The difference between following the path and choosing it
Most law students follow a default career path: 1L summer research position, 2L OCI, BigLaw summer associate offer, first-year associate. For some students at some schools with some goals, that path makes sense. For many others, it's just what everyone does and no one ever stopped to ask whether it was actually right for them.
The students who build careers they're genuinely satisfied with are rarely the ones who followed the default path without questioning it. They're the ones who figured out early what they actually wanted, what their background made them genuinely competitive for, and how to position themselves for the specific opportunity they wanted rather than the opportunity that was easiest to land.
The Full Career Strategy Session is built for that work. A comprehensive, honest review of where you are, what your options are, and what the path from here to your first associate year actually looks like specific to you.
Who this session is designed for
1Ls who want to get ahead of the process
The associates who get the best early opportunities are almost always the ones who started thinking about positioning before OCI was on the horizon. A 1L strategy session sets you up to make better decisions about your first summer, understand how the legal market actually works, and approach 2L recruiting from a position of clarity rather than reaction.
2Ls preparing for OCI and summer associate recruiting
You're in the middle of the most consequential recruiting process of your law school career. You need a clear narrative, a calibrated list of employers, and a specific plan for how to present your background in the way that resonates with the employers you care most about, including how to handle the parts of your story that don't fit neatly into a standard template.
3Ls navigating clerkship applications, public interest, or the transition to practice
Your path to your first role is more complicated than it was two years ago. Clerkship applications, public interest fellowships, first associate positions, or something else entirely. This session helps you evaluate your options clearly and build a concrete plan for the transition from law school to practice.
Students uncertain about practice area or employer type
You're not sure whether you want litigation or transactional work, BigLaw or a smaller firm, private practice or public interest. This session helps you build a clear decision framework based on your actual interests, your background, and a realistic picture of what each path involves and not just what they look like from the outside.
What the 360-degree review covers
This is a comprehensive engagement, not a quick resume review or a general conversation about career options. Every part of the session is focused on building a complete, honest picture of where you are and a specific roadmap for where you're going.
Your academic record and positioning
An honest assessment of how your academic record, GPA, class rank, journal and moot court involvement, law review, and externships positions you in the markets you're targeting, and what that means for how to calibrate your expectations and your list.
Your background and narrative
Your resume tells employers what you've done. Your narrative tells them who you are and why you're the right fit. We work through your full background — pre-law, law school experiences, relevant employment, and any parts of your story that need to be framed carefully — and develop a clear, confident narrative that is both honest and strategically positioned for the opportunities you're targeting.
Practice area and employer selection
A clear-eyed analysis of which practice areas and employer types genuinely fit your background, your interests, and your realistic competitive position, and which opportunities look appealing but may not be the right fit. We build a specific, prioritized list of employers to target and develop the strategy for pursuing them.
OCI and interview preparation
How to approach the OCI process strategically, how to talk about your background in callbacks and partner interviews, how to handle the questions that trip most candidates up, and how to evaluate offers when they come, not just how to get them.
Roadmap from law school to first associate year
A complete picture of what the path from your current position to your first associate role looks like: the milestones, the decisions, the timeline, and the specific actions that need to happen between now and the start of practice.
How the session works
Step 1 — Intake and materials.
Once you book, you share your resume, any cover letter drafts you have, your law school transcript (if relevant to the discussion), and a brief written overview of your goals and questions. The more specific you can be about what you're trying to figure out, the more focused and useful the session will be.
Step 2 — The 360-degree strategy session.
A comprehensive working session — typically 90 minutes to two hours — covering all of the above. This is a real working session. You'll leave having built a specific, honest picture of your options and a concrete plan for what to do next.
Step 3 — Written roadmap.
Following the session, you receive a written roadmap summarizing the key conclusions, your prioritized target list, your narrative positioning, and your specific next steps sequenced by timeline. Not generic advice — a specific plan for your specific situation.
What makes this different from career services
Your law school's career services office provides valuable resources: job boards, on-campus recruiting logistics, alumni connections, and employer relationship management. What institutional career services generally cannot provide is a completely honest, outside perspective on your specific situation.
Career services advisors work for your school. They have relationships with the firms that recruit on campus and institutional incentives that limit how candid they can be about your realistic options, your competitive position, and what the honest assessment of your background actually means for your choices.
This session provides the perspective institutional advisors can't: a direct, honest, outside view of where you stand and what the path forward actually looks like. There's no campus recruiting relationship to protect, no institutional constraint on candor, and no incentive to tell you anything other than what's true.
Ready to build a roadmap from law school to practice?
Book a career strategy session. Share your materials, come ready to work, and leave with a clear plan for the path from here to your first associate year.
Comprehensive session · Written roadmap included · Confidential · Available to law students nationwide
Common Questions About Career Strategy Sessions
Is it too early to book this as a 1L?
Not at all. The students who get the best opportunities out of law school almost always started thinking about positioning before it felt urgent. A 1L session sets you up to make better choices about your first summer and approach 2L recruiting from a position of clarity.
What if I don't know what I want yet?
That's one of the most common starting points. Uncertainty about direction isn't a problem to solve before the session, it's something the session is specifically designed to help with. We work through your background, your interests, your constraints, and your realistic options to develop a clear picture of where you should be focusing your energy and why.
How is this different from the Career Advancement Strategy service?
The Career Strategy Session is a single comprehensive engagement designed for law students mapping the path from law school to their first associate role. Career Advancement Strategy is an ongoing coaching relationship for associates already in practice, focused on partnership roadmapping, firm positioning, and advancement within a firm. Different audiences, different purposes, different structures.
What if my background has complications — a lower GPA, a gap, a school that doesn't place well into BigLaw?
Those situations are exactly what this session is built for. Developing a narrative and a strategy that works given your specific background, including the parts that don't fit the standard template, is one of the most valuable things this session does.
Is the session confidential?
Completely. Your law school, your career services office, and your classmates will never know you worked with an outside strategist unless you choose to tell them.
What comes after the session?
Many students find one session gives them everything they need to execute their plan. Others schedule follow-up sessions as they move through the application process from interview coaching to offer evaluation, or continued strategy work as their situation develops.