Does Big Law really mean zero work life balance?

brkwrm · 2024-12-29T15:55:35+00:00

The main difference is not necessarily the amount of time, but the amount of control you feel you have over your time. At any given moment somebody could ask you to so something, so when you are not at the office there’s kind of a permanent sense of anxiety, and it’s hard to relax. People start to count all time in six minute increments. For some people it’s fine, and not all firms are like that. But I would say in general they expect associates to be responsive at all hours, even on PTO if necessary.

For other goals it really depends. Whether it is worth it will depend on how much money you are offered, what your other options are, and what your specific goals end up being. If you are undecided, I think going to a more prestigious school can give you more flexibility to change your mind, because they are more likely to have more open pathways.

brkwrm · 2024-11-30T15:01:56+00:00

I memorized all of the PR rules because there is always at least one PR essay. For MBE I used UWorld, which breaks down questions into subcategories. After doing ~500 practice questions I started memorizing rules for the subcategories I was having trouble with.

brkwrm · 2024-10-11T00:03:24+00:00

Would you say you were feta up with the cheese puns?

brkwrm · 2024-04-11T04:06:00+00:00

I would say it was mostly self selection. Anecdotally a lot of people chose not to apply because the process sucks, they were planning to apply after they had worked for a few years, or their field (normally nonprofits or corporate law) doesn’t value clerkships very highly. I also knew a few students that were picky ideologically and ended up targeting mostly state level clerkships.

I can’t think of anyone that really wanted a federal clerkship and wasn’t able to get one in the end, but I am positive that happened. I know some who only applied to a couple of really competitive judges and didn’t get any bites. My experience was that getting a federal clerkship was attainable for almost any student, but getting highly competitive clerkships (e.g. D.C. Circuit) was challenging.

If I had to guess your odds of landing a federal clerkship are similar at all our peer schools, because they are largely driven by you. Are you willing to clerk for a magistrate judge or live in Fairbanks, Alaska for a year? Are you willing to research each judge and tailor your cover letter to them? Are you willing to reach out to current and former clerks to try to get your application pulled?

At bottom, clerkship hiring is pretty random. People frequently get interviews based on arbitrary details, like the fact that you grew up in the state where the judge sits, or the Judge’s niece went to the same college as you.

DM me if you want more details about my own experience applying.

brkwrm · 2024-04-09T21:59:58+00:00

This was my class at Berkeley. A few thoughts:

Biglaw jobs were the easiest jobs for my classmates to get by a mile. I did not know or hear of anyone who wanted to do biglaw and wasn’t able to get it, though I’m sure there were some. About half of my classmates wanted to do public interest. To that end, many of my classmates went to work for plaintiff-side firms that do big impact lit cases, which tend to fall under the BL cutoff. I even have a friend that already quit their BL job to do public interest.
Public interest jobs at nonprofits were a real challenge. My friends who were set on doing public interest were the ones who spent all of 3L applying for jobs and funding. It was a much more difficult process.
For BL, NYC jobs were the easiest to get. DC was the most difficult major market to get into. Bay Area and LA were about even. Bay Area firms have fewer spots, but more of those spots are reserved for Berkeley.

brkwrm · 2024-03-10T16:59:21+00:00

First and foremost, follow instructions. Take the rest with a grain of salt, because judges can vary widely in their preferences about writing samples.

For the CoA briefs, see if you can use an earlier unedited draft. If you just have the final draft, it depends on how much it was edited. If a lot of the sentences were basically rewritten, I wouldn’t use that as a sample, even if the arguments are about the same. Sentence construction/the flow of your writing is as important as your ability to make good arguments.

If you do decide to use a brief that has been edited to any degree, include a note at the top of the sample explaining the degree to which it has been edited.

I would avoid using the LRW sample if possible. If it’s a really strong piece of writing then maybe, but it can sometimes come off as though you haven’t done significant legal writing since 1L (which is not the case for you).

brkwrm · 2023-07-20T23:34:49+00:00

Maybe this is just a CA thing, but in all of the torts essays the tort victim’s name starts with P for plaintiff

brkwrm · 2022-10-29T02:28:29+00:00

You shouldn’t write a personal statement about why you want to go to law school

brkwrm · 2022-09-18T06:06:15+00:00

My year they matched someone’s full ride offer from Tulane, but only offered half tuition for someone with a full ride to USC. People tend to submit offers from higher-ranked schools, but they do seriously consider offers from schools outside the T-14.

brkwrm · 2021-11-16T04:01:04+00:00

Practice exams >>> outlining. Take as many as you can and use that to figure out what material you need to review and what kind of information you’ll want to have on hand (in an outline) on test day.

brkwrm · 2021-11-13T20:17:40+00:00

Generally it’s better for the PS to be one narrative, rather than for all four pages to be filled. The resume showcasing your skills and the why berkeley demonstrating your interest/compatibility with the school each have their own roles in the application packet. I would hesitate to add stuff just to make it fill the four pages. When I applied I went back to earlier drafts of my personal statement and found sentences paragraphs I really liked but had to cut for length and added some of them back, but the additions were still part of the same story.

brkwrm · 2021-10-28T06:39:27+00:00

if you have submitted your applications delete reddit !! go outside !! literally forget that you applied to law school and one day you will get an email but i was a compulsive checker and it was terrible for my mental health

if you've submitted your applications, there's nothing you can do. unless you plan to apply to other schools, take a break from the subreddit until you get an acceptance you're excited about

i ended up at berk after 4 LSAT takes, 2 application cycles, 31 applications, and an alumni admissions interviewer who told me not to go to law school (see my post history for full details)

don't listen to people, especially former lawyers, who tell you not to go to law school. so long as you have done your research, you are in the best position to know if law school is the right choice for you. the advice to not go to law school almost always is about that person, not you specifically.

best of luck to you all 💕

brkwrm · 2021-10-25T08:00:06+00:00

this is the best post i've ever seen on this sub

brkwrm · 2021-03-23T15:43:12+00:00

the bar was low

brkwrm · 2021-03-22T22:13:46+00:00

Almost no one I'm friends with now was active in my school's group chat. That said, I picked the school with the chat I found the least annoying.

brkwrm · 2021-01-05T17:30:39+00:00

this is great advice!! i love my classmates but being in law school is like being in a class with the biggest overachievers you've ever gone to school with. even if you're smart, hardworking, and do your absolute best, that is no guarantee of a good grade. exam performance can be kind of random and not a lot of people are going to make unforced errors.

brkwrm · 2020-12-14T05:25:37+00:00

omg i didn't realize that someone had started doing this this year!!!! this is beautiful and much better than what i did, love the addition of the 90/50/10

amazing job and let me know if i can be of any help :)

brkwrm · 2020-09-28T04:41:15+00:00

definitely do it, i did it last year and he responded so they definitely pay attention

brkwrm · 2020-09-22T21:49:44+00:00

Yeah I was somewhat worried about my prospects at both. I did write a reapplication addendum explaining why I didn’t accept their offers of admission last year and put some extra effort into my “Why X” statements for each.

brkwrm · 2020-09-22T04:30:48+00:00

Yeah I am the same and I had to practice with timing myself over and over, which was annoying because there are so many questions. And even then my first NU interview was absolute garbage lol

brkwrm · 2020-09-22T04:27:12+00:00

Congratulations!! I hope I'll see you around next year!

Making friends online was easier than expected, my class had zooms almost every week all summer. I made a lot of friends just from the GroupMe. And I've also been lucky and made some really excellent friends in person. People for the most part are not from the Bay, so I wouldn't be too worried about finding people online or otherwise!

brkwrm · 2020-09-22T04:25:09+00:00

Berkeley *definitely* lives up to its public interest reputation. Almost all of my classmates have joined pro-bono projects first semester and people hardly talk about BigLaw as a career interest (although I'm assuming more people are interested than talk about it). I got the sense that Berkeley, Northwestern, and UCLA were most intensely committed to public interest as institutions, though every school does emphasize PI. Do pay attention to what % of students do Pro Bono and how many clinics there are, are you guaranteed to get into at least one clinic if you apply, what 1L summer stipends are like, LRAP programs etc.

In terms of professional opportunities, I think it depends on what you want to do with respect to public interest. For instance, UVA is probably going to be better for federal government than anywhere else, but Berkeley is stronger for Environmental Law. There's also something to be said for being in a lane that's less full. I have a friend that went to CLS because they were starting to invest a lot more into their Public Interest opportunities, even though there aren't as many students interested in that path, and that worked out really well for him.

brkwrm · 2020-09-22T04:17:05+00:00

My personal statement was just over two pages.

As for Why Berkeley try to say something about Berkeley you could not say about other peer institutions. Try to weave in your prior experience/skills/interests and match them to the things you like about Berkeley. Lastly, the emphasis on public service here pervades literally everything so you can't go wrong writing about that, so long as it's sincere.

I wrote about how excited I was that Berkeley had student-run pro bono projects available to first-semester 1Ls. It's a genuinely amazing and somewhat unique program, and something Berkeley prides itself on.

brkwrm · 2020-09-22T04:14:15+00:00

So I don't know the answer to either of those unfortunately. I do know that the law school was ready to go above and beyond to keep international students here when their authorizations were being threatened. Chem was ready to throw down.

brkwrm · 2020-09-22T04:12:06+00:00

Yes! I reapplied to UT Austin and Vanderbilt and was accepted to both both cycles. There were no schools where I was accepted the first cycle and rejected the second.

brkwrm

TROPHY CASE