<p>lol..of course. Would it be your advice to go to the best school possible, or to the school that is the cheapest, if I want to be a criminal lawyer. I have a perference for school that will leave me no more than 50k in debt, has a strong criminal law clinic and trial advocay program, and not to vocational, I still want a program that utilizes the Socratic method. I feel I could find this at a cheap Tier 2, is that a good idea?</p>
<p>If you are sure that your eventual goal is to be a private practitioner doing non-white collar criminal defense, then yeah, I would just try to stay out of debt. Your clients won't care where you went to law school.</p>
<p>However, it does foreclose some options to go to a 2nd tier school. And some people do change their minds.</p>
<p>You could eventually do case on the federal level also, like conspiracy drug cases, and RICO's etc, coming from a regular law school correct?</p>
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You could eventually do case on the federal level also, like conspiracy drug cases, and RICO's etc, coming from a regular law school correct?
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<p>If somebody is willing to hire you, sure. The thing is, a good portion of federal criminal defense work involves white collar crime. A businessman (or woman) who has been indicted is going to look at your credentials more carefully before hiring you than a run-of-the-mill criminal defendant. I think that if you want to specialize in federal criminal defense, you will always be at a bit of a disadvantage if you are not a former AUSA (Assistant United States Attorney).</p>
<p>JMHO.</p>