Guyss I am graduated BO26, want to start my journey through law firms, I was wondering how does the hiring system works??? because what I have heard is that law firm partners hire people either through PPO, internships, laterals, or referrals. I wanted to know if I apply to individual law firms formally through the HR, how will this work, because as far as I know these people already keep upcoming associates in line through PPO's and internships which makes it very unlikely to get hired simply by applying. And even if they read my CV, how will they know to put me whose team??? (ik except it is for urgent hiring, but that's very uncertain). So do you think this application process works in firms??? PLEASE HELP I AM AT MY WIT'S END.

Not to be curt but if you're this unaware and unfamiliar with the hiring process at this stage, it is highly improbable you'll get directly hired at law firms, especially at T1s.

Of course none of this eill matter of you have a high level connection at one of these firms. But to answer your query, most of these firms usually hire either by giving out a PPO to interns who have usually done atleast two internships with a team in their firm, or by directly recruiting from campuses on Day0. Even if the have a vacancy just before the new crop of associates join, they usually reach out to ex-interns who had good feedbacks from their teams but weren't able to procure a PPO. This is what my experience has been from working in several T1 firms as an intern. Also, directly reaching out to the HR is basically useless for many of the firms, atleast when applying for an internship. Some of them, however, do have the decency to atleast reply and reject your application but that is rare as well. For your practice area, you usually specify the area where you wanna work in when interning.

This is just my personal experience as an almost graduated BO26, maybe someone from previous batch can shed some light on direct hiring process.