Which law school?

[Anonymous]

PP, when did you go to Michigan?

These days, if someone were picking between paying sticker at Michigan or a smiliarly ranked school or a mostly free ride at a really good school like Emory, I would say they were insane or stupid for picking the higher-ranked school at sticker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dealt with a similar situation 20 years ago I had an acceptance at a top 14 law school, and close to a full ride at a school that was somewhere around 25. I sought advice from a person involved in law school higher education. She said to me 'are you ***ing out of your mind, you would be crazy to go to the lower ranked school when you are in to the upper ranked.' I took her advice and have never regretted it.
If I was the type of person who was going to work hard enough to be at the very top of my class at the lower ranked school it might have been worth it, but I knew myself well enough to know that I was not.
You are always better off going to the better law school. This is even more intensely true when they are in the same city.

This was probably good advice to you 20 years ago. Now, you would be nuts to go to the T14 and graduate with ~200k in loan debt.

And keep in mind that there are many Georgetown grads in DC working in doc review and at shitstain firms making peanuts. Job prospects are different these days, and the debt load is vastly different, even taking into account inflation.

[Anonymous]

Putting down law school has become very popular, and law school admissions are declining steadily. So the popular wisdom is "don't apply to law school."



But what that really means is there will be fewer new lawyers three years from now. If demand for legal services doesn't drop as suddenly as the supply of lawyers, it will be a great time to graduate law school.

I have no idea why people are dumping all over Duke. It deserves its top ten spot. I would go there over Emory every day of the week. If you plan on practicing in the south or midatlantic, even more so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dealt with a similar situation 20 years ago I had an acceptance at a top 14 law school, and close to a full ride at a school that was somewhere around 25. I sought advice from a person involved in law school higher education. She said to me 'are you ***ing out of your mind, you would be crazy to go to the lower ranked school when you are in to the upper ranked.' I took her advice and have never regretted it.
If I was the type of person who was going to work hard enough to be at the very top of my class at the lower ranked school it might have been worth it, but I knew myself well enough to know that I was not.
You are always better off going to the better law school. This is even more intensely true when they are in the same city.

I did just the opposite of this PP, against the opinions of others. I have never once regretted MY decision. I had a 3 year full ride and sought out government work when I graduated. My UG school is well-regarded and my class rank in law school was #9. I was offered a job shortly after passing the bar and have loved my work. Having $0 student loans has been a "freeing" and wonderful thing.

That said, similar to the quoted PP, this was 15 years ago. I'm not sure my situation would work anymore, especially since government hiring has changed so much. I'm just offering this as another way to see things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP, when did you go to Michigan?

These days, if someone were picking between paying sticker at Michigan or a smiliarly ranked school or a mostly free ride at a really good school like Emory, I would say they were insane or stupid for picking the higher-ranked school at sticker.

I disagree. Folks coming out of schools like Michigan are getting jobs across the country. You might have the same opportunities as from Emory but I would look seriously at job prospects and at whether you are okay with practicing in Atlanta.

[Anonymous]

Duke offers merit aid too. I would ask if you haven't yet asked.

Are those the only three schools you applied to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Putting down law school has become very popular, and law school admissions are declining steadily. So the popular wisdom is "don't apply to law school."



But what that really means is there will be fewer new lawyers three years from now. If demand for legal services doesn't drop as suddenly as the supply of lawyers, it will be a great time to graduate law school.
I have no idea why people are dumping all over Duke. It deserves its top ten spot. I would go there over Emory every day of the week. If you plan on practicing in the south or midatlantic, even more so.

That is a big "if." The legal employment market sucks right now. I work for the feds and when we advertise a lateral position, we get hundreds of applications for a spot. There are far more JDs looking for jobs than there are jobs. Going into six figures of debt is a big risk, and it's wise to ask yourself what you would do if you graduated with $150K in debt (or more) and no job. Generally, I do think it's better to do to the higher-tier school (if both schools are top ten, the evaluation might be different) because your odds of employment are higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Putting down law school has become very popular, and law school admissions are declining steadily. So the popular wisdom is "don't apply to law school."



But what that really means is there will be fewer new lawyers three years from now. If demand for legal services doesn't drop as suddenly as the supply of lawyers, it will be a great time to graduate law school.

I have no idea why people are dumping all over Duke. It deserves its top ten spot. I would go there over Emory every day of the week. If you plan on practicing in the south or midatlantic, even more so.

The demand is dropping like a rock. Many firms are reporting revenue declines this year. And what demand is out there is at a lower price point with clients demanding discounts. Given the large numbers of under employed recent law grads I think it will take a lot fewer new lawyers just to get to equilibrium, much less get to where there is actually good demand for new lawyers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, when did you go to Michigan?

These days, if someone were picking between paying sticker at Michigan or a smiliarly ranked school or a mostly free ride at a really good school like Emory, I would say they were insane or stupid for picking the higher-ranked school at sticker.

I disagree. Folks coming out of schools like Michigan are getting jobs across the country. You might have the same opportunities as from Emory but I would look seriously at job prospects and at whether you are okay with practicing in Atlanta.

I suspect someone who does very well at Emory is going to be fine getting a job elsewhere in the country. But if that's an issue, you have to ask yourself if having a better shot of landing a job outside of the south is worth six figures plus interest.

Fact is, these days, unless you get into HYS you should choose a free ride at a decent, lower-ranked school every time. Law school is too much of a potential life-ruining choice due to massive debt and awful job prospects even for grads of "elite" schools. Anything you can do to minimize that, you should do.

[Anonymous]

I think you need to look long and hard into the details of the emery scholarship.

Make sure it isn't a teaser scholarship. Make sure it is not linked to your grades or class rank.

Make sure it is guaranteed for two years even if you get terrible grades.

Then you need to ask very hard questions about their job statistics.

And you should also use this to try to get money out of duke.

And if you get into Harvard, Yale, Stanford, absolutely go there do not go to emery over those three.

[Anonymous]

(1) Look into the Emory scholarship -- is it guaranteed no matter your grades or do you have to stay within certain percentiles?
(2) Ask to talk to Emory career services and ask about their 2L and 3L OCR process. Don't just take their statistic that x% of people are employed after graduation because sometimes those stats can be rigged as schools will create "jobs" like research, admissions etc. at $8/hr to show people "employed." Instead schedule a call (or meeting if you can get to ATL) and talk to them about how the process works. Get a list of who recruited at Emory this year -- they should have a master list handy. Then ask how you submit for firms -- can every student submit for every firm and then the firms pick who to interview? Or does the school only submit people in the top x% for each job -- to up the chance of offers?

(3) Go through No. 2 with Duke;

(4) Talk to Duke and tell them your situation -- you'd like to go there but in the face of a 2 yr full tuition scholarship at a school that is in the top 20s, you can't justify it; is there anything they can do. Don't expect a lot. Granted I went to law school when there was a lot of demand so schools didn't have to do a lot, but I think the top 14 are still doing fine. I had a 1st yr full ride at Northwestern, and I tried to use that to negotiate some grant money from Penn -- they basically said 'fine here's 10k' -- which obviously is about 1/5 or less of the cost of the 1st yr. It was a very "take it or leave it" vibe and I know a lot of the t14 has that.

Do you have any sense of what you want to do after law school? If you go to Duke full ride, will you need to be in biglaw and have you calculated for how long? Getting into biglaw is obviously an obstacle, but at my NYC biglaw firm staying in past yr 4 is a challenge too. It used to be that 8 yrs were pretty much "guaranteed" (though partnership wasn't) as long as you weren't a screw-up because attrition would take care of the necessary departures. When there was a downturn in attrition due to lack of jobs, firms affirmatively started kicking people to the curb before they became mid-levels. Think about whether it'll take more than 4 yrs to service your debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the scholarship guaranteed or do you have to maintain a certain class rank?

Very important question.

[Anonymous]

I chose Yale with zero scholarship over Columbia with full scholarship, and have not regretted it once. Yale's loan repayment program is so generous that, as a public interest/gov't lawyer, I have yet to pay a single penny towards my loans and yet somehow they are more than 50% paid off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I chose Yale with zero scholarship over Columbia with full scholarship, and have not regretted it once. Yale's loan repayment program is so generous that, as a public interest/gov't lawyer, I have yet to pay a single penny towards my loans and yet somehow they are more than 50% paid off.

Duh, who wouldn't choose yale?

[Anonymous]

I'm not involved in "big law" recruitment, but I've been practicing law for 15 years in D.C. (went to a top 20 school), and was unaware that Duke was a "top 10" school. So I would agree that it would be not be worthwhile to pay full tuition to go to Duke in lieu of 2/3 tuition paid at another fine school.