So is law school worth it or not?

[CTGuy]

BTW-- I've run into plenty of successful people who went to a smallish and possibly even unaccredited school. University of Bridgeport used to have a law school which is now at Quinnapiac University in CT. That being said-- the two people I know have never practiced law a day in their lives. One is a politician with family money in several large businesses and the other started a trucking company. In those cases maybe the law degree helped them, maybe not.

 

[Bradford]

Just throwing it out there as no one has mentioned it, but the University of Michigan Law School is generally considered up there with Harvard/Yale, etc. Stanford is also a top-notch school.

 

[yerfdog]

Originally Posted by M Stanfield

Haha thanks, I thought about B-school but came to the conclusion that it's not right for me. I shouldn't have made it sound like all I want to do is stack money; the work really does sound interesting to me. It's funny that you mention finance, as the kind of law I'd want to practice would be in the financial field. I'm currently researching how many JDs end up working for investment banks instead of the much vaunted BigLaw. Sorry to hear about the job prospects man. Are you being sarcastic when you say you have a terrible personality, or is that seriously why you think you're not getting any offers? And what pre-law experience do you think is necessary?
Others, maybe mafoofan, would know more about the JD to finance in-house path, but I can say that most of the type of work you are describing takes place at big firms, except for a relatively small number of boutique firms that still aren't doing the major transactions. There are also the various lawyer-heavy federal agencies that regulate the markets that are involved to some degree in many transactions. But I strongly agree with the previous posters, if you really want to just work on business/finance transactions, skip law school (for now at least). I think it would definitely help you that you have even a year of work experience in the financial field and a relevant undergrad degree, not to mention that you have a focused idea what you want to do already. Of course you could get to law school and change your mind about your interests... I'm not good at focusing on any one thing so I had trouble figuring out where I wanted to be aiming. I don't have an actually terrible personality (I hope), I'm just a bad speaker and networker, and I'd never held a career-type job before law school, so I've had a hard time figuring out how to stand out in a good way. edit: if you are in Texas, UT-Austin is plenty good enough to get you into BigLaw in Texas if you do remotely well. I am not familiar with that market so I don't know if it's well-known enough to easily get you into the top of the NY legal market where most of the investment banking work takes place. If you get mostly A's (say, 3.8+ GPA) at any Top 20 school that should be enough to get you into almost any firm in the country, but it's also really hard to do that, and there are no guarantees.

 

[M Stanfield]

Great advice everyone! I should say that getting into BigLaw is not my sole objective; aren't there plenty of lawyers that simply go to work for companies as part of their in-house counsel? I'm sure they're not driving Bentleys, just as I'm sure they're compensated enough to live pretty comfortably.

The way some people make it sound, any law school ranked #15 and below are rip-offs, which I don't buy at all. I'd love to make it into Harvard Law and become a big baller in NYC, but I'd also wouldn't mind getting into University of Texas Law School (a presitigous state-school from what I've gathered) and working in Dallas.

In any event, I have enough to mull over while I study these logic games! For what it's worth, my undergrad GPA (BS economics from UT Dallas--not so hot, I realize) was 3.8 (3.796 but I round up

), and I am fairly confident I have the chops to swing at least a 160 and probably hit near the low 170's without too much trouble. I'm studying the PowerScore Bibles at the moment and won't be taking the LSAT until October (maybe December depending on how ready I'm feeling).

Thanks again!

 

[yerfdog]

Take it in October, that way you can get your applications out sooner. That may give you an advantage at some of your stretch schools (unless that is an old wives' tale). And you won't gain much of an advantage by studying an extra 2 months.

I took it in December because I forgot to sign up by the October deadline. I don't think it really hurt my score but it was too long for me to stay focused on it. My GPA was similar to yours, from a lower ranked UC school in a liberal arts major, and I did get accepted to 2 T14 schools and waitlisted at another 3. My LSAT/GPA would have put me around the 25th percentile or lower at the top 5-6 schools, so I didn't bother applying because I figured they wouldn't give me a scholarship even if they did accept me, which I would have needed at their tuition levels. If you are willing to take on more debt or make a cross-country move you might get lucky even with an LSAT score that's not quite there.

In hindsight.... If I wanted to reduce my risk of not coming out of school with a job in hand I might have been better served by just staying on every wait list as long as possible to try to scrape my way into as high ranked a school as possible. On the other hand, I don't have that much debt, so I'm not going bankrupt if I have to do temp document review for a while.

 

[RJman]

I believe UT Austin and U Michigan are regarded as top-tier law schools.

The new US News rankings are out. They are still crap.

 

[TheFoo]

Originally Posted by RJman

I believe UT Austin and U Michigan are regarded as top-tier law schools.

The new US News rankings are out. They are still crap.

When I was applying, the top 6 were represented by the acroynym HYSCCN: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, NYU. I know, Harvard hasn't been ranked #1 in US News in a loooong time, if ever--but there it is. I think those six maintain some level of distinction from the other schools in the top 14 because of their faculty publication rates and their students' success at getting Supreme Court clerkships and academic jobs. As far as I know, even in not-so-good economies, students from these schools were virtually guaranteed employment by graduation.

If you got into Yale, it was a no-brainer. Harvard v. Stanford was a toss-up, depending on individual preferences. You might choose Chicago or Columbia over Harvard and Stanford, depending on money and career interests (Chicago has a better placement rate than Harvard for SCOTUS clerkships, for example). NYU was viewed as the new kid on the block and marginally less prestigious, even though it technically out-ranked Chicago in US News. NYU also outranks Columbia now. Yet, I don't think anyone seriously believes NYU carries more prestige than either of the C's. This shows in NYU's lower success in getting its students clerkships and professorial gigs.

Thus, the big controversy was choosing between C, C, and N. I think this is still the case now. U. Penn is a fantastic school, but I don't think people should simply rely on US News in thinking it is up there with those three.

 

[RJman]

I think we've veered off the original topic.

I'll say, as I've indicated before, that once one gets past a historical trinity of top law schools (Y,S,H) there's little point in trying to perform some sort of boolean ranking of top schools. If I really cared, I'd point out that my alma mater outranked Chicago in the specious US News rankings this year and that Chicago and NYU were much easier to get into than my alma mater, but I really don't care.

 

[aybojs]

Originally Posted by CTGuy

too many people go to law school thinking it's a way of avoiding paying your dues and going automatically to the big time by spending an extra couple years in school.

This needs to be emphasized in every law school thread. I can't count how many friends and acquaintances I've watched fail or get impatient at pursuing their chosen paths, be it in the job market or academia, and suddenly discover a few years into said path that they've had this latent ambition to practice law all their lives. Between those people and the ones that hop into law school straight out of undergrad to hide from the job market for three more years, it does seem like law school acts as a refuge for the damned just as much as it does a training ground for students with a bona fide interest in law.

Originally Posted by RJman

I think we've veered off the original topic.

I'll say, as I've indicated before, that once one gets past a historical trinity of top law schools (Y,S,H) there's little point in trying to perform some sort of boolean ranking of top schools. If I really cared, I'd point out that my alma mater outranked Chicago in the specious US News rankings this year and that Chicago and NYU were much easier to get into than my alma mater, but I really don't care.

While your apathy towards rankings is somewhat understandable, it isn't shared by everyone else. Nobody's taking your repeatedly maligned US News rankings as gospel, and nobody's saying that rankings directly correlate to the quality of education or employment opportunities offered by the various schools.

But would-be students certainly pay attention to rankings when deciding where to apply, and employers almost certainly consider the ranking of one's alma mater one of the many relevant variables in making hiring decisions. And with that premise in mind, there is a well-established consensus on what the two tiers of top schools are. As mafoofan mentioned, HYS and CCN are common abbreviations among law students and law applicants for a reason. It gets a little fuzzy rounding out the next two tiers, but when I applied, I tended to hear schools like Penn, Michigan, Berkeley, and Virginia consistently being mentioned above the rest of the ~T14 (your Dukes and your Georgetowns, etc.), which in turn, was set above the rest of the more general tier one pack. Point is, people do pay attention do these rankings and have relevant, albeit not thoroughly correct, reasons for doing so.

 

[RJman]

I think you misunderstand me. I think that there are tiers of law schools, albeit not in the strict order that US News has them. I never heard that CCN were formally regarded as being in a class apart just after the holy trinity, although they certainly were very well respected and likely viewed as somewhat better than the Penns and Dukes. I think I've taken as implicit all along that potential employers are going to be paying attention to the school one attends, and most prestigious or large firms, at least, will only send interviewers to schools in the amorphous top tier (by which I mean the top 15 or so law schools) and to schools in their local area.

Once out of that set of 15 or so top schools, I think it's much harder to get the job you want.

One thing I find particularly objectionable in the rankings wars are the breakdowns ranking schools by specialty. Maybe these rankings are self-fulfilling, but I would not recommend someone looking to become a great legal writer to go to "Stetson University", ranked #1 this year by US News in the field of "legal writing", for the simple reason that the hierarchy of law school tiers still applies, and someone who goes to Stetson might find him or herself struggling to get the professional experience he or she needs in order further to develop legal writing skills because of that -- and your legal writing skills (need to) develop a lot more once you leave law school.

 

[aybojs]

Originally Posted by RJman

I think you misunderstand me. I think that there are tiers of law schools, albeit not in the strict order that US News has them. I never heard that CCN were formally regarded as being in a class apart just after the holy trinity, although they certainly were very well respected and likely viewed as somewhat better than the Penns and Dukes. I think I've taken as implicit all along that potential employers are going to be paying attention to the school one attends, and most prestigious or large firms, at least, will only send interviewers to schools in the amorphous top tier (by which I mean the top 15 or so law schools) and to schools in their local area.

Once out of that set of 15 or so top schools, I think it's much harder to get the job you want.

One thing I find particularly objectionable in the rankings wars are the breakdowns ranking schools by specialty. Maybe these rankings are self-fulfilling, but I would not recommend someone looking to become a great legal writer to go to "Stetson University", ranked #1 this year by US News in the field of "legal writing", for the simple reason that the hierarchy of law school tiers still applies, and someone who goes to Stetson might find him or herself struggling to get the professional experience he or she needs in order further to develop legal writing skills because of that -- and your legal writing skills (need to) develop a lot more once you leave law school.

Fair enough. I assume the CCN thing probably gets far more attention on the pre-law end (applicants, admissions counselors) rather than the post-JD one (employers), but I've heard it mentioned again and again from people on both ends ever since I first did my own law school application 4 years back. So I think it's one of those things where some degree of truth is created if there is enough public perception that way. I think we're on the same page, though I don't necessarily share your disdain for US News and its ilk, if only because I find the rankings interesting to analyze and somewhat useful if not taken too seriously.

I definitely agree with you on the specialty rankings section. A lot of them come across as booby prizes for people who can't get into the top schools and want to feel good about settling. I was always interested in dispute resolution during my applicant days but somehow doubt that I should have set my sights on Pepperdine over Harvard or turned down a state school admission to go to Hamline University, because, by gosh, that's what the subject rankings tell me to do. For anyone with some idea, is there any reason those random results come about?

 

[TheFoo]

The problem with the US News rankings is that they don't inform applicants of historical norms, which are far more determinative when it comes to the value of a degree from a particular school than any year-specific 'rank'. The relatively recent ascendency of NYU and current ascendency of U. Penn are indicative of this. I bet Michigan performs at least as well in the job market as U. Penn and maybe as well as NYU since it was historically one of the true greats.

Still, the 'Top 6' in the US News ranking, which included HYSCCN, has been extremely stable for years. That's why it was quite a shock to see U. Penn oust Chicago this year. Maybe Chicago is in the midst of a long-term decline, but any current applicant would be silly to pick Penn over Chicago, Columbia, or NYU--all else being equal, of course.

The Top 14 has been just as stable for just as long, with no schools moving in or out of it. But RJMan is right: HYS appear to be sacrosanct, with Stanford and Harvard shuffling spots every now and then.

At the end, I don't mind the US News rankings so much. You just have to take them for what they're worth. The only problem is that they are not more transparent about their methodology--and, I agree, the specialty rankings are truly useless (nobody should pick a school based on these).

 

[RJman]

Originally Posted by mafoofan

Still, the 'Top 6' in the US News ranking, which included HYSCCN, has been extremely stable for years. That's why it was quite a shock to see U. Penn oust Chicago this year. Maybe Chicago is in the midst of a long-term decline, but any current applicant would be silly to pick Penn over Chicago, Columbia, or NYU--all else being equal, of course. .
The US News crap-fest currently on sale didn't have Penn in the No. 6 spot, although Chicago was still in No. 7.

 

[TheFoo]

Originally Posted by RJman

The US News crap-fest currently on sale didn't have Penn in the No. 6 spot, although Chicago was still in No. 7.

Is Penn tied with Chicago for 7 then?

 

[Eustace Tilley]

Originally Posted by RJman

If I really cared, I'd point out that my alma mater outranked Chicago in the specious US News rankings this year and that Chicago and NYU were much easier to get into than my alma mater, but I really don't care.

You must really not care given that you just pointed it out