Will big law firms always care about law school grades, even for laterals? I am seeing job listings for 4-6 year associates and requirements still include law school transcripts and “top 20% of class”

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As someone who graduated in the bottom 1/3 but lateraled into a well-regarded large firm that answer is usually no at least in my market.The firm still asked for it because they do for all attorneys but the managing partner never looked at it and actually told me they ask for it as policy but don’t care. If they care more about what you did in school a half-decade or more ago than the type of lawyer you are (it’s not hard to find out a lawyer’s reputation in the legal community) in practice now it’s probably not the type of place you want to work anyway. Don’t let that requirement in an ad discourage you from applying.

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Well big firm or biglaw? Those two mean different things. My firm is big with almost a 100 attorneys but it is not biglaw.

Yes.

likehelpful

Yes, because it’s easier than trying to figure out whether you’re actually a good attorney if they can fall back on easily summarized metrics.

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How does this question apply to the name of your law school? Is T14 relevant beyond getting your first job?

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When I hire associates I don’t even particularly care where they went to law school. Someone from Harvard starts off on equal footing as someone from Cooley. I’m more interested in their story and whether they have the qualities I’m looking for than where they graduated from. For example, I’d rather hire a single parent who worked their way through and did well at a lower-tier law school than a legacy admission from Harvard as it shows me the first candidate likely has more grit, and there’s less chance of a chip on their shoulder.

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Yes, because it tends to correlate to issue spotting ability.

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This is just completely untrue in my experience.

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Yes, absolutely.

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I am on the hiring committee for my AML100 firm. We barely even look at grades for laterals. It's not at all a helpful measure at this stage of someone's career. If they have survived another big firm for a few years and have relevant experience, we can figure out the rest in interviews. GPA truly doesn't even cross my mind.

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There is a big difference between a prospective candidate who is coming from another AMLAW firm and a candidate who is not currently in big law but looking to enter it. Grades typically do not matter with laterals within AMLAW100 as the candidates usually have similar credentials. Grades do tend to matter for the latter pool of lateral candidates as they are not coming from similarly sized firms who hire similarly credentialed candidates out of law school.

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