Reply to Law School

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Law School"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Exlawdean][quote=Anonymous]It is not necessary to attend and graduate from a Top 14 law school in order to be a successful attorney. The two most important questions regarding which law school to attend is COA/affordability and geographic preference for one's career.

For those who want to live & work in a major US city after law school, then graduating from a Top 14 law school is important for both serious consideration by the nation's most elite law firms and for geographic mobility among major US cities.

For those who are not targeting biglaw law firms or practicing in a major US city in a large law firm, then local or state public flagship law schools are fine due to location and to affordability/low cost of attendance.

Attending a Top 14 law school often requires the student to assume a significant amount of student loan debt which almost necessitates employment in biglaw for several years in order to pay off the substantial student loan debt.

[/quote]

[i]I want to emphasize some of the points in this post, almost all of which are right. Schools outside of the T14 can often place well into top law firms that are in their geographic area. Thus, both UCLA and USC place well into top law firms in Los Angeles and Orange counties. But neither of them places all that well into areas far from Los Angeles. On the other hand, if someone attends Columbia or NYU, they will place very well into top New York firms, and will also place well into Los Angeles area firms. The higher up in the rankings one goes, the greater the ease of geographic mobility. These issues also implicate one's ability to get top public interest jobs. If one looks, for example, at the lawyers for the Natural Resources Defense Council, you will find that they are populated mainly by Yale and Harvard grads, with a smattering of other T8 graduates.

I also agree that an applicant must make a tradeoff between cost of attending school and the professional opportunities and flexibility later on. These are personal decisions, and it is difficult comment beyond that. [/i][/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics