OCIP
We are continuing to add resources to our work-in-progress Fall 2009 OCIP website and will let you know very shortly once all of our employer reports have been finalized and all our links activated. As you know, the OCI section of b-Line, which contains the most up-to-the-minute information as to which employers are coming to campus, has already been activated.
For rising 2Ls interested in working at a large law firm outside L.A. or the Bay area next summer (and remember flexibility is key in the current job market), consider sending a resume, cover letter, and transcript (if you think it will help you) to those out-of-the-area firms who are not coming to campus. While firms typically will not pay for you to fly to them to conduct initial screening interviews, they may be willing to meet with you if you are already planning on being in their city. Therefore, it may be particularly helpful if you can state in your cover letter that you plan on being in their city during a specific date range. This approach will have maximum effect if the dates fall during their recruiting season (August or early to mid-September). It is best to try to give firms at least a couple of weeks advance notice of your travel plans. If you are currently working out of town, you may want to contact local firms now about the possibility of meeting with them before you return to Berkeley. A good resource for identifying large law firm contacts is: www.nalpdirectory.com.
Finally, fyi, we will not be preparing a separate hard copy of the OCIP Guide this year. Everything OCIP-related will be online. We have already posted an overview description of the process and a separate OCIP Details webpage that describes exactly how bidding works, how to avoid scheduling conflicts, how to sign-up for open slots, limitations on canceling or trading time slots, preparing OCIP resumes, writing samples, references, and more. For those of you who prefer a hard copy Guide, we are working on assembling all this information in a single pdf to which we will provide a “live” link early next week.
WEEKEND AND WEEKNIGHT CDO HOURS
For those of you who would prefer to meet in-person with an attorney-counselor — or who may want to use one of the print resources in our library — but are finding it difficult to make it to campus during our regular business hours, we are planning to hold some office hours on certain Wednesday evenings, Saturdays, and Sundays. These hours will be by appointment only (no drop-ins). If you are interested, please contact the counselor directly to make an appointment, rather than going through the online scheduler. If you plan on taking advantage of these off-hours, we would really appreciate it if you could contact the counselor at least two days in advance of the scheduled date. Here’s the schedule:
Wednesday, July 15th between 5 and 8PM — Sarah Cunniff (because Sarah is on vacation until July 10th, please contact our receptionist, Dianna at career@law.berkeley.edu or at 510-642-4567 to arrange an appointment with Sarah on this date).
Thursday, July 16th between 5 and 8PM — Terry Galligan (tgalligan@law.berkeley.edu or 510-642-7746) NOTE: I will be out of the office during the week of 7-20.
Saturday, July 18th between 10AM and 2PM – Linda Maranzana (lmaranzana@law.berkeley.edu or 510-643-2675) NOTE: Linda focuses on public interest career advising
Sunday, July 19th between 10AM and 2PM — Sarah Cunniff (scunniff@law.berkeley.edu or 510-643-3161)
Wednesday, July 22nd between 5PM and 8PM –Eric Stern (estern@law.berkeley.edu or 510-643-4260) NOTE: Eric also specializes in judicial clerkships and government careers.
Thursday, July 23rd between 5PM and 8PM — Linda Maranzana
Saturday, July 25 between 10AM and 2PM — Eric Stern
Sunday, July 26th between 10AM and 2PM – Marsha Rabkin (mrabkin@law.berkeley.edu or 510-643-5369)
(If none of these dates and times works for you, it still may be possible to schedule an after-hours appointment. Contact the counselor with whom you are interested in meeting.)