Although grades are often used as a cutoff for granting interviews from certain law schools, class rank is more important, then law review to a much lesser extent.
@Demosthenes49 : Any particular type of work experience ?
OP: To the best of my recollection, the only law school which states a preference for post undergraduate work experience is Northwestern University.
As for BigLaw law firms and work experience, it is unnecessary for summer interns & new hire associates.
Work experience between undergraduate school & law school that might be helpful to a future law school student is a new one on me. Very common though for smaller law firms. Maybe someone who has meaningful regulatory experience working for the federal government, but any significant government position would require so many years of work experience that I do not see it as being relevant or reasonable for this discussion.
K-JD is fine.
BigLaw law firms seek law students with a high class rank from the nation’s most elite law schools (top 14). Law review editors & Federal judicial law clerks are pluses. The significance of any other type of work experience is unclear to me. So hopefully others claiming that it helps will give examples of specific jobs & types of work experience that BigLaw might find attractive.
I don’t quite understand what your point is.
The point is that many people cruise happily thru K-JD as a default option without really thinking about what the career entails or if this is the right choice for them. Before spending 200k and 3 years of your time, make sure you understand what you are signing up for. There would be far fewer unhappy and dropout lawyers if students did this
cbreeze - My point is that my friend was miserable for half a decade of his life notwithstanding a salary that looks great in a NYLJ headline. You can’t buy back your 20s. OP says her son is gunning for big law. She and her son should be aware that those high salaries often come at a steep price in terms of quality of life.
You can look on mylsn.info for lots of specifics about stats, scholarships, etc. K-JD seems to be a drawback for many of the T-14 but if you’ve got great grades and LSAT it should be fine. I’m definitely of the belief that you should have a dose of life before grad school no matter what the field, and my D is having great results in law admissions after 2 years out of school. At least one interviewer told her that the school prefers students with life experience.
Just a quick comment on K-JD: In my experience, it is tough to get admitted as a K-JD at the top law schools. I attended one of the top law schools not all that long ago and was the second youngest in the class. Everyone else had some work or grad school experience, though mostly work. The average age was well over 22 then and still is. For the reasons others have mentioned, I highly recommended working for 1-2 years at a minimum before going to law school.
@TheBigChef, yes I agree. My SIL is a partner at a Vault top 3 firm and he has complained about the young associates’ lack of work ethic. They don’t realize that law is basically a service industry and you can’t expect to work a 40 hour work week when you are being paid so much.
However, my son who has been working in buy side finance in his 20s and now in his 30s also has long hours.There is no easy money.
Some of the comments above are astonishing to me.
Your snarkiness is not appreciated.
Not intended to be. I am truly astonished at some of the above comments. I believe that the posters are sharing their beliefs & experiences, but am concerned that it is misleading.
K-JD is fine & constitutes the overwhelming majority of admits to top law schools. LSAT score & undergraduate GPA matter in law school admissions. Work experience is highly unlikely to excuse a below median applicant’s numbers.
To be clear, I do not think law schools care about work experience (except for Northwestern). There was some evidence that law schools were admitting a higher number of students with work experience, but causation was not demonstrated (i.e., maybe students needed to work first for financial rather than admissions reasons). My point is that employers may care.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Sine the OP seems to have abandoned the thread, and since the discussion is turning into a debate on the value of K-JD, I am closing.