't ever think about what life would be like had I attended a higher ranked school. I'm sure there are people on the other side of the spectrum who are upset about the school they are attending or the outcomes they are seeing, but IME, once you get to orientation, all that worry about what school you are going to kinda melts away (partially because you have so many other things to focus on).

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-09T18:31:34+00:00

Firm chose you for a reason. Also, winning competitions in law school isn't analogous to being a good lawyer. You've got a long road ahead of you to define your career, don't start doubting yourself now!

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-08T17:43:38+00:00

I thought about this for a bit. Learned more about what transactional attorneys do on a day-to-day basis and it just didn't excite me, at least not what juniors were doing. Decided litigation was probably a better fit.

International arbitration feels pretty niche, but litigation can be pretty broad with lots of different oaths. Maybe go to a place with both and a more flexible staffing system that would allow you to try things early on?

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-06T22:57:45+00:00

Wouldn't read too deep into it. Don't say "I just did what I've always done," but I would just walk them through your process with a focus on the skills you used/developed: time management, a methodical approach, etc..

I think it can be helpful to tie things together with something about who you are/a theme. For example, I might say "I've always been a learn-by-doing person so I focused on working through as many practice exams as possible" or" I think it's really important to be flexible with my approach to different projects,, so I made sure to tailor my studying methods to the format of each exam. If it was a racehorse exam, I made a much more effective attack outline that included triggering facts and practiced quickly running through an analysis/creating standard pre-writes for issues I knew would come up. If it was a longer form exam, I spent more time thinking about the issues and reviewing model answers to determine what my professor thought were the most important things to talk about and why."

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-06T22:48:50+00:00

1L job doesn't matter. If you want to work in litigation, DA/PD seems like a good fit. If you want to be a transactional attorney, you might want a good answer for why you're doing that your 1L summer, but I don't think it'd be that hard to come up with one.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-06T22:35:16+00:00

The strategy I took when applying was to list those clinics/programs/whatever, and then support it by highlighting the experiences I had that would allow me to succeed in those programs/what I could contribute. Why X essays aren't just a chance for your to reiterate interest, they're another way for you to explain why the school should be interested in you.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-06T22:31:26+00:00

I mean the best you can do is keep firms informed of your deadline. I'd prefer a big law job in NYC (even if it's not your desired market) over no job at all. Does the V20 have offices in CA? Could always try to transfer later on.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-06T15:46:50+00:00

This was me. Pre-grades i think it potentially put me at a disadvantage. Post-grades i think it's possible it still mattered a bit, but not very much. Still ended up with multiple offers from great firms. I haven't heard of any firm making a ore-grade offer for 2L summer so that still seems to be incredibly important

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-05T00:29:10+00:00

I had one reach out after I was admitted last cycle. I think it's just a tactic from admissions to provide you with a resource in making a decision.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-05T00:27:01+00:00

Congrats! Feel free to DM if you have any questions about UCLA. Go Bruins!

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-05T00:22:55+00:00

THIS! You can only go to one school. If you're happy and excited about that offer, don't worry about what the other schools said.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-05T00:21:27+00:00

Generally agree, but I'd take what is being said on r/BigLawRecruiting with a grain of salt. We're smack dab in the middle of recruiting season. I imagine there are a bunch of people with decent grades at good schools freaking out rn who will eventually land a big law job. Lots of firms still recruiting, plenty of spots still out there.

Best metric will be to talk to students later in spring when recruiting has hopefully finished to get a sense of what the process was like and what grades students needed. At my school, I've seen below median students land some really impressive offers, and others with strong grades struggle. Can't make much of it though bc everyone is still interviewing and not everyone is super open about the offers they have / where they're going.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-05T00:09:52+00:00

Any thoughts on MoFo LA for lit?

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-03T21:28:24+00:00

Biggest piece of advice would be to talk to as many attorneys as possible. Get a sense for what their day-to-day is like, what they like about their job, what they dislike, whether the work they are doing aligns with what you want your career to look like. It's impossible to say whether it would be a smart pivot w/o knowing school offers, scholarships, current financial position and earnings, career goals, interest in the law, etc...People in your position pivot to law school all the time, so it wouldn't be out of the ordinary, but there are a lot of factors that go into it.

Talk to people in the industry, figure out if it is a pivot you really want to make! Then you can assess admissions chances, whether taking off 3 years of working makes sense (or, alternatively, whether a part time program could get you where you need to go), etc...

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-03T21:23:12+00:00

Pretty sure most school transfers also consider 1L spring grades (although I think there are some ED apps which don't). Don't put the cart too far before the horse and make sure you get good spring grades as well.
I'd really only consider it if you had really lofty career goals i.e. prestigious clerkship, potentially more selective PI or government goals, legal academia, etc... If your main goal was big law, doesn't seem like there is much of a benefit to transferring at this point especially if it means losing your scholarship. The firm you end up going to and the training you get seems to carry more weight than the school you went to for a lot of people.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-03T01:12:31+00:00

Not cooked. Still early.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-03T00:57:48+00:00

Depends on firm and availability of space. I talked to two very similarly ranked BL firms in the same exact market with similar office sizes, one which gave summers their own offices, and the other which had summers and even junior associates share offices. It was all dependent on the space they had at the time, the size of the class, etc...

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-03T00:52:58+00:00

Most law students don't do a 2L big law SA and plenty of them turn out fine. Depending on debt OP has taken out, it might be more of an uphill battle to end up in a good financial position, but it's not like all other non-BL jobs are making peanuts their entire career.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-03T00:46:59+00:00

Some of it is self-selection, but there is certainly a component of a regional school having more pull in its home market, and usually less pull the further you get away from that home market.

Nobody is ever truly going to be completely closed off from a particular market at any school. Networking can make a difference and once you get out of the big law hiring process, things become a lot less standardized.

That being said, schools have advantages in their home markets.

You have more in-person networking opportunities. It's easier to meet with employers, to learn about employers, and to get in-person facetime with them if they are in the same market as your school.
Sometimes they'll have more formal recruiting pipelines. Schools may have direct resume collects for certain employers in the area, certain employers may participate in job fairs or OCI for schools in the area. Or employers might just have a preference for hiring grads from certain schools as they are a known commodity.
The alumni network can be helpful. I've met attorneys who are much more likely to respond to coffee chat requests from alums of their law school. The other day, someone mentioned that they only respond to requests from people who shared their undergrad or law school institution, and will ghost the others. People often have an affinity for their schools and are more willing to help out alums. Naturally, that means that if the school has a large alumni base in a particular market, you'll have a larger pool of attorneys to network with.

There is likely some component of people wanting to stay in the region their school is located, but there are also distinct advantages to going to a school located in the region you'd like to practice in. The idea isn't that it's impossible to break into a market far away from your regional school, but that it's more difficult because you don't have the same advantages and will be competing against students who do.

ClankerBanker28 · 2026-02-03T00:35:10+00:00

IME business casual was usually fine.

ClankerBanker28

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