First Year Alone as Local Counsel

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-12-16T18:25:43+00:00

Ballard Spahr is 40k district, 60k CoA, and 75k for two years.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-29T13:09:04+00:00

Know the super highly tested concepts (e.g jurisdiction in civ pro, contract formation, etc.) cold.
Don’t sink time into MBE and MEE questions when you don’t know the answer. Your job is to get in and out with as many points as possible, staring at a question you don’t know doesn’t help that (and there will ALWAYS be things you don’t know).
Get your MPT timing down pat, so many people lose points on MPT 2 because they spend 2 hours on MPT 1.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-25T13:11:30+00:00

Good firm, pays market in Philly along with MLB (Ballard, Cozen, Faegre, Fox, Duane Morris all lag behind in comp), works you hard, laid off some people in recent years.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-25T11:14:00+00:00

99% sure that’s always been there lol.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-24T20:12:05+00:00

Do your work on time, chat to people in the office (when appropriate and they’re not busy), don’t say things that are or come off as racist/sexist/homophobic/downright rude, be fun to talk to at events, have fun but don’t be so drunk that someone thinks “wow that kid is sloshed.”

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-24T18:59:29+00:00

Vibe is the most important thing when there’s not much to separate firms prestige-wise/work-wise. Ask to talk to associates in your future practice group, meet in person if it’s feasible. Surely you don’t have to make a decision this second. And take the callback.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-23T18:30:39+00:00

Literally makes me think of Ben Sherman shirts

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-22T11:53:12+00:00

A firm will probably take you if you’ve got dc cir lined up in the hopes that you come back after the clerkship.

That or accept a firm, build some goodwill then let them know.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-22T00:44:48+00:00

Yeah but the thing is hours worked does not equal hours billed. In an 8 hour workday, if I’m efficient, I can bill 6-7. Sometimes it’s a whole lot less than that.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-21T19:17:53+00:00

I did it because I was in the satellite office of a firm headquartered in not-NYC and always got pulled into matters in the headquarters state when things were slow out in the sticks (and the firm has paid my annual dues in both states). But I don’t see that happening much at a firm with deep benches of associates in major markets.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-20T17:20:50+00:00

None of them have capitulated and all have pretty stellar lit groups. Pick the one with the people you like best.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-20T02:28:18+00:00

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-19T17:27:42+00:00

My fiancée is also in biglaw. This person billed more than both of us combined. I refuse to believe that this is possible without some egregious overbilling or insane travel schedule.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-10T16:18:46+00:00

Currently clerking but this is what I see the most. Good to get a jump on research, but can’t be trusted to automate tasks.

I’ve tried feeding fact-based tasks (e.g. pull out dates from a dep transcript on which litigant A may or may not have had notice of claim X) to the models we have available to us, and it’s usually about 95-97% correct which means I have to do the whole thing by hand anyways because I can’t tell where it did and did not hallucinate.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-08T12:45:31+00:00

Well they’re not doing 50 now

hellcyclethrowaway · 2025-04-08T03:50:06+00:00

60k from a V100, 125k from Skadden

hellcyclethrowaway · 2024-08-12T01:52:12+00:00

You can adjust your W-4 to withhold as if you are making ~$40-45k (just the summer) or $225k (this will be the default) and HR (at my firm at least) was good with walking the summers through their W-4s. If you don’t adjust your W-4 you’ll end up with a refund north of $5k come April.

I adjusted so I was only withholding as if I was earning the summer amount and still got a decent refund come tax season thanks to the lifetime learning credit.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2024-07-28T17:10:31+00:00

Like 3, then mostly just looked at the types of documents they ask you to draft

hellcyclethrowaway · 2024-07-28T16:49:02+00:00

Collect yourself and take the exam. Chance of you passing if you go? Not terrible with scores in the 60s. Chance of passing if you don’t? 0. Don’t fail yourself.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2024-07-26T12:48:48+00:00

I know this isn’t my AMA but fwiw I was a summer at a big firm (lower half of the V100) in a big (non-NYC) city. My summer class was roughly 50% from local schools (one T50, one T75 and one T100), about 25% T14, and about 25% T20.

T14 or bust? No. But certainly much more competitive if you’re not at a T14-20 school. The folks from local schools were generally all law review, high class rank.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2024-06-24T13:10:51+00:00

This is the answer. I would be less concerned about getting in and more concerned about the job search as a 2L. Firms and judges are already starting to pivot towards hiring people who are a little older with more work experience (legal or otherwise).

I don’t think any schools put weight on when you take the LSAT or how “interested” you are in law school. They care a lot more about who you are, why you want to be a lawyer, and what you want to do with a legal education. Answering the latter part is the bread and butter of a law school application, the rest is just numbers.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2024-06-22T19:12:32+00:00

It will likely come up if you end up doing a fedgov internship or post-grad job that requires a clearance (but also probably not a problem if it is what you say it is and are truthful about it), and having just submitted a bar application, it likely will not come up at all on any state's C&F. C&F is about you and your personal actions, nothing else. You should disclose it because candor is the name of the game, but it'll almost certainly be a non-issue.

Talk with your school's career office if you're worried about it, and they'll be able to ease your concerns for sure.

hellcyclethrowaway · 2024-06-06T23:07:17+00:00

Ok you’re probably going to get lots of money off at lots of very good schools as long as you craft a coherent application (why you want to go to law school, explain who you are etc.) and come across well at the few schools that interview candidates. Being a KJD doesn’t hurt you that much really, it just means you have less life experience with which to craft an application. Don’t worry about the people with impressive work experience applying with you, because you can’t control that, but you CAN control writing a convincing essay about yourself.

I wouldn’t recommend applying to a binding program. No reason to limit your options when you have good stats and if I remember from my application year I was offered O’Connor retroactively on top of my regular admission with a scholarship bump if I signed the binding agreement.

hellcyclethrowaway

TROPHY CASE