Texans and Transplants Learn What It Takes To Be A Lone Star Lawyer
1L Texans seeking a way home, potential transplants yearning for life on the frontier, and grifters looking to make a quick $50k convened over Domino’s Pizza on Wednesday to hear from Lone Star Lawyers (LSL) and the Office of Private Practice (OPP) about Texas Big Law recruiting.
The meeting began with the Texas pledge, “Honor the Texas flag . . .”—those who could not recite it were lassoed and dragged to the West Coast Wahoos meeting—and a stirring rendition of Deep in the Heart of Texas, before Assistant Dean Lauren Parker informed the bright-eyed students that it was nigh already too late to secure a 1L summer associateship. She explained, “Texas firms are looking to secure top talent earlier and earlier.” Gone are the days when 1Ls—practically geriatric in Texas years—could just show up at the end of fall semester and expect a summer job. The sad reality is, if you were not in contact with firms shortly after your high school graduations, you may want to start applying to judicial internships. Disappointment crept onto most of the faces in the room with a few exceptions—presumably students with surnames like Bush or Perry or Perot who had been tipped off to these trends long ago—and some even gathered their things and left. The good news, Dean Parker continued, is that UVA students have an ace up their sleeve in the form of LSL.
Nobody is quite sure when Lone Star Lawyers got its start at UVA, though some rumors trace its founding to a surviving defender of the Alamo who, vowing to sue General Santa Ana in international court, earned his LL.M. from UVA in 1840 (OGI was still a thing back then). Nor does anyone know what dirt LSL has on Texas firms that allow it to wield so much influence over the recruiting process. Nevertheless, this outfit has consistently maintained a strong pipeline that pours annual crops of legal minds from the Law School into Texas markets, building a strong alumni base that has in turn drawn more and more UVA grads, and continuing in the Jeffersonian tradition of Westward expansion.
The LSL executive board presented an enticing cost of living comparison between Texas and New York—one would need to earn more than $500,000 annually in New York to maintain the same standard of living as a first-year associate in Dallas. 2Ls and 3Ls regaled attendees with stories of the good life, comparing checks from summer dinners and happy hours. The numbers stunned 1Ls and rivaled those discussed in the student loan entrance counseling session that took place immediately thereafter.
The Texas decision is more than an economic one though, with Texas aspirants preferring a McMansion in Plano to a Brownstone in Brooklyn, summer vacations in Cancun to beach clubs in the Hamptons, Ken Paxton ’91 to RFK Jr. ’82, and an Escalade to an MTA Card. Nothing good in life is free, though, and one big catch in this case is that 1L summer offers are a legally binding covenant to remain in the former Republic of Texas for life, with attempted defection punishable by time in the stocks (the Fifth Circuit has taken a narrow reading of the Eighth Amendment).
To those students brave—or foolish—enough to remain in WB 151, LSL laid out a calendar: a roadmap to a summer offer. Mandatory events include: “Boot Camp: Footwear that will get you to equity partner, from Ariat to Tecovas,” “Gunner Pit: How to handle your six iron in a duel with opposing counsel,” “Cowboy Cookout: 101 creative ways to express disappointment in the Cowboys (food provided),” and “Texas Hold ‘Em: A data-driven approach to losing money while maintaining respect ($100 buy-in).”
Also on the LSL calendar for this year are two basically mandatory “Texas Days”—a Texas Two-Step, if you will—during which firms come and speed date potential applicants, and a yet-t0-be-named Texas party which will be “the biggest party of the semester” now that Fauxfield has been put out to pasture. After the wining and dining of the Texas Days winds down, applicants will work with LSL mentors and OPP to perfect their résumés and apply from the “War Room” on November 1. From there, the process involves waiting, phone screeners, callbacks, oh, and final exams. A lucky few get a pre-grade offer, but the vast majority will travel south during January for more interviews and wining and dining—this time with better meat—and wait until February or March or April to learn their fate.
With their commitments to Texas put in writing, all that will be left to do is the preparation for a new life—practicing saying “y’all” in the mirror until it feels natural, opening an American Airlines credit card, and browsing Airbnb for chic apartments in Uptown, the Heights, or South Congress. For some 1Ls, this meeting signaled the beginning of a long Lone Star chapter in their lives, and for others, it signaled free Domino’s pizza and a commitment to find a job anywhere else.
Contributor — Philip Bishara ’28
xte2fx@virginia.edu