Law school questions
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Anonymous
Actually op, it is very hard to get government or public interest legal jobs and is much easier to do so coming from Yale Harvard or Stanford than georgetown or below. |
Anonymous
This is not entirely true. Government is not a concerned with pedigree. Some agencies may care more than others, but many don't care much at all. At my office, we have a ton of attorneys from 4th tier schools. |
Anonymous
It is much, much easier to get a job at a prestigious agency like doj, state, sec, etc, if you come from HYS. I say this as a georgetown grad who thought georgetown was plenty prestigious enough and did not apply to HYS etc due to location. I did not realize how staus conscious law is. Op, go to Gtown or penn. Defn not temple or gw. |
Anonymous
Ps. When I went to my career services office at Gtown and said that I wanted to apply to intern at state, she said, don't bother, they don't take Gtown people. They don't tell you this kind of stuff at admissions days. |
Anonymous
Gtown won't match an offer from GW. They would match an offer from UVA, Duke, NYU, etc, but they don't match offers from schools ranked lower than GW. Andy cornblatt will just tell him to go to GW. |
Anonymous
I meant schools ranked lower than Gtown, not than GW. |
Anonymous
This is correct. I suppose there is no harm in asking, but GT won't give more $$ based on a GW offer. OP, one other possibility is for your husband to transfer after his first year, if he really does well. Many people don't know that transfer admissions are much easier than 1L admissions. |
Anonymous
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I attended GT in the evening while working full-time. It was great-I graduated without any loans. But it was a ton of work.
I had a flexible employer who allowed me to get to class by 5:45 and take off two summers to work at firms. I did not find any snobbery from employers about my part-time status. In fact, I know it helped me get a few offers because they were impressed with my work ethic. But I also was in the top 5 percent of my class. |
Anonymous
Untrue. Unless you're at the very bottom of the class at Georgetown you'll do fine in this regard. Georgetown has a very good track record with government and public interest. |
Anonymous
I actually know someone who got GT to pony up money against a GW offer. I think GW offered something like 150k and GT counter-offered with something like $75k. The person in question went to GT. |
Anonymous
It's nearly impossible to go to State or DOJ right out of law school without a HYS degree. Lots of folks get there indirectly through a lateral move from BigLaw. |
Anonymous
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O&P here. School is essentially free because of the GI bill but living expenses aren't. It's very difficult to live in DC with one incme - add to that having a child not yet old enough for public school and it's almost impossible. If a school gives him some money, it can help offset the cost of the extra childcare we will need if I have to keep working.
I don't know 100% what he wants to do with his degree - he currently works at DHS. I just know he wants to go and if g'town is the better bet if he doesn't get in to Penn, then g'town it is. As for moving elsewhere, as I said - we both have very good jobs and moving someplace where the only income would be GI bill (about $1900/mo) and having no family to help with childcare as we would if he went to Penn, it's a big gamble and not worth it at this point in our lives tbh. Andy Cornblatt handwrote him saying that he hoped he would bring his experience to GT. If he then says go elsewhere, it is what it is! Glad to see so many p/t-ers did well. Hopefully the response from penn is in the mail as we speak!! |
Anonymous
DISAGREE. SOME agencies are not AS concerned with pedigree. But put a YHS grad next to a GWU grad, all other things being equal, they will pick the Ivy league candidate 9 times out of 10 - Main DOJ, SEC, CFPB, USAO are all about pedigree and clerkships - and clerkships are MUCH easier to get if you have pedigree. |
Anonymous
| OP - you may also want to think carefully about what you do during this period. I think one of your earlier posts suggested that you might not work, since your husband will be working and in school. But you've also emphasized that you have no idea what your husband plans to do when he graduates, and he unlikely has the interest in doing big law hours. You should be aware that law school salaries outside of big law are not great. If you go into big law, your starting salary is good, and then you forever have the big law name on your resume - which is helpful for future jobs and salary negotiation. But if you jump right out of law school into a small firm, government, nonprofit, your husband will never make tons of cash. Others can correct me if i'm wrong, but i think the most you make in most government jobs is like $130k. That's forever. Inflation adjusted, of course, but 1% inflation doesn't exactly add up. So just consider whether or not you can afford to quit now and not have a career to fall back on, with that kind of expected household income.... |
Anonymous
lol. I started (reluctantly) at GW. Exceptional LSAT and okay GPA from a non-US school. Killed it in 1L and transferred to Georgetown, since it has a much better reputation. I don't usually volunteer the fact that i transferred, because i know it is a touchy subject for GW people. But when i was a junior associate at big law, we interviewed a top GW candidate. He was straight A+s, award for top grades in his year, and i think was already lined up for a really prestigious clerkship? Lunch was with the candidate and another junior associate, who had also gone to GW. The two of them (rudely) spent lunch talking about GW stuff, and at one point were having a long conversation about a particular professor. When they realized how rudely they were excluding me, the candidate stopped to explain who the professor was. I awkwardly mentioned that he had been my first year property prof before i transferred. Long pause. We went back to talking about other stuff. Ten minutes later in a lull in conversation, the candidate says "do you mind me asking why you transferred?" and proceeded to explain that GW to Georgetown was "essentially a lateral move". I didn't feel like causing a fight (because i am not socially obtuse), so i politely said that i was particularly interested in tax law (an area Georgetown was known for - even though i wasn't actually interested in it) and that i might move back to my home country (not true) and i felt georgetown had better name recognition overseas even if it was not a superior school (I was trying to deflect and end the discussion). The candidate got huffy, again reiterated that it was a lateral move, they are pretty much ranked the same (not true then or now - i think gw was #22 then and georgetown #12), and that his experience in the midwest is that no one has heard of Georgetown and GW has much stronger name recognition. I didn't take the bait and really just kept trying to shut the conversation down. He was so irate and continued spouting angry defenses for another minute or two. So awkward. I called the recruiting committee rep at our firm and explained that he lacked judgment and he did not get an offer. Fast forward 10 years, and i have moved jobs and geographic locations, and despite being only a moderately good lawyer, i have tremendous bargaining power all from the law school name. My last job was into a top-25 big law firm, where i negotiated a good title and a part time schedule in the office of my choice, all from the get go. Every employer has frankly admitted that they got a good vibe off me in the interview and, given my law school background, knew i was a sure thing. None of these places would have even called me if i graduated from GW. |
