Hello Everyone,
I currently have >3.9 GPA and about to graduate Summa in Mathematics and Applied Statistics. I was wondering what is a good LSAT score to have to really good chance to get into say UGA (ranked #30) or Emory (ranked #22).
I also, I like the idea of appellate law, and constitutional law, but what happens when it says a school doesn’t specialize in both of those. For instance, Emory specializes in constitutional but doesn’t have appellate, but UGA is the opposite. If I go to one, and find I do not truly love that specialty is it possible to switch even if they do not truly specialize in that sub-field?
Thanks
Don’t waste that GPA. Aim for 17x and earn big merit money from the T13. If you want to practice in Georgia, and need to be in the South, aim for Duke or UVa.
Law school specialities are more marketing hype then real. But if you really want Appellate/Con Law for a career, aim for a top law school…
Doing appellate work out of law school is extremely rare. These students almost universally went to a top 14 school, clerked for a judge on a federal court of appeals (or on SCOTUS), then went to work in the appellate division of a major firm.
It’s also not really its own body of practice. Trial lawyers usually handle their own appeals (I certainly handle mine) because they know all the facts of the given case. Appellate people get called in only in a few firms and only in a few cases. The rest of the time their departments are just more trial lawyers.
Constitutional law, unless you plan to do either civil rights (and do § 1983 suits all day) or criminal work (and spend your time fighting the 4th amendment), is also pretty rare. Outside of a few 1st amendment practitioners who mostly work for media companies, I can’t think of any lawyers that only do constitutional work.
I highly recommend you spend some time interning or working at a law practice to see what it really involves.
There are many law schools [mainly T15 or whatever number you want to choose] that have appellate clinics, but “appellate law” is not a course commonly offered. You may find Federal Appellate Practice but moot court and advanced moot court and the various competitions are generally where you would find something approximating appellate practice. What @Demosthenes49 said was very accurate.
I work at a medium sized law firm, and am in the state and local government law section. About half of what we do is defend cities, counties, police officers, school boards, libraries and other public entities and public officials whenever they get sued for all the numerous things they get sued for. That involves a lot of constitutional law and the section 1983 litigation that @Demosthenes49 referenced. I agree that few lawyers practice constitutional law outside if that kind of context. I also do my own appellate work. I didn’t attend a Top 25 law school or have any specific specialization in law school. The way I got involved in that kind of work was through my summer clerkships. I think you will find clerkship and internships the best way to focus your learning on a particular type of law.