Mad Law Student Disease

“OCI is like Sorority Rush. Not Frat Rush. Sorority Rush: catty, bitchy, and backstabby”
- comments of a 3L student in regards to On Campus Interviewing. And oh, my GOD, it’s true.

OCI is a force of nature. We were required to attend mandatory meetings, both individual and as large lecture groups, in order to learn about the OCI process. This seemed a little insane at the time—OCI is one path to find a job following your 2L year, and many of us were still trying to make plans for the summer following our 1L year. It also seemed a little insane because, as Career Services took pains to point out, only about 8 – 10 % of our school’s students actually get hired through OCI. At our school, at least, only Big Firms generally participate. Those are generally the firms that know a year in advance that they will both need an intern and will have the budget to pay for that intern.

In July, a list of the firms that wanted to participate in OCI was posted in the Career Services office with hiring requirements for each (“Min. 3.8 gpa, Law Review, previous experience in Tax Law, interest in White Collar Criminal Defense”). Any student wishing to apply for the job had to bring a packet of materials to the Career Services office, usually including a CV with cover letter, writing sample, references, etc. Often a firm requests multiple copies of these materials. It’s a lot of work for a slim chance at getting an interview (forget acutally getting hired for a minute). The Career Services office then forwards the appropriate packets to each firm. (This is a mystery to me—why do we need Career Services as a middleman? We couldn’t just send the materials directly to the appropriate firms?) The firms look at the application packets and send a list to Career Services of the students that they want to interview. Those lists are then hung on a bulletin board outside the Career Services office (more to that later).

The work would be worth the result, if it meant finding the perfect summer job. But the offered positions were not particularly attractive to me: lots of Civil Litigation, insurance, Tax Law, etc. Nothing with International Law or Immigration Law. You would think that that fact alone would have been enough for me to turn my back on OCI with no further ado. But nooooo... the atmosphere surrounding OCI is so charged that I really agonized over the decision. In retrospect, it seems ludicrous: “Well, I don’t want to do this kind of work. I’m not really qualified to apply for the job since I didn’t get on to Law Review. Maybe I should apply anyway.” After weeks of deliberation, I finally decided not to participate in OCI, in part because I did not arrive back in the States until just a few days before the deadlines for submission.

Nonetheless, I am not able to avoid OCI Madness. That brings me to the lists on the bulletin board. Those people who chose to apply for jobs have to check the board to see if they have been granted an interview. I think that sucks. First of all, it’s no one else’s business whether I’ve been invited to any interviews or not. It’s not even anyone’s business which firms I’ll be interviewing with. If I want someone to know about my plans, it should be up to me to tell that person. Second, the lists have generated more gossip and dissent among my classmates than any other event since school started, including the results of the first semester exams. Even people who haven’t applied for jobs read the lists and there’s all manner of jawing about who got an interview with The Biggest Law Firm In Town, who got the most interviews, who’s getting interviews because they’re the token minority interviewee, etc, etc. It’s mean-spirited and unprofessional. It's everything I feared law school would be.