How to Get Hired at Firms of Different Rankings

So this is how to get hired firms of different rankings, which I think most people are likely to be very concerned about.

So your law school and academics, you rank one firms, that's often going to be the lowest. So the that's not important to them. What's important is how much you're willing to work for. And if you can do the work or you rank two firms, same thing, but you rank three firms that starts to become important. As in you rank four and five firms and you rank five firms, it becomes very important.


You do need to really look at that very carefully. When you're opinion on the type of firm you're applying to. If you go to a local law school, most of the ranked one firms are hiring from local law schools and they will hire certainly from on state. But most of the hires are from local law schools. And then as you get into your rank four firms, it, this is not high to highest.

This is low for rank four. I don't know why, who, how this got mixed up, but this is low for your rank. And then lowest of course, is your rank five. And then great cutoffs from certain schools is definitely happening in your rank. Four firms, you rank one firms and two firms and [00:01:00] three firms it's typically not considered as important.

So you need to, that is also important. So if you go to, even if you go to a very good law school and you're trying to apply to a rank four firm, many of them will have, even for top five law schools, certain grade point offs. Great cutoffs. The same thing goes for many of your, most of your ranked flag firms are all gonna have different types of great cutoffs and expectations for the type of law school you throw to.

And then this is national searches. You rank one and two firms will typically be hired locally for the most part. That's what your ranked free firms do. You rank four firms will often search nationally to fill jobs. They will, if it's a firm in New York and they get an application from someone they really like in Chicago that I think is best suited for the job.

That person will typically more often than not be the one that gets an offer. And then you rank five firms will almost always hire the highest quality person that they get. And they don't always care where that person is coming. And this is again the competitive getting the job. So you're rank one firms [00:02:00] for the most part, the is going to be lowest and the rank five firms the highest, and then the importance of your experience.

So the, this is important from the perspective of what is on your resume. So if you're applying for someone from a, for a firm laterally, what's going to happen is if you're at a rank one firm, they're not gonna, they're gonna pay attention to, will this person sit down and work for us, do this type of work.

If you're at a rank two firm, that's for the most part, what they're thinking now, if you're at a rank three firm and you're trying to get a job, one of those or a rank four firm. They're gonna pay a lot of attention to your recent experience. They're gonna pay a lot of attention to things like your, whether the focus of your experience and the rank five firms almost always will care a lot about that.

And your ranked five firms are extremely concerned that they will go over your experience with a fine to come. They want to hire people that are doing the exact type of work that the job's advertising for now, and that the work that they have now, the reason this is so important is because if you're doing work for consumers, [00:03:00] the quality of work and the focus and stuff that you're doing may be important, but it's not necessarily at, is gonna be as important as a rank for firm where you're working for general counsels and other people that are gonna be looking at your work very closely.

And those types of firms really want you to have a focused experience in your practice area. So an example would be a rank three firm may hire a corporate generalist, a rank four firm. Rarely we'll hire or generalists, more likely they would hire someone that does primarily private equity or primarily merges in acquisitions or primarily something like that.

And a rank five firm. You're almost always going to get that level of focus in a practice area, meaning they're gonna expect you to be very focused. So your rank three firms tend to have a more generalist in them. You ranked one and two firms really aren't as concerned about any of that. They may want a personal injury attorney, but they're gonna be more concerned about that.

So the rank four and five firms, your experience is very important, getting hired. And then this is also about peer firms. Very important to understand your rank three firms are [00:04:00] it's. They start being concerned about you coming from firms that essentially are same ranking. What that means is firms that are people that are serving the same type of client base ranked four firms will take great offense, and I deal with this all the time, but they will take great offense.

If someone comes from a rank two firm and it is applying and doesn't necessarily come to them, but think you don't think that we're this type of firm and they'll take it very negatively. So the rank four firms will hire people from two firms. Occasionally if they have a very difficult time finding the person in the market, they will even hire people for three firms as well.

If they having a very difficult time hiring people in the market or trying to establish a new practice area, But your ranked four and five firms almost always will hire from pure firms and the five firms. When I say pure firms, if you're at a five firm, say you're at a very good four firm, which would be a national firm, and you're trying to apply to a, and you're applying to a five firm.

The five firm is it is really typically only interested in small handful of people in their markets from [00:05:00] those types of firms and so much so that, that if that they're hiring laterally, it's exactly. And the same thing with the four firms. So four firms really wanna hire people coming from very similar firms or firms that they can justify to their clients and in their, they take it very seriously.

This is a lot of what I deal with on a daily basis. I try to take candidates that are twos and push 'em into threes. And sometimes fours, I try to take, can threes and push 'em into fours. And there's a lot of, lot of consciousness among the four firms, especially of trying to hire people from the, their peer firms.

So what's interesting too. And this is something that would just be like in the side, but if someone's at a right, the law firm is a four and you send them someone that's a three, they will get very upset and many times and say, why are you wasting my time? Why? And which is, which is expected. And it's not anything wrong with them, but what I've noticed and the same thing with the three firm, like sometimes with three firms are like that as well.

But what I've noticed with the five firms is if you [00:06:00] send someone that's not qualified to work at a five. They will never say anything. They will never react. They will never take offense because they're already at the top. And they know it. I could literally have a five, a five firm mistaken that classified as a two and which I send them people that are ones and twos for years.

And they would never say anything negative. They would say, thank you for sending this person. I appreciate it. Whereas you rank four firms, which is the majority, by the way of large law firms will sometimes not react, but usually not 50% of the time, not even 20% of the time, but they're the ones that are most sensitive about law firm rankings and, and the type of practice setting or coming from.

So this is something to think about. The four firms are not five firms or three firms are not four firms. So most of your sensitive sensitivity from these firms about being submitted there and so forth is really among your, your, your four and five firms or four, three, and four firms. Now another practice setting means coming from the government, coming from a non-profit coming from in house and, and all that sort of stuff with [00:07:00] another practice setting.

What I'm saying is, if someone is working right now for the secretary of state doing something and they wanna apply to a one firm, the one firm needs people because the person's willing to work at a certain amount will, may look at them and may hire them. Same thing, two firm, occasionally, but as you start getting into rank threes, fours, and five, so they start becoming very concerned.

About things like you coming from a peer firm about you coming from a peer practice about the practice being the same about the habits. You may have picked up at a peer firm because they want people that are very similar to the, to them in terms of the type of practice area and so forth that they're hiring for.

So you do need to be aware of the fact that when you apply to four and five firms, it, it is then almost unheard of, by the way, for someone to move from, from a position in house to a four, five firm, it's it happens, but it's almost unheard of. And, and the same thing with moving from a position in government to a four or five firm, there's just, they have certain ways of [00:08:00] doing business and they do not want to, or non-profit, or that sort of thing from four or five from higher people that are coming from pure firms are the same practice setting.

And again, it's not to say you can't get it from a two firm to a four firm cause you can't, but you have to be typically from the same practice setting. And it's not to say there's some exception. So a us attorney for a white collar job can sometimes get into a, was hired by they're hired by law firms after a certain number of years of experience.

But for the most part, you have to be coming for a four or five firm and for a five firm, it's again in a four firm, very low that you can transition. So the moving to an in-house job or moving to the government or doing something else unrelated. Practicing in a law firm will immediately make it very difficult for you to get back into these higher ranked firms.

There's just a very important thing to consider. You need to be aware of again, on campus interviewing at top 20 law schools, uh, the one and two firms will often not do that [00:09:00] because they do not feel that will make a lot of progress doing that. The top 20 schools, the three firms will typically, especially if it's a firm that's in that market, a school that's in their market will do it.

Your four firms almost all do interviewing a top 20 law schools and you rank five firms, all do interviewing at most top 20 law schools. Some of them they may avoid, but for most of 'em, they will do some level of interviewing. So this is just a way to understand. And then on campus interviewing again, your smaller firms are typically not doing that.

They're taking the people that apply after passing the bar. And those are your one, two firms. Your rank three firms will often do it locally sometimes, but even nationally. And same thing, year four and five, all of them will do rank on campus interviewing now rank four. Uh, sometimes they'll have, you know, small offices in different cities that may not do it, but most of them, well, this is again, what is the, how much are they screening you?

When you come in the door, you rank one firms will often not ask for writing samples or transactions. So you, same thing with two firms. As you start getting into the three and four firms, they [00:10:00] start taking a great interest in your ability to write well, to, to document things, to help the absence of typos.

Other things. So the more higher up the food chain you go, the more the clients expect. So the more they expect from you when you're appliance, these are all very important there. Reference checking, meaning what do people think of you? What is your reputation? What is, what is, what do you say about yourselves on social media?

What do you, how do you look publicly? The law firms, a lower rank may not have time to check your references. They may certain, they may cycle through a lot of attorneys, cuz they're not paying a lot believe frequently, but again, as you move up, the food chain here, lot firms are gonna be more and more concerned about the quality of your references and rank five firms will often before they bring you in the door, even do a formal reference checks.

What are whether people in the market think of them? What do clients that I worked with? Think things along those lines that they'll have networks and things that they can find out that information through, or they may have by the time they bring you in, they may have already [00:11:00] heard about you in the market somehow, or I dunno, but sitting right for firms, they will often have very defined procedures in place, meaning they will sometimes they'll do it internally or they use outside companies to do these reference checks and so forth.

And that's how they do that. And then this is what's interesting is firms hiring laterally, meaning hiring people from peer firms and that have experience and you're, you're ranked one through three firms. It's. It's very high. They all hire lateral people with experience are just often looking for people and there's not any type of prejudice against lateral attorneys.

You rank for a lot of their ability to stay in business does rely on lateral hiring, whether it's them hiring people that are on their own or having penalties for their associates, having other people, helping them. But they're all hiring most your rank four firms hiring are hiring laterally, but what's very interesting about your rank.

Five firms is many of them. If you think like Tel or some [00:12:00] Cova for your highest ranked firms, very rarely will do any lateral hiring. They want people to come up through the ranks and be trained in their work habits, ways of doing business culture, all those sorts of things. And so they're actually bits of a paradox, but they're the least likely to hire laterally.

And, and so your four firms are really where most of the activity is, which I think is hiring activity is which I think is very interesting and your one firms as well. And this also goes by the way, for our firm's clients, as the recruiters, believe it or not, you would think that the rank fours would be, or we make the majority of replacements.

And, but actually the most activity, there's a lot of activity at four, but your fours are not the majority of attorneys in the country. The majority of attorneys are at your ones and your twos and your threes. So those are of. Where the most of our placements happen. And then we also make a lot of work.

Placements is all recruiting firms do, but, but really the most activity is at the, the lower end because they, in terms of the ranking numbers doesn't mean they're the lower end firms, [00:13:00] but the ranking numbers, because that's where most of the hirings happen. And then new rank five is really the least of the hirings happen.

Very interesting from a lateral standpoint, meaning if you're at a three firm, you can almost always, if you do a good job there move to a four firm. Even if you're at a two firm, you can almost always, if you do a really good job, move to a three firm, if you're at a one firm, you can also move to a two firm.

So there's a whole method of moving up. And very few people move to from four to fives. I have seen by the way, very interesting. I've see people move from one firms to five firms over the course of several years. So they often get outta law school and not have had a summer associate job or something and not done well in law school.

And then they, I don't know, and then they maybe failed the bar and then, and then they come out. So they started a one firm and then, but then they worked there for a couple years and they get very motivated. They get into a two firm and then get some experience working with companies or doing some sort of work.

And then they moved to a three firm, started building a book of business and doing other things and doing very [00:14:00] well. Move to a four firm, take off, build business, get a big book and so forth and move to a five firm. I've seen it happen and it does happen. And it could happen to you if you're at a one firm.

So I just, it's important to understand that all this is possible, but it's rare. And, and it, but it is very common for people to start at ones and move to fours. Eventually it can happen, but it's, uh, it's not easy. And then this is partners from other firms. This is your, a lot of times, these firms are one and two are closely held firms.

They're small businesses that have a limited number of partners already. So they don't really do a ton of lateral hiring. When you start getting into threes, they're always going to be interested in partners with business that do the kind of work your fours are every single one of them for the most part, not all of them, but are always looking for partners in different practice areas with a certain amount of business.

If you're at a four firm and you have work and you're in one city and you want to go to another one, the odds are that you can pretty much, these have different levels too. You have [00:15:00] 4.1, 4.2 and so forth, but that you can definitely move. If you have a lot of work and you're partner, at least most of the four firms will hire you laterally, but then your five firms are again, they're closed cultures.

They have many times major institution appliance. They want. People that share their culture. So they will not very often bring in lateral partners. They, their interest is in keeping their culture. But if you become a very good in your practice area, you can always move from and you get a lot of business.

You can pretty much be guaranteed. You can move first partner. And then I think this is interesting as well. All of the, the larger firms have a recruiting coordinators. That recruiting coordinators are typically very well trained and understanding what the firm's looking for, of having an understanding of the firm's culture, of having an understanding of the qualifications.

They understand, and they take time to talk to the attorneys in the firm to understand what they're looking for and the practice areas. They understand what resumes need to look like. [00:16:00] They need to, they understand the firm standards about great cutoffs and everything. And if you're in a one firm, then, and many times they don't need to be attorneys.

Sometimes they are, but it's really, it's understanding a lot. They screen resumes and they also screen people. They're extremely important because they look at your resume and decide whether or not to bring you in. And many times they're the first and the final screen. They can keep a, they can basically say, don't hire this person.

They can, they can not ever show your resume to the hiring personnel inside the firm. If they don't think it matches. They're very important. And they're really, honestly, probably the most important person inside the law firm terms that you getting hired because they're the, the first line of defense against resumes may not match the firm.

So that, and also they. Find people that are better than you. They choose when you're applying. They, you know, have those contacts and so forth. But the point is that the one ranked firms and the two ranked firms very rarely have recruiting coordinators. Oftentimes the assignment is given to the, the owner of the firm's secretary or someone to review and, and they will show [00:17:00] a stack of resumes.

There's maybe nothing that formal, but as you get into three, four and five firms, almost all of these firms have full-time recruiting departments. Some of them are extremely sophisticated and will recruit your resume as it comes in. And, and almost all firms have professional recruiting departments that are ranked four ranked five firms will have very sophisticated, uh, recruiting departments.

But since there's such a limited number of people that they're looking for, it's almost a, it's a, it's almost a role of just being nice to everyone. That's trying to get a job there and, and politely telling people to, to go away because there there's just not a lot of, there's not a lot of people that fit what those firms are working for and then your four ones and choose that you could just apply at the right time and someone T your resume again, but your ranks floors almost always have professional recruiting departments and then recruiting committees.

These are committees that make decisions about who's going to be what the job openings are. Who's going to be brought in how they're gonna find people where they're gonna find people. [00:18:00] And in your rank force and fives almost always have some sort of formal recruiting committee that will be on various email chains and other things.

And when they're looking for people and, and, and again, It's very likely that almost all firms, which again are AmLaw 100, 200 leading firms have that. And then this is interesting. I think, too, that multiple people for each offer made. So a lot of times one firms will just bring someone in that they think they're okay, they'll just make 'em an offer.

If they don't accept whether there's to interview someone else. So they'll often interview a lot of, they won't interview very many people. The offers are often very informal, but when you start getting to three to four firms, they typically will interview a lot of people, especially four firms. So anytime you're applying to a job in a four firm and you're interviewed, you should pretty much understand that you're probably gonna be competing with at least one or two people for maybe more, sometimes five, sometimes more for an offer from that firm.

So that's very important that you're aware of that because the there's going to be [00:19:00] multiple people interviewed, whether it's a summer associate job or a lateral position or a first year job, most of those firms are gonna have lots of applicants that you're gonna be competing with. You rank five firms.

So the reason that's not the highest is because it's typically I know it when I see it type of interviewing. So by the time you get in the door at a rank five firm, you've done an awful lot, exceptionally well, wherever, you know, whenever your background is, and people probably know your top off the charts, you might first in your class, top law school, or one of the top students, you.

And a summer associate and who knows, but, but you have very good qualifications, but the rank four and five firms. So the rank five firms do not typically interview as many people as a rank four firms. There's just very few people. The rank one and two firms will make a lot of offers. They may not, and they just sink or one when you get there where your rank four firms typically will be screened for personality, cultural fit, all sorts of things.

When you start interviewing there. And then here again, it's almost like applying to colleges. Our most [00:20:00] offers made by the firm accepted as you get into the rank four firms, there's a high likelihood that most offers made by the, these top firms are accepted rank. Three candidates are often also looking at four firms, so they may five better, but the rank one or two firms typically are gonna have a much harder time filling positions.

This is also about unsolicited resume. So a, a rank one firm or two firm will often could sit there for years and not get a single UN a resume from an attorney. But when you start getting into rank three, four, and five firms, you start becoming firms that attorneys have heard of they're on top firm lists they're on, you can find them, it's heard of them.

And so they will start receiving massive amounts of resumes, rank four firms, by the way, they get a lot of them. Their recruiting departments are often very overwhelmed about the number of resumes they're receiving. They do not like it. And because it becomes very difficult just from an administrative standpoint, to keep up with everything many times, they used to have to print out a formal written letters that they would have to [00:21:00] mail and box up.

And it's just, it's a lot of work for them and it's responding to all these inquiries. So people are leaving them voicemails and all sorts of things and sending them emails to respond to. And just a lot of, lot of stress for these firms. So you need to just understand that they do receive a lot of resumes and that's part of the challenge.

It's actually a challenge because there's so many resumes coming into these firms that people, uh, recruiting departments are actually often overwhelmed, meaning they, it would be too. Imagine if getting tons and tons of resumes and then the likely salaries. I think we talked about that the rank four is definitely high.

Is for the most part. So it says high there it's often highest, but I put high there. The, and then the rank fives are always the highest and the rank ones are typically, always the lowest. And then again, we talked about or out earlier, and that just means once you reach a certain level, how insistent is the firm that you get out?

And so the, they start becoming very [00:22:00] insistent at the rank five firms and the rank four firms as well, rank three less. So it's just something to consider about your employment security. Now I've seen people go to rank five firms and be indefinite associates, meaning they're there for 15 years as an associate, but it's rare.

I've seen people go to rank four firms and without business and so forth and stay there a long time. Maybe they'll just call them a, it will, I don't say this in pejorative sense, but they'll call them council or something, or they may even call them income partners, which is a good thing. But even with the income part, many times, they force them out too.

But you rank five firms. You're more likely to be asked to leave than any other firm.


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