For OCI if the school has the space sometimes it is done right on campus, otherwise it is typically done at a hotel or Alumni Club. My New York OCI was hosted at an Alumni Club (which also served as a hotel), literally hotel room after hotel room filled with lawyers representing every big firm in the city. In a bizarre process that resembles speed dating the candidates scurry from room to room for 20 minute interviews that offer the prospect of making $160,000 for the first few years of their burgeoning legal career.

My guidance counselor gave a long speech about how at this stage in our career we were just “expensive clay.” Her point was that firms invest a lot of money in us and then eventually maybe three or four years down the line they are able to mold us into the makings of a high-powered attorney. The firms that participate in OCI were after the best “clay,” the easiest clay to mold, the clay that would hold the best shape. So although the lawyers they were interviewing knew very little about the type of law these firms actually practiced they were in theory worth large sums of money only because they could be easily trained in complex areas of the law. Many law schools do not even offer classes that teach the type of law that are the bread and butter of these firms (e.g. structured finance, project finance, derivatives, collateralized bond, asset backed commercial paper) yet these law schools feed off the fervor of the US News Rankings and being able to average out the 80% low salary earners of each class with the 20% high salary earners (see my example below)– however they make no effort to provide custom tailored course offering towards Big Law- it seems as if it is a love hate relationship. The law schools don’t want to seem like they are shoving all their students toward Big Law, however the Big Law numbers in the glossy brochures are often what lures students in the first place. Unfortunately, this is the case even in a good economy.

EXAMPLE:

If a hypothetical law school enjoys the employment rates as shown above, or similar, as most do. They have a situation where the top graduates maybe 57 or so out of 300 earn jobs at Big Law firms paying the current going rate of $160K. The entire rest of the class, over 80%,  243 students could earn jobs paying less than 50,000 a year, which often times is the case (see the venting section of this website, or Tom the Temp’s Website, or Big Debt, Small Law , for a more realistic, albeit bitter, view of these numbers).   This heavily skewed break down allows Law Schools to advertise average salaries of over $70,000 (case-in-point John Marshall Law School , mind you this was during the Big Law, “NY to 190” nonsense hiring boom). Also worthy of note is the “range” in the John Marshall link, topping out at $240,000- bringing me to my next observation… not only is the data itself heavily skewed as reported, but it is self-reported and excludes students who are “not actively looking  for employment” whatever that means (seems like an easy way to exclude a chunk of unemployed lawyers in the statistics).  Anyone making $240,000 fresh out of John Marshal Law School, is either working for their father who happens to be the, CEO of Boeing, or is a fraud.  Another trick law schools employ is to report industry statistics rather than personalized statistics for their own graduates, instead of reporting the median income of the students they actually placed in certain size firms, they will report instead the average amount paid but these size firms (take a look at such an example here).  The games the admissions offices play are a form of fraudulent misrepresentation that if any publicly traded company perpetrated each and every shareholder would have the automatic right to bring a derivative action against the company,  these actions  are a travesty and I agree with Half Sigma that these statistics given their high stakes value should be audited  by independent accounting firms.

In any event the worst part about OCI, is that despite the fact that you may be at a top law school (or performed well enough at a non-top law school to participate), and are on your way to the big bucks (or at least so you think) all of the HR departments try to lure interest in their firm by using little useless little trinkets that you might find in one of those jam-packed annoying party favor books your parents ordered from when you were probably about four.  If you want an idea of what I am talking about go to the Oriental Trading Company website click on toys and novelties,  just about everything you see there was at my OCI except they items had firm names airbrushed all over them.  I kid you not, magnetic dart boards, plastic water jugs, foam stress balls, mint tins, gumball machines just to name a few of the items. I mean just think of it, here comes the editor of the Yale Law Review, order of the coif, ranked 1^st or 2^nd in his class, who spent his summer setting up the new constitutional framework of  Ecuador walking down the hallway and he passes by some HR employee of “Firm X.” The employee sticks their hand out and offers him a… firm branded Chinese yo-yo !

All kidding aside, back in the 2006 heydays where firms actually drooled over bright law students (instead of pooping on them), one completely invalid measure of a firm’s mettle (yet still actively employed) was to evaluate the firm based on the size of the USB key the Firm handed out, that’s right to all the firms reading this, if you were that firm that decided to go with the 50 MB standard USB key, you were in serious trouble. The firms that got attention were the ones that slapped 1GB flash drives into a Cross pen (some serious James Bond stuff), now that sure beats a heavily branded stress ball. At least firm documents could be pre-loaded onto the USB drive and it could be argued that it is a “recruiting tool,” this argument fails when applied to stuffed penguin plush toys (ahem… Stroock).

I had just about 25 interviews spread across three days during my OCI.  While I could write several blog posts on the process (and may in the future) I just want to quickly highlight some of the characters I met from that day and some tips for those who may be going through it, about to go through it, or are going to go through it.

The Cast of Characters:

The Softball Thrower

The softball thrower started the interview off with a few personal “get to know you” type softball questions, (i.e. where did you grow up, what line of work are your parents in etc.), nothing unusual about this. Except The Softball Thrower never stopped, not one single substantive interview question was asked during the 20 minute interview (“How about those Yankees,” “What movies do you like,” “What is your favorite book,” What do you do for fun” etc. etc. etc.). I kept waiting for resume or law school questions to come. They never came, and neither did an offer from The Softball Thrower’s firm.

The OAF-Lite

The OAF-Lite, was a large ferocious litigator but unlike the OAF his questions had a purpose and his interview while tough was fair. He asked me if I remembered my 1L writing class brief topic, and grilled me on detailed questions about the stance I took and why I reasoned the way I did. Luckily someone who had interviewed earlier in the day gave me a heads up and I was able to think back to my topic, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to field these detailed questions about a paper I had drafted a month ago. He then asked me to argue the other side of my original position against him. I respected the OAF-Lite and because I was prepared I did get a callback and an offer from the OAF-Lite’s firm.

The Ass

The best way I can describe this guy is an Ass. From the minute I stepped foot in the room he went on and on about how much money he made. “You wouldn’t believe how much money I made last year” he said. He went on to explain how he started the Russia practice at his firm, interjecting “it’s really sick how much money I make.” This meeting wasn’t an interview as much as it was a pompus soliloquy. No callback was awarded here but I did make it out of the interview without punching the Ass in the face.

The Lazy Eye

Nothing too exciting here except the Partner’s blood shot lazy eye was impossible not to stare at during the interview. Kind of like flipping past the Discovery channel and catching a glimpse of two animals engaged in acts you never really cared to think about animals performing, yet even though you know you really shouldn’t be staring at it, you just can’t help it. I tried my best to stare at a dot on the wall behind the partner’s head but I knew eventually he would catch on. I couldn’t help but think of what put him in that state and I kept coming back to the notion that it must have somehow resulted from large amounts of reviewing documents. Despite this setback the partner was actually quite cordial and we managed to have a productive interview and I got an offer.

The Easy Guy

I believe the Easy Guy gave a callback offer to every person he saw the day I interviewed with him. If not everyone nearly everyone. But he came prepared, the business cards he handed out were pre-prepared callback invitation cards. It stated right on the card that you were invited to come back for an interview at the firm and the number you should call to schedule it. The interview at one point hit a dead halt, prior to that we were discussing where my apartment was in relation to the school’s campus, he then asked me to draw a map showing my apartment and the distance from the school. He then handed me a call back/business card. I guess their strategy was to cast a wide net and then weed out students during the callback process. I was one of those weeded out later in the process.

The Big Tobacco Guy

About ten minutes into a stellar interview, where I was actually told by the Partner I was interviewing with that I reminded him of his good friend, another Partner at the firm. He looked up from my resume and said oh “I see you worked for the National Institutes of Health on a smoking cessation project” you know… Phillip Morris represents a significant portion of the firm’s business.” He explained, “the science is inconclusive on whether smoking causes cancer at all.” “It is?” I thought silently to myself, at that point for some reason I immediately thought about my favorite legal movie A Civil Action where Robert Duvall’s character is trying to demonstrate that pollution in the drinking water in Woburn isn’t the cause of the abnormal rates of Lukemia in the town. I started listing all the alternatives Duvall did in the movie… teflon pans, coffee, sugarless gum, silver fillings, hair spray… etc. I thought this approach was rather crafty and exhibited quick thinking; I tried to assure him at this point that my work for NIH was merely analyzing smoking cessation advertising to see how effective it was and that I wasn’t participating in an anti-smoking campaign at all, he didn’t buy it and in all honesty, neither did I.

“I could Tell Guy”

This guy kept me waiting in the hall for 15 minutes of my 20 minute interview. When he invited me in we had a quick conversation, at one point I said I think I want to go into “Litigation.” He said back to me: “you didn’t need to say that” “I could just tell.” I asked him what he meant by that and he said litigators “just have a certain personality.” At the time I took this as a compliment, now after meeting the OAF I’m not so sure. In any event, 5 minutes of exposure to my legal prowess was all it took to get a callback and later an offer from this firm.

The “Puzzler”

After this mediocre interview is coming to an end the guy gives me a cylinder shaped object, with a small hole in the bottom. He says “what do you think it is.” He waits for just about a minute as I think to myself “I have no #$#$% clue.” I didn’t really care either, but I think my final guess was “a paperweight.” He then looked at me as if I failed the test, then he instructed me to place my hand on the top right corner and left bottom corner at the same time and squeeze… it was a flashlight… whoopie. Tricked by a trinket = no offer.

The Shiny Object Guy

This guy a patent litigator spent 12 of our 20 minutes talking about how juries are fascinated by shiny objects. He said that once while he was putting on a case for a panel of “mock jurors” he left his pen inside his suit for one speech and used it to point in another, he said the juror’s eyes followed it when it was used and that they paid more attention to the pen then to the him (I could see why). He explained he had decided to put the pen away during his opening when the case actually went to trial (I thought great use of firm money, I’m sure you discovered the smoking gun evidence the case hinged upon). Since he did all the talking, and probably bored himself, no offer was awarded here.

The other 14 interviews were fairly normal. Except the awkward pause I got when I tried to make a joke about my alma matter in one—it was a joke she didn’t get since it was not her alma matter.  You could say it was a “failed rhetorical flourish that fell flat” (anyone catch the reference?).

Of the 23 interviews I received 11 callbacks and of the 11 callbacks, I declined 3 interviews (I was actually in a position to decline interviews from major firms, it’s so far removed from today I can’t even remember what it must have felt like— now I take interviews from any firm that will listen to me for a half hour without billing me). In any event I declined 3 interviews, of the 8 remaining callbacks I went on I got 5 offers to join summer programs at firms. I think ultimately, I picked the wrong one—although there is no way to know for sure what my fate would have been along any of the other paths.

I remember right before I interviewed at OCI Big Tobacco Guy’s firm put on a panel where 6 new associates gave presentations on OCI. The one thing I remember is one of the girls, after giving some BS advice about wearing “comfortable clothes” talked about how she went through an entire interview with toilet paper stuck to her shoe. I thought to myself who could be so silly… then during my OCI I’m rather convinced although I do not know for sure that I gave at least one entire interview with my fly open, possibly more. Luckily , i think, my suit jacket covered the area so I don’t think it was an issue.  Although the interview rush can cloud your mind, make sure to check that you are put together before starting the day.

For those of you reading the article for my sagely wisdom, below are my 5 tips for a successful OCI. As you can probably tell my advice for interviewing outside of an OCI process hasn’t been perfected yet, but as far as OCI goes I think I can help.

The Tips:

1.Create an Attractive Portfolio:

Instead of handing each individual document over like piece-meal during an interview, it is nice to have a folder to present. I created 25 packets for my OCI. Each one had a transcript, a resume, a writing sample, and references. I used a little business card with directional arrows in the tab of the folder flap to direct the reader where each document was, sort of like an index. I admit it was a little anal retentive, but it made for a nice professional presentation. Instead of digging through papers during each interview you simply hand over one folder and finish the exchange.  Showing strong organization skills during an interview is always a plus.

2. Ask for a Business Card and Take Notes on the Back.

Ask each lawyer you interview with for a business card. On the back of each card as soon as you leave the interview room quickly jot down a few things you remembered from the interview. “Likes the Mets and Golf.” “Structured Finance Partner, Head of the firm’s Pro Bono Committee” etc. This will be useful information and will help you personalize your thank you letters.

3. Have 3 Key Stories

At least 3 in depth experiences or stories that demonstrate your lawyerly skills. These snippets will be almost like pre-rehearsed speeches (except you will not deliver them in such a way), whenever the conversation allows you will pull one of these stories out and make sure to play it up as best you can. Remember these are your three best stories from all your legal experiences so make them good, highlight the relevant law and legal rules involved and if it can be entertaining as well all the better. Each interview will take its own course, but look for opportunities where you can naturally work in these key experiences. This is especially needed for interviewers who talk more than you do. If you get one of these interviewers make sure to get in as much about you as you can so they have something to remember you by, if you don’t they will have no reason to remember you as they talked the whole time and you didn’t. My best story involved a case where I had to look up the ownership and origin of the copyright on Rudolf the Red-Nosed reindeer, it turned out despite our initial suspicions Rudolf is not in the public domain!

4. Follow up with an E-mail that Night

Strike while the iron is hot, when the interview is still fresh in both you and your interviewer’s head. Use the notes you took on the business cards to create personalized thank you notes. This re-emphasizes your interview and if you are good with capturing key buzz information in the interview the interviewer will instantly remember your meeting while reading your thank you, getting you extra attention—which is almost always a good thing.

5. Familiarize Yourself with Writing Samples and Law School Papers

Some lawyers, like OAF-Lite, love to have an intellectual discussion and spar with you based on either your writing sample or something you wrote in law school. Be able to talk intelligently about these topics off the top of your head. Sometimes the interviewer will ask you to frame the topic just by saying “explain to me what you argued in your first legal memo” without giving you any specific details. If this re-quires you to go back and re-read these documents then you should do it. Just in case. The more you know about it the better you look, and heaven-forbid you should cite a case off the top of your head you will score major interview points.

Here are the names of any of the specific firms I discussed above: LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae LLP, Blank Rome LLP, Bryan Cave LLP , Nixon Peabody LLP, Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, Chadbourne & Parke LLP, Jones Day.

I’ve recently wondered if I might have some secret message hidden in my resume that exclaims how much I like to be played with like a mouse dangling from a cat’s paw.  Maybe it is written with lemon juice or only visible under special infrared light. Of all the legal interviews being conducted in all the law offices across New York City, the real “winners” somehow have a way of finding me.

This story starts with me searching for a position on lawcrossings.com, I came across a posting in soft IP law (trademark and copyrights) advertising for a position as a litigation associate admitted to Federal Court.  Since I have two published articles in the area of trademark law I thought this sounded like a position I could be suited for. I am not admitted to Federal Court so after reading this post I did some quick research (nothing extensive) to search for the procedure to become admitted to Federal Court. I came across an application on the NYSD website, I skimmed it briefly and made sure none of the application questions were odd or anything that would stand in my way of getting admitted.

I determined from my review of the application materials that admission to Federal Court would not be difficult and that I should apply to the position.  I also believed that if the person reviewing the applications truly only wanted to consider applicants who were admitted to Federal Court at the time of their application they would screen me out and not offer me an interview (it’s not like that hasn’t happened before). So I said what the heck and I sent it in.

The next day I got an e-mail from an Attorney at the firm to call his assistant and make an appointment to meet. I did this.

I determined after researching the firm and preparing for the interview that the firm was a solo practice. I never liked the idea of working for a solo-practitioner as a young lawyer because I am certain I would feel like the person’s lackey—not a feeling I ever wanted while in law school—but since the work was in soft IP, entertainment and internet law which are areas I would most prefer to practice in I thought I would overlook this “principle” of mine. Being jobless as long as I have you start to learn that the time spent watching the days on the calendar pass is directly proportional to level of erosion of your principles. Mine were putting up a valiant effort but every now and then one minor one had to go, this was one of them.

When I arrived at the firm I was impressed with the lobby. It looked like a smaller version of a lobby you might see in a top AmLaw firm employing hundreds of attorneys.  It had a selection of over 30 magazines laid out neatly on a table in front of vintage hard leather couches, the floor appeared to be marble and the office name sparkled in shiny gold plated lettering

After waiting 20 minutes past the interview time I finally met the “Over Aggressive Fellow” (OAF).

The interview begins by him leading me to his office. “Office” however is not the right word to use in this circumstance… cave, dungeon, pack-rat lair would provide the better description. Whatever impressions the lobby made the OAF’s office immediately negated them and then some. The office was an absolute mess. Papers thrown about everywhere, three different cups filled with three various liquids enjoying three separate spots in the room. Poorly clipped newspaper articles hung next to crookedly hung degrees gracing the walls. A pink dish towel was randomly thrown about in the middle of the floor, having no apparent function (except of course besides adding to the chic décor of the room). A suit jacket was tossed in the window sill as if it was on display for fashion week. It was simply an absolute mess.

Although I consider myself observant, I was only able to pick up all the nuanced details of this room because I sat in it idly for over 30 minutes while waiting for OAF to finish up work that had piled up during the day.  As he made calls to his secretary, typed e-mails, proof read documents I simply sat in the office pondering how disappointing it is having gone from ELF to OAF in a matter of six months. I had never been treated so rudely during an interview in my life, and this was just the beginning.

Although, on a typical day the three windows in the OAF’s room probably provided enough light for comfort, the day I interviewed was a rainy day and the skies were pale. The OAF was apparently trying to save money on the electric bill because for the entire half hour I sat in his office watching the OAF work the lights were off.

The OAF finally shut his door and turned the lights on. The first thing he said was “I don’t have a copy of your resume.” I shuffled through my briefcase for an extra copy and promptly handed it over. His first question was “so you have been looking for a job since [ELF].” He then spent some time looking over my resume. He asked me what “TA” meant I explained “Teaching Assistant.” He then asked if “there really was a course in Internet and E-Commerce law” at my school, as if to see if maybe I had fabricated it for my resume.  I explained that yes the course did in fact exist. He asked if during the class we ever spoke about some esoteric legislation that was being considered that could potentially affect Google, he spoke too fast for me to process what he was talking about, but I honestly had no idea what he was referring to.  So I explained that was not something we covered, although we did cover “initial interest confusion” and “trademark infringement as applied to meta-tags” which did apply to Google.

Then he looked up from my resume and said “are you admitted to Federal Court.” I explained that all I needed was a sponsor. He said “that could be a problem.” To which there was a moment of silence. I thought to my quick review of the SDNY application form and sheepishly said “I don’t think it should be a problem” if things work out “you might even be able to sponsor me.” He looked up for a moment and said “that is an interesting solution.” To which I said “I believe you only have to be admitted to the SDNY” and “vouch for the candidate on the application.” Silence again. I then explained that I reviewed the application in preparation for the interview and my understanding was   “you only have to be admitted to the SDNY” and “vouch for the candidate on the application.”

At this statement OAF perked up as a blood hound would that just got a whiff of red meat. He immediately said “you just told me you believe that to be true,” “now you are representing the requirements as 100% true facts.”  I explained “I am not trying to misrepresent the rules, I am just explaining my understanding of what I read” he did not want to hear it, he immediately cut me off. Stating again how he believed I was representing to him that I was 100% sure of the rules. He then turned to his computer and started typing an e-mail. I couldn’t believe he went back to doing work.

Except unbeknownst, to me the OAF was actually typing me an e-mail while I sat across from him, explaining the rules of a little exercise he had just somehow conjured up.

When he turned back around he started lecturing me. At this point I knew the interview was going horribly, the OAF’s personality was a complete turn off as was the office environment he kept. I had already determined that as much as I needed a job, I would rather scrape clean the bottom of the deep fryers at Roy Rogers then spend another minute with the likes of the OAF. I kept repeating to myself, “just thank this man for his time and leave,” “just thank this man for his time and leave,” yet I was strangely drawn to see what the OAF had left to say, I guess I am just a glutton for punishment and I did not leave.

He continued with his lecture. He stated “the requirements of Federal admission are a legal rule, and as an associate you will be tasked with interpreting and drawing legal conclusions from these types of rules every single day.”  He went on “the correctness of these interpretations are of crucial importance for this job.” “You understand that right?” he asked. I realized at this point that I was no longer an interviewee (in fact I never was) and that I was merely a party being deposed. Cutting off witnesses, buckling them down to explain slight inconsistencies in their word choices is the bread and butter of litigators.  Only usually this behavior is reserved for court rooms and conference rooms, not sprung on unsuspecting interviewees.

I just simply said “yes.” He then said “what the rule actually says is of little importance, it either lays out the requirements you suggest or it doesn’t” he explained … “but what is important, is whether you are correct, because your correctness in this interpretation is an indication of how you will perform if you were to get the job and that is what is relevant for me evaluating your candidacy.” “You will research the requirements and provide a report of them to me, and if your understanding is correct we will meet again… if it is not we will not meet again.” “Ok so we are done here.” And just like that an interview I had waited for over 45 minutes to start was over in less than 10.

He actually said to me before I left “I will certainly see you again.” I wondered why someone so careful with word usage would say “certainly,” when he just explained to me that our meeting again was not certain (and I had already determined that regardless of the outcome of this little endeavor I would never step foot in this office again, so in fact it was certain that we would not meet again) but I digress.

Here is the OAF’s e-mail to me (that he typed to me during our interview):

[Joblesslawyer],

I am just confirming that you will email me the requirements for admission to the SDNY as I have asked you to do several times…you are now insisting that you are 100% sure of them and you know with certainty that all that is needed is that you have a sponsor that is admitted to the District already and you are asking me if i would mind being your sponsor…please follow my requests and check the rules again and confirm for me that your understanding is correct….

We have not offered you a position yet and we may or may not consider your for the job but we need to make sure that your understanding of the rules is correct and since this is the type of conclusion that you would make as an associate, your cooperation and your answers will be meaningful to the application.

[The OAF]

As it turns out (after I thoroughly researched local civil Rule 1.3) that in order to sponsor a candidate for admission to the SDNY the sponsor must actually have known the candidate for a total of 1 year in addition to being admitted to the SDNY (someone meeting these requirements would not be difficult for me to find). But, oh well.

Here are select excerpts from my response:

Dear [OAF],

…

I stand by my statement that it should not be difficult for me to get admitted to the SDNY.

Had this been a central issue or even tangential issue to an actual case, that required analysis of court rules I would have conducted thorough research on the point, had the issue fully briefed and would have been prepared to discuss it at length. Unfortunately, although my statements are being held to the same level of scrutiny a formal fully briefed position would get I did not have the luxury of actually preparing for this argument.

If I did commit an error I believe the error was in approaching our interview merely as an interviewee and not as a subject being deposed. I did not realize my words were being parsed and analyzed for the slightest contradiction. Had I believed after waiting casually in your office for over a half hour with the lights off for you to finish up work, that a formal interrogation was soon to ensue I would have put my litigator hat on and certainly would have been able to more adequately spar over minute details. By the time I was able to figure out the direction you were taking the conversation, it was already too late and I had apparently painted myself into a corner as an attorney hopes a key witness will on the other side of a big case, when being cross examined on the stand.  Only your technique was more like a sneak attack, and not analogous to what truly happens when arguing a case, forcing me into a bizarre bet over an artificial position I never actually agreed to defend.

… Good luck with your subsequent interviews. It was a very interesting experience meeting with you.

~[Jobless Lawyer]

On that note, I’ll just say, I have some luck, thanks Puck.

The first half of the video below had me cracking up because it reminded me so much of my interview with the OAF, unfortunately the second half of the video takes a turn for the worst so I suggest you end it after the interview segment (the main differences being I did not get the job and I did not dance with a transvestite) .