<p>So I just got into Rice University ED (yay me) and have been set on getting into patent law since 10th grade. Im planning to major in Chemical Engineering as it gives me something solid to fall back on its also my next favorite field of study. </p>
<p>Both of my parents work at University of Houston, and one of them is bound to become the chair of a department within the next four years. Knowing the volatile job market for lawyers and the insane student debt law students incur, would it best to aim for UofH law? As far as intellectual property law, its ranked 6th in the nation and costs a ridiculously inexpensive ~27k/yr (almost half of my Rice fee :O).</p>
<p>Assuming that I retain my interest for patent law and score ~170 on my LSAT, what should be my best course of action in terms of tradeoff between financial security and education?
Im still a high schooler so any extraneous advice is also appreciated too!</p>
<p>(My only sibling is in med school and my parents want me to follow his steps, so they arent giving me much advice hehe :P)</p>
<p>1) try to relax and enjoy your college years. don’t think about law school until you are at least a junior in college.</p>
<p>2) I would encourage you take a job after college in engineering or other fields of your interest, say finance or consulting, etc. See if you like those careers first, and if you would like to pursue a career in law still after trying out other career options, then consider going to law school. </p>
<p>3) it would help if you could take an internship at a law firm to see what it is really like to be a lawyer at a firm. many times, people are surprised by the discrepancies between the reality of working for a law firm vs how TV shows portray the work done by lawyers.</p>
<p>4) it is a horrible idea to attend a low ranked law school, such as U of Houston Law. Go T-14, or go ‘strong’ regionals like U Texas, Fordham, BC, BU, UCLA, USC, etc with decent scholarship. Otherwise, law school may not be worth it at all in the first place. To be honest, law school such as U of Houston may not be worth it despite a full ride, after factoring in opportunity cost of three years.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. Your first three points make perfect sense.</p>
<p>As a response to your 4th point, do patent law firms value a school’s overall prestige over its individual specialty? I do realize that UH is ranked 50+ overall, but its patent law program is ranked within top 10 in the nation.
For example, Harvard is ranked 2 in the nation overall, but isn’t in the top 10 for patent law. From a patent law firm’s perspective, why would they hire someone from Harvard over someone who’s probably more qualified from University of Houston?</p>
<p>For law firm recruiting, the rank of law school overall is all that matters. Firms won’t care if such and such law school is ranked #1 in some specialty law area.</p>