<p>I signed up for an early identification program through my school's Office of Minority Affairs for people interested in graduate study and specifically law school. They are holding a mixer tonight to help minority students prepare for law school and get information. Many of the people there will be other minorities who have already earned a JD or are in law school now. </p>
<p>What are the sort of questions which I should be asking that I may not have thought to ask them? It is not clear whether or not they will be from one of the two law schools in Seattle proper (Seattle U or UW) or if there will be a contingent of people from a smattering of other places. I suspect it will be heavy laden with UW students and Seattle U simply due to the proximity. </p>
<p>This is in Seattle at the UW School of Law tonight, March 8th. If you read this later than this evening, please still leave a comment as there will be a series of such mixers and I'm willing to go to more than one.</p>
<p>This assumes you’ll be taking the Washington bar-ask them what the bar passage rate is for their students. The Washington state schools will have this information.</p>
<p>I’d ask them about job prospects, but they may seriously just hand you a pamphlet with those super inflated numbers and not tell you anything real. I’d want them to look at you and be totally honest, but those odds are low.</p>
<p>Maybe as about some of the things addressed on this site already (in case something in locale specific) like BigLaw vs in house, clerk opportunities, etc. There may be not as many law firms around your area, but a lot of businesses or corps who hire their own legal staff or vice-versa. One school have have more exposure to getting law clerk positions for their students (if that’s your kind of thing).</p>
<p>Is this event supposed to help you in determining which school to attend for your law aspirations, or is it supposed to be a support network for minorities?</p>
<p>Oh, in that case, would there be statistics available that reflect the level of minority success at the schools you’re looking into? I know race cannot be held as a factor in academics, but maybe there are some published anonymous surveys? Just a thought. This may reflect how the student body may view minorities - based on competition and all.</p>
<p>You could also ask about alumni networks and if there is a good support structure for minorities or the student body as a whole in law schools (clubs or associations and such).</p>
<p>Can’t think of anything else off the top of my head.</p>
<p>Well, for example, one of the things which is focused on in the presentation and recruitment for Seattle U (USNWR #84) School of Law is it’s diversity and the number of women in it. I know someone who is in it right now but I haven’t seen her in a while, so I guess I can look her up to ask about how the school is, but the job prospects don’t seem to be very promising coming out of that school.</p>
<p>Case-in-point, one of the women who is on the advertising materials for that particular school graduated from her UG at Johns Hopkins and was JD class of 2011. The school says that she is now an “intern” at Amazon. I’m like “wait, you mean that’s putting your best foot forward? Couldn’t someone be an ‘intern’ during the summer during undergrad?” Maybe it’s just me, but I would think that someone with a BA from JHU and a JD should have better outcomes. Especially when that is the person being chosen to advertise your school. </p>
<p>However, she is a URM and, imo, is very attractive. Perhaps they had other reasons for wanting to feature her as a face of their law school. I mean, one of the girls from Tyra Banks’ “America’s Next Top Model” is a student at Seattle U Law right now, so maybe they’ll use her in advertising regardless of employment outcome.</p>
<p>This is the second-best law school in the region and they offer a 4 year night school for a JD, which would significantly lower the opportunity costs associated with attending. That’s why I would have considered it to begin with. But after this latest round of information, I’m not so sure.</p>
<p>I don’t know (exactly) what I want to do with my life, but part of me has been drawn to wanting to help people and I know that there are many situations where the poor and helpless are hurt just because they don’t have a lawyer who is capable of putting the kibosh on something done against them by government or big businesses. I think it would be really awesome to be able to help people, but you have to make $$ to pay back those loans…</p>
<p>"Case-in-point, one of the women who is on the advertising materials for that particular school graduated from her UG at Johns Hopkins and was JD class of 2011. The school says that she is now an “intern” at Amazon. I’m like “wait, you mean that’s putting your best foot forward? Couldn’t someone be an ‘intern’ during the summer during undergrad?” Maybe it’s just me, but I would think that someone with a BA from JHU and a JD should have better outcomes. Especially when that is the person being chosen to advertise your school. </p>
<p>However, she is a URM and, imo, is very attractive. Perhaps they had other reasons for wanting to feature her as a face of their law school. I mean, one of the girls from Tyra Banks’ “America’s Next Top Model” is a student at Seattle U Law right now, so maybe they’ll use her in advertising regardless of employment outcome."</p>
<p>I’d say those are probably exactly the reasons she was used. Remember, most likely the first priority for ANY school is to make money because they could not operate otherwise. I’m suprised they didn’t just lie to you and say she was working at BigLaw somewhere. At least that’s some good news.</p>
<p>“I don’t know (exactly) what I want to do with my life, but part of me has been drawn to wanting to help people and I know that there are many situations where the poor and helpless are hurt just because they don’t have a lawyer who is capable of putting the kibosh on something done against them by government or big businesses. I think it would be really awesome to be able to help people, but you have to make $$ to pay back those loans…”</p>
<p>This made me think - maybe you don’t need to be a lawyer to accomplish something like this? Maybe you could get a more flexible (both employment-wise and financially) MBA and start a non-profit where you have a team of lawyers who you can assign to pro-bono or low pay rightous cases just like that? Similar philathropic businesses and groups may donate hefty contributions to pay for the lawyers’ salaries for the year and other business costs. Just a thought, so you’d have to do some more specific research as actually getting to that point may be quite a ways away.</p>
<p>Ugh, still can’t think of any questions regarding minorities (I’m not a minority myself).</p>
<p>My desire to help society and contribute something valuable is not limited to wanting to help URM. I think it is important, though, for a society to effectively use it’s human capital to be able to be successful (here comes my inner economist). For example, Saudi Arabia dramatically underutilizes half of its population. If the USA were able to change some things to make more effective use of it’s disadvantaged and poor, then the society would work better for everyone.</p>
<p>I’ve reached out to the McNair (minority grad school) people, as well as to the Cleo (minority law school) people and I’m going to contact the Ph.D Project (minority business school) people soon. There are a variety of ways I am thinking of going with my life. I appreciate you sharing an idea in that vein. An MPA could accomplish what you describe as well.</p>
<p>Part of me also thinks it’s (intellectually) very sexy to be that Perry Mason or Matlock or Sam Waterston (yes, I hung out with my grandparents a lot as a child) who is conducting himself as a trial lawyer. In a mock trial I once got the Wicked Stepmother acquitted and Cinderella arrested for perjury by conflicting statements. It was pretty awesome.</p>