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<p>Last year, my son was offered $$$ at Duke with lower numbers…</p>
<p>I wasnt sure because the LSAC website says, when you send in your scores to the school, the school receives all your scores and may only accept your original score.</p>
<p>^^doesn’t matter. Law Schools have seen a massive drop in applications. The high testers are finding other things to do with their lives. Thus, a 17x is under high demand by law schools – all of which are trying to hold their medians. High GPA’s are a dime-a-dozen, so a high LSAT is worth money to law schools – and to you.</p>
<p>@bluebayou Makes sense. Thx for the feedback! :D</p>
<p>As for the original question, if I were to not go to a t14 school, and we say i go to a t15-30 school, what do you think would be my chances of getting a job within a year of graduating? Obviously aware, that kinda eliminates any chance at big law firms but smaller one’s.</p>
<p>You don’t have to guess. Go [url=<a href=“http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/]look[/url”>http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/]look[/url</a>] for yourself. It depends greatly on where in the T15-30 you go and how well you do.</p>
<p>@Demosthenes49 Really surprising seeing such little diversity in schools among Georgia. I really thought it would have a stronger presence of t14 schools being employed down here considering its the business center of the southeast.</p>
<p>Would y’all guess that’s due to lack of applicants or Georgia recruiters only go to Georgia universities? The biggest surprise is vanderbilt not being listed considering its rather close.</p>
<p>It’s a combination of people with ties to Georgia tending to be at Georgia schools and people able to get into the better schools wanting to go elsewhere. If you have the Georgia ties you could definitely get a T14 education before going back to Georgia. If you go to school in Georgia you’ll more likely end up there if you get employed, but your employment chances are much lower.</p>
<p>Not sure if you answered this and I’m just not reading your reply correctly but are you suggesting to go to a T14 school or go to a Georgia school to find employment in Georgia? Not sure if you are saying going to school in georgia results in lower employment chance or if looking for a job in georgia (even with t14 education) results in lower employment.</p>
<p>The big firms in Georgia are going to hire a few clerks from Georgia law schools and then a few of those will become associates. Many many many more students from GA schools will be hired by the DA’s offices, the state, smaller firm. All the Tier-1 schools are still graduating lawyers and those lawyers are getting jobs. If you go to UGA, you are more likely to get a job in GA, but if you are first in your class, you could get a job on Wall Street or for a corporation. What do you want? Where do you want to live?</p>
<p>I’ve worked in a few corporations, a few small firms, state and federal government. Most of the lawyers went to school in whatever city I was in. For the federal government, people came from every law school you can imagine, from Harvard to unaccredited schools. In my last job we had two interns from the unranked law school in the next building and both were pretty good.</p>
<p>@Noteworthy: It depends on what is more important to you, being a lawyer or being in Georgia. If you just want to be in Georgia, then going to school in Georgia is very valuable. Not only will you be there during school, but you’ll have the opportunity to intern/extern/clerk at various firms in Georgia. Your chances of being unemployed will be greater, but you’ll be more likely to (if you are employed) be employed in Georgia. If you go to a T14, you’ll more likely end up as a lawyer. It will be harder for you to do small firm stuff in Georgia though, on account of you being somewhere else. You’ll have a much better time getting into the better Georgia firms however, and you’ll be able to sell your degree to other markets.</p>
<p>In addition to the points Demosthenes49 has raised, I would add one additional point about the advantages of attending a T-14 law school: less pressure to make law review and graduate at the top of your class. Many moons ago, when I was finishing my clerkship and applying for jobs with “big law” firms in San Diego, it was pretty much understood that anyone from an “elite” law school would get an interview, regardless of where they graduated in their class. The lower your school fell on the food chain, the higher you needed to graduate in order to get an interview. The job market is a lot tighter these days, but I doubt this has changed.</p>
<p>It’s easy to tell yourself that you can attend a less prestiguous law school because you’re going to be a top student. But the truth of the matter is that nobody knows what kind of law student they’re going to be until after they receive their first semester grades. As a college student, you get good marks by show up for class, doing the reading and mastering the material. Law school grading is different. It’s based on something called “issue spotting,” that has little, if anything, to do with the actual practice of law. The bottom line is that many intelligent, hard working law students master the course material still wind up receiving Bs and Cs.</p>
<p>I dont really foresee myself working for “big law” though because all i read is about their 80+ hour work week and how exhausting it is. I mean I know there will be those weeks wherever you go but the $160,000 aint worth it if you can’t ever enjoy it. I’m really aiming for 50-70 hour work week which im guessing would be in the $80,000-$100,000 which seems feasible to also pay off any debt from law school.</p>
<p>As for practicing in Georgia, it really isn’t set in stone, it’s just the few states I have been to, I prefer Georgia so I was just curious if a lower t14 school would get me interviews in Georgia or if I was better off going to GA schools since the website demosthenes49 linked only showed employment from Georgia universities (well aware that there are t14 employees here and it just doesnt show due to low %)</p>
<p>Let me make this clear: You can be successful and get a job WITHOUT going to a top tier law school! There are MANY lawyers who are quite successful from lower tiered schools. HOWEVER, if you don’t go to a top tier school, you will need to have some things going for you that the top law grads may not need as much.</p>
<p>First, you should try to graduate with at least 3.25 or better GPA. Secondly, you will NEED to be a “go-getter” unless you have some family practice that you can walk into. In addition, being a good networker will be very useful too. You will also need to interview very well and know how to sell yourself well. Although good interviewing skills will be necessary for everyone, attending a lower tiered school will require you to sell yourself more and do better on the interview. </p>
<p>@Taxguy Well I knew it was “possible” but I meant how likely would you say an upcoming law school graduate from a lower tiered school would have to get job within 6 months of graduating utilizing their degree? Though looking at the employment outlook of graduating students of some of the well known lower-tiered law schools in Georgia, I found it.</p>
<p>GA State Univ: 59.3% employment</p>
<h2>Mercer University: 32.4% employment</h2>
<p>Averaging:45.85% employment</p>
<p>Which is quite reassuring assuming those employed are able to live comfortably while paying off their debt.</p>
<p>@Noteworthy: The law market is [url=<a href=“http://www.nalp.org/salarycurve_classof2011]bimodal[/url”>NALP - National Association for Law Placement | The NALP Salary Curve for the Class of 2011]bimodal[/url</a>]. That means it’s either Big Law, with market salary and Big Law hours (both of which do vary by location), or small law and small law salary with small law hours. There really isn’t a middle ground, at least not at entry level. That’s one of the reasons many people go to Big Law for a few years, to make a serious dent in their loans and thereby have a better quality of life when they leave for lesser hours. </p>
<p>I generally think even people interested in particular markets should aim for the T14, but I am fairly risk averse. I’d rather have a good shot at a job at median and work somewhere I’d prefer less than be somewhere I’d prefer more and have wasted law school. </p>
<p>Also, ignore taxguy. HR filters by school first and rank second. No one will ever even see your interview skills until then, making them worthless for getting you in the door in the first place.</p>
<p>@Demosthenes49 Generally speaking, when you say small salary, how small are we talking? Like do you mean actually small or just small compared to the $160,000 big law makes?</p>
<p>Take a look at the chart I linked you.</p>
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<p>This advice may have been somewhat acceptable a decade ago, but is definitely not now. Like Demosthenes said, firms filter by school then rank. They’ll reach further into Harvard’s class than they would for UCLA or Vanderbilt. </p>
<p>@Demosthenes49 Oh sorry, I was using my ipad last night and it didnt show up as a link. Appreciate all the useful links you’ve been presenting. Unfortunately though, that’s kinda depressing knowing the salary outside of big law is 45k to 65k. Guess that just means I’ll end up going to big law my first few years like the others you mentioned. Maybe i’ll be one of the few lucky ones who doesnt get a total torturous experience. :D</p>
<p>@Vctory I somewhat guessed as much considering college degrees are becoming more and more crucial to getting a job these days.</p>
<p>I’ve worked in big law firms and a smaller one. The hours were slightly better at the smaller one, but not by much. The smaller firm required a lot more time spent on marketing and client development, and so the total hours devoted to the job were the same. </p>
<p>Also, when I was in law school (at a top-3), you could sign up for on-campus interviews with any firm that you wanted, regardless of your grades, meaning that people with lower grades and better interview skills could get jobs even with firms that were grade-sensitive. I was talking with one of my classmates about our law school days, and we both figured that even the person who finished last in our class got a job with a large law firm in a big city–perhaps not the most prestigious law firm in the big city, but still one that paid the same first-year associate salary as the other firms.</p>