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Employment Prospects Survey |
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All second and third year law students at NU can participate in fall On-Campus
Interviews ("OCI"). In OCI, hundreds of law firms from around America come on
campus to interview students, mostly 2Ls (second-year law students). The
employers do not get to select who they interview. Instead, all students bid on
law firms. So, there is a lottery system where students rank their top choices
(I believe you had the option on bidding on 80 employers this year). The lottery
is then run and you get interviews with firms. I know some people who get
interviews with 12 firms, and some who had 27 firms. It all depends on what type
of firm you are bidding on. If you bid on only large Chicago law firms, even if
you bid on 50 firms it is likely you'll only get about 14 or 15 interviews.
However, if you bid on all the firms in the Midwest who are coming, you'll get
probably 30 interviews.
OCI takes place in the last two weeks of August, right before classes start.
Each interview is 20 minutes long. You walk in, meet the recruiter (many firms
send several recruiters, so that the firm is interviewing three or four students
at the same time), and speak to them until the person next in line starts
knocking on the door. If you are lucky and the firm likes you, you are invited
back to their offices for a Call-back Interview.
Call-back interviews consist of half day (or sometimes entire day interviews)
where you have half-hour to one-hour interviews with numerous attorneys in the
firm. They then take you out to lunch. Within a few weeks you find out of you
are rejected, and they usually call you if they are extending an offer.
This year, a lot of people were unlucky. There were many people who did not
even get a single call back. Given the prestige of NU Law (not to mention the
astronomical price-tag), this was a major shock and disappointment to many
students. However, there were also many people who recieved numerous offers. It
appeared that it all came down to first year grades (another reason why the first
year is so stressful).
The Career Services office is pretty helpful. There are many views about how
helpful exactly the office is, and you might want to speak with a few different
student to get their take on this subject.
In terms of prestige with employers, I'd say that if you want to practice in
Chicago, or even the Midwest, you can't go wrong by coming to NU. The only
competition you'll have will be with students from UC and Michigan, and there
aren't that many of us all together. Because so much of our class is from the
East and West coast, many many people were only looking at firms outside of the
Midwest. It appeared that NU has a steadily growing reputation all over the
country, and I did not hear of anyone who said that employers were unfamiliar
with NU and the quality of NU law students.
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Northwestern University School of Law Admission & Application Surveys
