<p>I'm planning on going to law school and I'm planning on applying to Harvard, Columbia, Yale and then the University of Miami. The last one's a little out of place compared to the others in terms of ranking but Miami is just so beautiful (much more so than new england IMO). </p>
<p>I think I'm competitive for all of them cause I work really hard and put a lot of effort into classes, however, I would certainly do better, both in terms of GPA and Class rank at Miami simply because the competition will be much less extreme and I'll be surrounded by people who have an average UG GPA of only 3.3 compared to Harvard, Columbia, Yale who will all have 3.9s and be super dedicated. </p>
<p>So lets assume I get into all 4 (which I know is a big assumption.) Would it better to be within the top 5% of Miami or any other Tier 2 law school or better just to be graduating (not dead last but lets say around the 50th percentile) from a super top ivy? Better in terms of salary and job opportunities?</p>
<p>1) Do not correlate your law school performance potential with that law school’s incoming student body’s previous academic credentials. It doesn’t always work that way. Many people attend law schools thinking they will make top 5%, but 95% of them won’t. Also, law school grading and exams are completely different from other types of exams that you were exposed to before, so you can’t know for sure how well you will perform at law school.</p>
<p>2) Much better to be median student at a top 6 law school, than top 10% at tier two law school. A median student at T6 law school stands a very healthy chance at getting an offer from top law firms. A top 10% student from a tier two law school won’t likely to make it to BigLaw, although it is possible if you network aggressively and interview well. However, I’ve known people who are top 10-20% of class from some tier two, and even top 30 law schools who all didn’t get Biglaw jobs. For example, my high school buddy is at George Washington Law (Top 30 law school) as a 2L and his grades at law school were around top 20%. He didn’t receive a single offer from a law firm yet. </p>
<p>Bottom line: in law, where you went to law school makes all the difference in your career. There is a significant drop-off in job placement after top 10-14. Coming from non-top 20 law school, you will be lucky to get a job in this economy</p>
<p>It says on USNWR that 56.1% from Miami are employed at graduation and 82.4% 9 months out, which is about everyone that passed the bar (80% first try for Miami) and the average starting private sector salary is 112,000. What are they doing then? It says they come from 2009 graduating class and that 67% are employed in law firms. Are these stats unreliable?</p>
<p>Also, I might be a little new to the lingo, but does ‘BigLaw’ mean something specific other than any relatively large law firm?</p>
<p>Thank you Quantum for that worthless answer. </p>
<p>Btw another reason I would choose a lower ranked school is because I would be more likely to get merit based aid being at a school with people with lower stats.</p>
<p>And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to go to school for 3 years in a place you enjoy over a place you don’t. Thats not a vacation and my question about being the best from a tier two vs average at a top school is perfect legitimate question. And for many people who can get merit aid at lower schools they would be better off going there over top schools.</p>
<p>What is up with OPs being so overly snarky and rude lately?</p>
<p>The biggest question is why would you go to a school in Tier 2 when you could go to a much much better school? If you could get into Harvard, Columbia and Yale then you could get a full ride at much higher schools than Miami. Florida and Florida State are much better and you could go get your Miami fix on weekends or breaks.</p>
<p>Yes. Those employment statistics are wayyyy off. You do know that there are many lawyers who are trying to sue their alma mater law schools for fooling them about deceptive employment statistics, right? As an example, New York Law School (not NYU) and many other law schools are about to be, or in the middle of, getting sued by their ex-students.</p>
<p>Only way you can break six figures as a fresh law school graduate is to get a big firm job, namely NLJ250 firm jobs. Check out:</p>
<p>I would venture to guess that out of U Miami Law (or even Florida Law), getting a big firm job is almost impossible because less than 5% of their graduates would end up with such jobs.</p>
<p>On the other hand, say you got into Harvard or Columbia Law, you can get a big firm job as long as you know not to drool on yourself when you do the interviews.</p>
<p>Like I said, if you attend a school such as U Miami, forget six figure jobs. You will be lucky to get a JOB. </p>
<p>Lastly, it is ridiculous to choose your law school based on how much you like the city of Miami. Law school is a serious commitment in terms of time and money. You should be worrying about maximizing your returns of investment, i.e. how well each law school would position you for a good job after graduation.</p>
<p>Which is better - being employed at a six figure law firm job with law school debt, or being unemployed with no debt?</p>
<p>If you choose the latter, then yeah it makes sense to go to lower ranked law school with money. However, then why go to law school in the first place? You just wasted 3 years of your life and end up at the same place you could be without that law degree.</p>
<p>First I wanna clear something up. I’m not asking if I should choose Miami over T1 just because its beautiful. That wasn’t what I was considering. My question is about the debt I would get. Since I’m from Miami I could live at home and save ALOT of money, plus get merit aid that I wouldn’t get at the higher schools. And from what I’ve read alot here is that debt is a huge problem for lawyers nowadays so why shouldn’t I avoid it. </p>
<p>Second I was asking about job competitiveness and its seems like your answers are a bit contradictory. According to your link </p>
<p>While around 55% of Harvard grads get biglaw jobs, so do around 10% of Miami get biglaw, I would assume that in both cases these are the top 55/10%. So why wouldn’t I be better off going to a lower school for a much lower cost and getting in the top 5% than going to Harvard, Columbia, Yale at full price and ending up around the 50th mark? Wouldn’t it be about the same in terms of competitiveness?</p>
<p>1) Legal industry got hit hard after 2008. That chart, while useful, was back in 2004, when economy and hiring level at law firms were much better. Nowadays, most big firms simply don’t hire almost anyone from a law school outside top 30 or so, while still hiring heavily from top 10 law schools. In short, schools ranked outside top 14 got hurt much more than T14 law schools. In this economy, I would venture to guess that ~5% of grads of U Miami would end up with NLJ250 type of jobs. Most of grads from U Miami Law would either end up unemployed or barely end up with 35k jobs in insurance defense or personal injury-type of shops.</p>
<p>2) You are discounting clerkship numbers at Harvard Law. Besides Biglaw, as you can see from that chart, around 25% of their grads head to judicial clerkship. A lot of times, judicial clerkships are even more selective than BigLaw and most top law students who head to judicial clerkships had BigLaw offers lined up to begin with. Hence, the approximate percentage of Harvard grads who ended up with BigLaw offers are what you see on that figure + clerkship figures.</p>
<p>3) For BigLaw hiring, hiring is national at T-14 law schools and regional at most law schools that are ranked lower. What that means is that coming out of U Miami Law, you will likely to be restricted to jobs in Miami area. And, Miami isn’t a big market and they don’t have much openings at all, for legit law firms. On the other hand, most of BigLaw jobs are based in NYC. Most of top NYC law firms recruit virtually most of their hires from T-14 law schools, or strong regional schools such as Fordham, Boston College, etc.</p>
<p>4) Trust me, if you attend Miami Law you will regret your decision. Like I said, you will likely to graduate unemployed. Forget six figure jobs. In fact, I wouldn’t attend any law school outside top 30 or so despite full ride offers - considering that those schools aren’t worth my time and opportunity cost.</p>
<p>In the end - law is arguably the field that is most obsessed with the pedigree of your degree. If you go to U Miami Law or equivalent, so much odds are stacked against you from the start. </p>
<p>Lastly, if you have numbers to get into Harvard or Columbia Law, you will likely to get at least half scholarship money from lower T-14 law schools such as Georgetown or Cornell. If you are truly worried about the debt and yet want to break into a lucrative law firm job, you should try to go to lower T14 law with scholarship offers.</p>
<p>Drew-you’ve got wayyy too many variables in the mix. Take the LSAT, knock it out of the park, and your decision will be a lot easier. You didn’t indicate when you were planning on applying. The economy will play a big role in what you decide; for now just concentrate on school. With good grades and a strong LSAT, you’ll have plenty of options.</p>
<p>I think you should apply to some more schools. I’m an undergrad at Miami and would never go to law school here. For undergrad it’s great, but the job prospects coming out of law school here won’t be good, and, quite frankly, the quality of students at the law school here is poor. If you get into Harvard or Yale and choose to attend Miami, you will be so above the caliber of students that classes will be boring and you’ll want to transfer because of an utter lack of intellectual discussion. In undergrad, it’s a different story, but this is my perception of our law students. NY is also a great environment, and Berkeley is also a great environment. Not quite as great as Miami, but for the prestige I would choose it over Miami’s law school.</p>
<p>But for now, let’s wait to get your LSAT results back. :)</p>
<p>For an undergrad, rankinr gives great advice. </p>
<p>Don’t speculate on getting into any t14 schools until you have your GPA and LSAT scores. URM?</p>
<p>Son was at Miami for undergrad. Great school. Not so for law, unless you have connections for internships, etc. or want to go into tax law, as that is what they are known for.</p>
<p>Per son, law school building is not impressive.</p>
<p>Son applied to UM as safety. Went elsewhere. Grad students spend much less time on campus, so overall, pretty campus and nice buildings, including law, are important as are law library and general facilities. You will not get time or have reason to enjoy the pretty campus/pool/lake, etc. in grad/law school.</p>
<p>You are questioning stats of graduates… since you are from Miami, why not make an appt and speak to someone in the dept for more reliable information.</p>
<p>Yes. In law, they call it ‘bimodal salary distribution’. Try to google it and you will see what I am talking about. There are those high paying jobs in six figures (NLJ250) and the rest, most of which will pay you 35-50k starting out. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, in law, there isn’t much of ‘middle ground’ for entry level jobs. You either make it to BigLaw, or likely to end up in either ‘$hit-law’ - such as one of those personal injury, divorce settlement, or insurance defense shops with like 3 lawyers that pay you 35-45k a year, or you end up unemployed.</p>
<p>Where you attend law school is the most important factor in your career in law. Choose and act accordingly, or adjust your expectations. For example, if you do decide to go to U Miami Law, you should put the idea of those six figure, BigLaw jobs to rest, effectively.</p>
<p>Lazykid, thank you again, this has been real helpful. One more question, Here are the stats from US News </p>
<p>Starting Salaries of Graduates Employed Full-time (Class of 2009)</p>
<p>25th percentile private sector starting salary $85,000
Median private sector starting salary $112,000
75th percentile private sector starting salary $140,000
Percent in the private sector who reported salary information 32%</p>
<p>this is from us news, not from the school (or does the school just tell us news this?) </p>
<p>Granted only 32% told salary info, but if these ranges represented 32% of the 2009 class and the 75th percentile of that 32 makes 140,000 wouldn’t that work out to the top 10% or so getting these salaries? And this is from 2009 but it also seems to correlate to that link you posted earlier where about 10% of miami got ‘biglaw’ Am I wrong here?</p>
<p>Oh, or are all these jobs exclusively with tax law which Miami is ranked 5th in? Could this explain it?</p>
<p>Legal employers don’t give a crap that a law school is ranked highly in tax law, or ‘international law’ or whatever. All they care about is law school’s overall ranking and aggregate reputation. </p>
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<p>This kind of chart is misleading. Honestly, you are over-analyzing this stuff, too far.</p>
<p>Look at it objectively. Like I said, in law, salaries are 'bimodal salary distribution". Those who get BigLaw ticket make 160k starting out, and most of other lawyers who didn’t make a cut at BigLaw will make like 35-50k a year starting out, if they are lucky to get jobs at all.</p>
<p>Also, that kind of ‘average salary’ chart doesn’t mean crap and is misleading. Only thing you should be concerned about is how well each law school places its graduates into NLJ250 firm jobs after graduation - that is the most objective and unbiased source of data that should matter in this discussion. </p>
<p>That 85k average starting salary is likely due to the fact that some kids got BigLaw and their high salaries bring the average salaries up to that level. There is virtually no job in law at entry-level that pays 70-80k a year. Like I said, you either make 160k (at Biglaw) or make 40-45k ($hit law) after law school, and there is very few who would end up making anything in-between those two clusters. I seriously encourage you to google “Bimodal salary distribution lawyers” and you will see what I am saying.</p>
<p>Lastly, I don’t want to be a downer, but I am saying all these to help you make a good decision for your future - do not EVER trust the employment statistics of law schools, ESPECIALLY if that law school is ranked outside Top 14. So many law schools are being accused of fudging their employment statistics that some law professors are calling their own law schools ‘disgusting’ and ‘immoral’, for tricking clueless students to attend after taking out 100k+ in loans. Running a law school is a filthy business, and these lower ranked law schools are desperate to attract those clueless students to buy their product for grossly inflated price.</p>
<p>Bottom line - law students from Top 30 schools - such as George Washington, Emory, and Washington U in St Louis - are struggling to get a job in this economy. Not a six figure BigLaw job, but just a job that would allow them to survive. My buddy is top 20% at George Washington Law, but didn’t get any offers from BigLaw. Go figure how terrible things must be at ANY law school ranked outside top 50.</p>
<p>OP, please listen to LazyKid - he is honestly not trying to trick you into making a bad decision. His information is all accurate and paints the true reality of the job market. Another interesting exercise that you might want to perform is to search the top 10 students at the law school you want to go to (law schools sometimes give out awards to these students ex. XYZ scholar and then look them up on linked in)</p>
<p>I did a quick search of my local state law school (close to NYC market) and found that of the top 10, only 1 had an offer from BigLaw (S&C). Not promising.</p>
<p>Thanks for your support. I have a bunch of friends from my high school who are attending, or are planning on attending low-ranked law schools after taking out big loans. They all believe in those employment stats thrown away by these law schools and think they will be fine. It really is a shame, and I feel bad. Although I warned my friends away from making such disastrous decisions, I will say that people are very resistant to hearing anything that they don’t want to hear.</p>
<p>Yeah, the job market in law is absolutely terrible now. However, most BigLaw firms still hire heavily from top 10 law schools. Many BigLaw firms used to hire small portion of their class from top students at lower ranked law schools, but now, many of these BigLaw employers aren’t willing to look at those top kids from low ranked law schools and they aren’t willing to take risk.</p>
<p>In this economy, I would venture to guess that it is almost near impossible to break into BigLaw from non-T30 law school, unless you have engineering / IP-lawyer background.</p>