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Make your next move with confidence.
Practical guides to BigLaw recruiting, firm research, and life as an associate, free to read with no account.
38Guides
What BigLaw actually is
BigLaw is not a formal category. It is shorthand for a kind of firm, client, pay scale, and workload. Here is what it means, and what associates actually do all day.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Oct 16, 2026 · 7 min readAdvice You Can Actually Use
The honest roadmap from law school to BigLaw
The path is earlier and stranger than most incoming students realize. Here is the timeline, from the summer before 1L through your first day at a firm, with your school's calendar in charge of the dates.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Oct 30, 2026How to apply before or outside OCI
Pre-OCI and direct applications are useful when they expand a thoughtful firm list. They are much less useful when they become a panic-driven second job.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Aug 13, 2026OCI bidding and interview strategy
A good OCI bid list is not a prestige ranking. It is a balanced set of offices you would actually join, built around your school, credentials, markets, and interests.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Oct 16, 2026OCI and screener interview questions: the 10 you will hear (and how to sound human)
The questions are predictable. Sounding like yourself is the hard part. Learn what a screener is, what interviewers test, and how to answer the 10 common questions without becoming a recruiting robot.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Oct 16, 2026The callback interview guide
A callback is a longer final-round interview with several lawyers. Your goal is consistency without repetition, curiosity without performance, and enough energy to stay present.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Aug 8, 2026How to research a firm and answer why this firm
Spend about 45 minutes researching the office, then connect one specific thing you found to something you genuinely want. No childhood dream firm required.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Oct 16, 2026Free Tools
Interviews and Callbacks
Normal answers to the questions students are told to overthink.
Understanding Firms
Research, rankings, markets, and how to tell firms apart.
How to tell 100 BigLaw firms apart
Firms sound identical when you compare slogans. Compare offices, practices, staffing, training, and people, and use Vault, Chambers, and Am Law for what each actually measures.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Oct 16, 2026How to choose a BigLaw market
A market is more than a city. It is a mix of offices, practices, clients, compensation, costs, and personal ties. Choose the job and the life together.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Aug 8, 2026What Lawyers Actually Do
Practice-area guides focused on daily work, not recruiting slogans.
How to choose a BigLaw practice area
You do not need a permanent practice identity before recruiting. Build a hypothesis about the work you may enjoy, then test it through assignments, classes, and honest conversations.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Oct 16, 2026What corporate lawyers actually do
Corporate lawyers help clients complete transactions and manage the risks inside them. Junior work is a mix of drafting, diligence, checklists, coordination, and learning how the deal fits together.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Oct 16, 2026Litigation vs. transactional work
Litigators work through disputes; transactional lawyers help create and complete deals. The useful comparison is daily tasks, pace, writing, teamwork, and the kind of uncertainty you prefer.
Tulio Tagliaferri, Founder · Oct 16, 2026