Big Bad Law (Cece Xie) (Ep. 414)
Thinking LSAT
Nathan Fox and Ben Olson
4.8 • 868 Ratings
🗓️ 7 August 2023
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Cece Xie is a lawyer, writer, and content creator who became wildly popular on social media while working as an associate at a big law firm. She joins Ben & Nathan to talk about her upcoming book. They discuss why law schools push students toward big law and what it takes to climb the law firm hierarchy.
Follow Cece on Substack, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and her website.
0:00 - Introducing Cece Xie - Ben and Nathan welcome Cece to the show and ask what she’s been up to after leaving her job in big law last year.
8:22 - Cece’s Book - Cece shares some details about her upcoming book: part memoir, part exposé of big law culture.
17:56 - The Big Law Pipeline - Cece describes the mutualistic relationship between law schools and big law recruiting. She warns listeners that career services offices don't have students’ best interests at heart. And neither do law firms.
27:48 - Thriving in Big Law - The skills that make you a good junior associate won’t help you make partner. Cece explains why business development is crucial to advancing your career in big law.
38:38 - Big Law Compensation - Cece breaks down the reality of big law compensation and explains why it’s less stable than many people think.
42:45 - Making Connections - Knowing the law gets you only so far in big law. Cece shares how a successful lawyer forms strategic connections within the firm’s hierarchy. She encourages listeners to schedule face time with lawyers to explore different practice areas.
55:11 - No More Ctrl+F - Starting with the August test, the LSAT will prohibit the use of keyboard commands, including Ctrl+F. Test takers will now have the option to use a search bar in the test interface. Nathan and Ben still don’t recommend using the search function.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to episode 414 of the Thinking Elseat Podcast. |
| 0:07.0 | Ben Olson with me is Nathan Fox. |
| 0:14.0 | We're the co-founder of El-Sat Demon.com |
| 0:16.0 | and the El-Sat Demon Daily Podcast. |
| 0:19.0 | Today we have a special guest, |
| 0:21.0 | uh, C.C. Chee? |
| 0:22.0 | Did I say that right? We have a special guest, C. C. C. C. C. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. Okay. Thanks so much for joining us. |
| 0:30.0 | If you have questions or you want to share news with us, you can do so on our website that's |
| 0:34.3 | thinkingelset.com. Just a quick announcement coming up Wednesday, August 9th at 3 p.m. Pacific, 6 p.m. |
| 0:41.1 | Eastern, we have a pre-test pump up with Chris. You can sign up for that at |
| 0:45.7 | Elsat. link forward slash free. Anything you want to add to that anything? |
| 0:50.1 | No, no, let's talk to C. C. C. You describe yourself as a writer, a lawyer, a content creator, and a lot of other things. |
| 1:01.0 | You got your BA in economics from Yale, your JD from Harvard. You went on to work at a big law law firm. |
| 1:11.7 | Which firm were you at? |
| 1:13.8 | I was at Simpson Thatcher at first, and then Mofo. |
| 1:16.7 | OK, got it. |
| 1:18.4 | And you worked there for some time, right? |
| 1:21.0 | You eventually became a senior associate. it was a sixth year okay and |
| 1:26.2 | and started a tick talk I don't even know what's called is a channel what do they call it maybe just an |
| 1:35.2 | account a Tik-talk account okay yeah well during COVID or something like that right and |
| 1:41.1 | then that took off and your firm was okay with that and |
| 1:46.1 | and then eventually you decided to leave and that's where we are now, right? How long ago was that? Sorry. |
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