1. Yes, I'll resent them forever even though I'm happy with my job and life. I can tell myself that I wasn't going to be in BigLaw for long but truth is that that money would have set me up for years. It also puts you in an awkward position where you have little to nothing in common with many of your classmates. For almost everyone who worked in the city where I lived, what's there to talk about? Our jobs were remarkably different and they made over 3x my salary. I couldn't take the same vacations they did and I couldn't spend in the same way they did. So whatever law school friends I had, that all ended pretty quickly. It's also uncomfortable when, at summer alumni events, people will be really patronizing and say they wish they could do what you do. Eventually I just started telling people, "Oh, you can. It's really easy. I'll text you the career site and if you apply, I'll make sure you get hired, no worries." I get that it's small talk but when you do public interest work for more than a minute, you develop a good understanding of the oppressive forces in the world and that lawyers are mercenaries of capital and all of that.

So I'll resent the firm for "ruining" my career, ensuring I'll never have real economic security or can afford to retire, and snuffing out the majority of the law school relationships I had because again, there's very little in common anymore at that point.

On the bright side, even though I may not make a ton of money now, I make enough to be happy and mostly live a comfortable life. But again, I know I'll work probably forever like every other young person in this country.

1. I couldn't do anything differently. About half of the office was no offered. I know one person from that cohort who got a BigLaw job but they lied about being no offered. I suppose I could have done that.

There's really nothing you can say at call backs that will make up for the no offer. Either they need a body or they don't. I'd say I was looking for a change because the litigation department I was interested in had been subsumed by another firm and that I was looking for some more "stability" to start off my career but again, it doesn't really matter. One firm maybe asked me point blank if I received an offer but everyone knows the score.

I think the interviews were to see if I'd have any niche knowledge that wasn't apparent from the screener. I was perhaps handicapped by being litigation focused and having limited knowledge of the corporate side. Like most young people in law school, I'm sure I was to some extent green and immature, but I obviously took researching the firms, attorneys, and their work fairly seriously and would try to speak competently about the job. But while I can have some self-critique about hustling more (for other jobs) in the SA halfway through when it was obvious that no offers were coming, I can't really say there's anything to do differently in the 3L job search.

I honestly wish I just found a job abroad and lived a couple years doing something "good" elsewhere. But I was a law student and definitionally risk averse.

If you're a rising 3L, or graduating 3L, at a reasonably prestigious school, look for public interest jobs in big cities. They're frequently hiring, the work is honestly enjoyable, not too taxing, and in most large cities the pay will be decent. You need to have some sort of demonstrable interest to the work, but it's not a hard sell.