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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The public or scholarship route works if you want to stay in the region where there are alot of grads at firms from those schools.  It is not a good plan if you mean to move before you are an established practitioner.  For example many firms in DC hire GW grads and they do well in this region  - might not be the case right out of law school if you wanted to go to NE or somewhere on the west coast.  And GW is ranked 25th - same holds even more true the further down the list you go.  you can easily see this by looking at firm websites and searching for lawyers from a particular law school which is usually a filter.[/quote]
The real issue is what happens to those who aren't at the top of their law school class.  At top 10 schools, these folks still do well.  At a top 14 school, only a few at the bottom of the class are locked out of legal employment.  At lower tier schools as much as half to two-thirds of a law school class may never get a job as a lawyer.  Those who are locked out with big loans never ever financially recover from their decision to go to law school.

If you can go to a state school for free or you have parents who can pay, then go ahead and roll the dice and go to a lower tier school.  Maybe you will be at the top of your class and do great.  If you have to take out loans, then it's a much bigger bet on your future.

How do I know?  I had a good friend at my T14 in 2010 who was around the 50th percentile.  He never could find a job as a lawyer, having been locked out of all entry level recruiting tracks.  He was almost $300k in debt.  He ended up becoming a high school teacher and is still trying to have his debt forgiven given the mess of loan forgiveness.  His law degree and loans has been a noose around his neck for more than a decade.  He was one of many during the last recession who never found legal employment.  There's a small window to find a first legal job before hiring parties move on to the next graduating class in the pipeline and you're locked out forever.

OP, don't judge schools based on how their handful of best students do post-graduation.  Look at how those grads who are below the 50th percentile do.  Do they get jobs?  What jobs?  What do those jobs pay?  You can't guarantee your son will be in the top 10-25% of his law school class.  Everyone wants that and it's super competitive.  You can't count on being in the tippy top of your class.  [/quote]

Excellent advice ![/quote]

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