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Law Schools - Where and Why? - Page 2

post #16 of 418
11/3/11 at 4:41pm
Where?:

1a. The highest ranked
1b. The least expensive

Why?:

1a: Because you want a job
1b. Because you don't want to be in debt for the rest of your adult life.
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post #17 of 418
11/3/11 at 4:53pm
^^^

Good points. Graduate level education in the US is very expensive but top schools' degrees virtually guarantee your employ. Also, something not to overlook is the amount of stipend, grants, etc one can get. Top schools (Harvard is one of them) actually forgive portion of your tuition if you agree to work in the non-profit area for a period of time (post graduation).

I'd say go for the best you can get (based on your grades, LSATs, recommendations) because even though they can be expensive the payback time is the shortest once you land a good job.

On the other hand there's a coming glut of law graduates so....
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post #18 of 418
11/3/11 at 5:02pm
GPA does not hold much weight. It's about the lsat, which has a questionable correlation to law school success.


Quote:
Originally Posted by ConcernedParent View Post

I realize this question is vague and answers vary considerably from person to person, but given the current job market (and the forecasted job market in the next 4-8 years) how plausible is it to land a relatively high paying job ($75k+) for the average student at either a t14 or a school close to t14 in its own region (say UCLA for Socal or UTexas-Austin for Texas)?

I'm not completely sold on being a lawyer but I'm highly considering it given my positive experiences with both interning and talking to attorneys. Assuming I am able to gain admission into these schools (I'm a junior with a gpa around a 3.9, I anticipate somewhere between 3.7-3.9 by graduation; fairly decent standardized test taker) and assuming my parents will help me finance tuition cost so I can attend the best school possible... All this DOOOOOOOOOOOOM talk makes me question, is it worth going to law school, even though my circumstance is a bit different from the majority of lawschool hopefuls.
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post #19 of 418
11/3/11 at 6:02pm
Although pretty much every field of employment sucks right now, law really sucks. It sucks unbelievably. It sucks so hard that Georgetown grads are stuck doing doc review in windowless basements for 20 bucks an hour with no hope of being picked up as an associate. I'm not kidding about this.

There is an enormous supply of new lawyers coming out of American law schools every year and not nearly enough jobs for everyone. Unless you're going to a top &14 law school with good scholarship money (unless it's HYS), I would think long and hard about it.

Go read about about Emory's 2011 class. Not pretty.
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post #20 of 418
11/3/11 at 6:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord-Barrington View Post

Although pretty much every field of employment sucks right now, law really sucks. It sucks unbelievably. It sucks so hard that Georgetown grads are stuck doing doc review in windowless basements for 20 bucks an hour with no hope of being picked up as an associate. I'm not kidding about this.
There is an enormous supply of new lawyers coming out of American law schools every year and not nearly enough jobs for everyone. Unless you're going to a top &14 law school with good scholarship money (unless it's HYS), I would think long and hard about it.
Go read about about Emory's 2011 class. Not pretty.

Listen to this man, he knows. I wouldn't attend a school that's not T14 + UT, UCLA, Vandy and maybe BU at all, unless you're going completely free and don't mind losing 3 years of your life and possibly ending up unemployed. As LB said, look at Emory, look at Notre Dame, look at other schools in that range. These are fairly prestigious schools that are getting destroyed in this economy. There is a HUGE dropoff in hiring outside of the Top 17 or so, just look at the difference in employment statistics between Wash U or GW and Vanderbilt or Georgetown to get an idea at how big of a difference there is. There's no way I would attend a school outside the Top 6 at full price, and even that's a risk, at NYU for example a decent chunk of the class is having trouble finding jobs at the latest OCI.

Also, check out www.lawschooltransparency.com for some more accurate employment stats. They're not perfect, but they're much better than the stats reported by US News.
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post #21 of 418
11/3/11 at 6:46pm
lol at only attending top 6.
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post #22 of 418
11/3/11 at 6:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sns23 View Post

lol at only attending top 6.

At full price. Read more carefully.
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post #23 of 418
11/3/11 at 6:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sns23 View Post

GPA does not hold much weight. It's about the lsat, which has a questionable correlation to law school success.

I disagree. I didn't know anyone that didn't have stellar grades and 90+ percentile tests at the top schools (Law and Business) I was at.

The LSAT may not be predictor of success IN law school but a high score sure as heck is a must to get in.
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post #24 of 418
11/3/11 at 6:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sns23 View Post

lol at only attending top 6.

I'd probably only attend a t6 at full price. You have to understand that full price for law school can easily hit 160k or more for three years, which basically means you have to land a market paying job afterwards to hope to repay your loans. A lot of schools towards the bottom of the t14 can't guarantee that anymore.
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post #25 of 418
11/3/11 at 6:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ebichuman View Post

I disagree. I didn't know anyone that didn't have stellar grades and 90+ percentile tests at the top schools (Law and Business) I was at.
The LSAT may not be predictor of success IN law school but a high score sure as heck is a must to get in.

Not to mention that the LSAT has more predictive value in terms of first year law school grades than any other quantifiable factor a law student may bring to the table, including GPA.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1184302
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post #26 of 418
11/3/11 at 11:32pm
So glad I helped talk my brother out of law school, he dropped out after his 1L year from a low ranked school, and is now going into a completely different field. Think I saved him 2 years of his life and thousands of loan dollars.

Do the right thing and go into the medical field OP. Same amount of studying, but at least you'll have a bigger chance of getting hired somewhere with more money lol
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post #27 of 418
11/3/11 at 11:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sns23 View Post

GPA does not hold much weight. It's about the lsat, which has a questionable correlation to law school success.
Quote:
Originally Posted by silvere2 View Post

Not to mention that the LSAT has more predictive value in terms of first year law school grades than any other quantifiable factor a law student may bring to the table, including GPA.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1184302

I'm talking strictly about getting in. All sources indicate GPA along with LSAT= in.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord-Barrington View Post

Although pretty much every field of employment sucks right now, law really sucks. It sucks unbelievably. It sucks so hard that Georgetown grads are stuck doing doc review in windowless basements for 20 bucks an hour with no hope of being picked up as an associate. I'm not kidding about this.
There is an enormous supply of new lawyers coming out of American law schools every year and not nearly enough jobs for everyone. Unless you're going to a top &14 law school with good scholarship money (unless it's HYS), I would think long and hard about it.
Go read about about Emory's 2011 class. Not pretty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by silvere2 View Post

Listen to this man, he knows. I wouldn't attend a school that's not T14 + UT, UCLA, Vandy and maybe BU at all, unless you're going completely free and don't mind losing 3 years of your life and possibly ending up unemployed. As LB said, look at Emory, look at Notre Dame, look at other schools in that range. These are fairly prestigious schools that are getting destroyed in this economy. There is a HUGE dropoff in hiring outside of the Top 17 or so, just look at the difference in employment statistics between Wash U or GW and Vanderbilt or Georgetown to get an idea at how big of a difference there is. There's no way I would attend a school outside the Top 6 at full price, and even that's a risk, at NYU for example a decent chunk of the class is having trouble finding jobs at the latest OCI.
Also, check out www.lawschooltransparency.com for some more accurate employment stats. They're not perfect, but they're much better than the stats reported by US News.

ffffuuuu.gif. I'm fairly confident I will get in somewhere in the t14+UCLA, given that my work habits don't significantly taper off towards graduation or while studying for the LSAT. Money isn't really that big of a deal to me because I've been spoiled silly with a fortunate situation. I'm mostly worried about the bloodbath it is for newly grads; is it really that bad for a t14+UCLA grad (lets count UCLA since, Los Angeles is one place I know for sure I wouldn't mind living/practicing in)? The anecdote about Gtown grads I hope is more of a hyperbolic exception than the norm.

This along with the fact that, lets face it, I'm going to graduate with an impractical humanities degree. Though I have nearly as much of a quantitative background as business admin or econ majors, a good gpa and I attend a good school ("great" here on the left coast), it's going to be hard to convince employers that I can do anything besides HR monkey work. I feel backed into a corner and unsure what to do. I've been told all my life that getting into a good college was the "ticket", then when I got here I was told getting into a good grad program was the "ticket"- now that that's beginning to line up, my naivety is starting to realize that not only are there no free lunches, but shit is brutal even towards the top. needmoarprozac.
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post #28 of 418
11/4/11 at 4:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ebichuman View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by sns23 View Post

GPA does not hold much weight. It's about the lsat, which has a questionable correlation to law school success.

I disagree. I didn't know anyone that didn't have stellar grades and 90+ percentile tests at the top schools (Law and Business) I was at.

The LSAT may not be predictor of success IN law school but a high score sure as heck is a must to get in.


Of course you need both high grades and a high test score to get into the top schools. I was attempting to say that don't expect to get into a good school just because you have a high gpa. I have a friend who got into a top 20 with a sub 3.0
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post #29 of 418
11/4/11 at 4:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ConcernedParent View Post

I'm talking strictly about getting in. All sources indicate GPA along with LSAT= in.
ffffuuuu.gif. I'm fairly confident I will get in somewhere in the t14+UCLA, given that my work habits don't significantly taper off towards graduation or while studying for the LSAT. Money isn't really that big of a deal to me because I've been spoiled silly with a fortunate situation. I'm mostly worried about the bloodbath it is for newly grads; is it really that bad for a t14+UCLA grad (lets count UCLA since, Los Angeles is one place I know for sure I wouldn't mind living/practicing in)? The anecdote about Gtown grads I hope is more of a hyperbolic exception than the norm.
This along with the fact that, lets face it, I'm going to graduate with an impractical humanities degree. Though I have nearly as much of a quantitative background as business admin or econ majors, a good gpa and I attend a good school ("great" here on the left coast), it's going to be hard to convince employers that I can do anything besides HR monkey work. I feel backed into a corner and unsure what to do. I've been told all my life that getting into a good college was the "ticket", then when I got here I was told getting into a good grad program was the "ticket"- now that that's beginning to line up, my naivety is starting to realize that not only are there no free lunches, but shit is brutal even towards the top. needmoarprozac.

From what I hear, it really is that bad for just about everyone.

Again, a lot of it depends on what you want to do with the degree. If you want to practice, find a practice area that's typically in demand and won't be as susceptible to the technology revolution (ex. domestic relations). But don't think that any school guarantees you a Big Law job.

Use your alumni contacts. Obviously, not a guarantee, but most are usually happy to talk with you, and who knows where it leads. Similarly, take internships, especially if you can get credit (yeah, it sucks to pay to work, but it's usually one less test you have to take).

Make it out of the first year within the Top 25% of your class, and hopefully better.
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post #30 of 418
11/4/11 at 5:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ConcernedParent View Post

I'm talking strictly about getting in. All sources indicate GPA along with LSAT= in.
ffffuuuu.gif. I'm fairly confident I will get in somewhere in the t14+UCLA, given that my work habits don't significantly taper off towards graduation or while studying for the LSAT. Money isn't really that big of a deal to me because I've been spoiled silly with a fortunate situation. I'm mostly worried about the bloodbath it is for newly grads; is it really that bad for a t14+UCLA grad (lets count UCLA since, Los Angeles is one place I know for sure I wouldn't mind living/practicing in)? The anecdote about Gtown grads I hope is more of a hyperbolic exception than the norm.
This along with the fact that, lets face it, I'm going to graduate with an impractical humanities degree. Though I have nearly as much of a quantitative background as business admin or econ majors, a good gpa and I attend a good school ("great" here on the left coast), it's going to be hard to convince employers that I can do anything besides HR monkey work. I feel backed into a corner and unsure what to do. I've been told all my life that getting into a good college was the "ticket", then when I got here I was told getting into a good grad program was the "ticket"- now that that's beginning to line up, my naivety is starting to realize that not only are there no free lunches, but shit is brutal even towards the top. needmoarprozac.

Ok, then I think this is a good question to ask before giving more advice: Where do you most want to live, where would you not mind living, and where (if anywhere, usually people say midwest, or the south) do you absolutely NOT want to live?
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