Law School Question

<p>Rosco,
Teach for America and Peace Corps, I understand. For NGOs, what kinds of organizations do you think would look impressive, meaningful and why? (I understand the answer would be, any that are meaningful to the future lawyer... but examples would be helpful here.) My S is considering law school after graduating from college in 2 years, but I think he would benefit with some time away from school (in the real world) and would like to give him ideas to consider. (Although I'm a teacher, he is not the teacher type, nor do I see him going into the Peace Corps at this point).</p>

<p>I don't know where Lake Washington got his list, but it seems weird to me in the nether reaches of the "national" list. William and Mary and Washington & Lee have about 0 profile with me, which means a lot less than places like GW and George Mason in the very important DC market (and they are all good regional schools, not national ones).</p>

<p>I'll be more forgiving of the order near the top, but would caution you that it is not conventional to rate Cornell anywhere near that high or UVa that low. This smells like a USNWR-type list.</p>

<p>I'm in NYC and have never though of W&L as a top law school. You'd be better off with a degree from Fordham in this market. Only younger attorneys are aware that UMinn is highly ranked, but it certainly isn't top 14 and you'd still be better off with a Fordham degree here. UCLA above NYU is just plain nuts. (Well, maybe not if you limit it to rep in LA and attorneys over 50.) </p>

<p>I agree there are 14 top law schools. Top:YHS--Yale, Harvard, Stanford. Referred to as "the trinity" by law school applicants. None give merit $, though all have some variation of loan forgiveness. All give financial aid to students from poor families, and many lower ranked schools do not. </p>

<p>Next group: CCN--Chicago, NYU, Columbia. All give limited amounts of merit money. Where you want to practice matters. Politics matter. Size matters. If you want to be in New York, location may matter. BTW, NYU and Columbia now have an exchange program, so if one doesn't offer a course in a particular field, you can take it at the other. I don't know the particulars, but it may be relevant to some. The other 8 in a group below this. More merit $ available at these than the top 6. </p>

<p>US News rankings within each of these 3 groups vary from year to year, but the top 3 are always the top 3. Next 3 are always the next three. Next 8 are always the next 8.</p>

<p>Below that, UTexas and UCLA, which are regional. (I wouldn't put USC up there. It's a fine school, but not the equal of UCLA.) </p>

<p>I'd suggest the OP talk to the pre-law advisor at P'ton. All of these schools have grids showing where their own UGs got admitted and nothing else compares in terms of predictability.</p>

<p>Just checked the USNews rankings out of curiousity. USC ranked right below UCLA, so I gotta eat crow on that one. </p>

<p>W&L in a 3 way tie and one of the other schools is Fordham. UMinn is tied with Boston U and Vandy.</p>

<p>Wm & Many definitely not national--WELL below George Washington. Also a bit below Notre Dame, UofWashington, Boston College and all those listed above. </p>

<p>Looking at this list just reinforced my belief that below the top 14, the rankings change from year to year and folks outside the region aren't aware how good a particular school may be.</p>

<p>One advantage for Yale students looking for second year jobs (which can lead to offers from some of the larger firms, and that will mean they pay for the law exam preparation and give you credit for a clerkship year) is that they don't get grades the first semester. Law firms can be very grade conscious -- at my firm, in SF, when we interviewed even at a top school like Boalt, we certainly cared about grades and law review. The top students at Boalt, Stanford, and even Hastings or UC Davis, have a lot more opportunities at the high-paying firms. By the way, Boalt and Harvard have an exchange program for the third year -- the degree is from the original institution, but someone interested in working in Boston or SF may benefit from the program.</p>

<p>Most good law schools have done that for years -- it's pretty common.</p>

<p>Yale grades are H, P, F, by the way. Hardly any meaningful information. I doubt it gives out rank, and I doubt any single employer sees enough Yale transcripts to be able to estimate rank accurately, either.</p>

<p>The first semester at Yale is just pass-fail. Nothing else. After that the grading system kicks in. It's more meaningful that you think. Rankings aren't given out and aren't computed. I suspect the group of employers who understand it best are federal judges. </p>

<p>If you are clerking, the firms do NOT pay for your law exam prep and/or your moving expenses. (Many do for those go to work for them right after graduation.) At least the firms here in NYC don't; maybe it works differently in other cities. They do however give signing bonuses for clerks AFTER the clerkship is completed. Some will still give them to you if you take a few months between clerking and starting to work for them. Those lovely loan forgiveness programs don't apply to clerkships, so many folks use a substantial portion of their signing bonuses paying off their law school loan for that clerkship year.</p>

<p>MomOf2InCa, I wouldn't necessarily say organizations of interest to the future lawyer; to me that hints at "packaging." I think the schools would put a greater value on something that showed a willingness to serve one's fellow man. They get thousands of kids who want to slide into law firm jobs and make big money right away; I think they appreciate kids who want to give back. Thus, Oxfam, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, the U.N. Foundation, Amnesty Int'l are the kind of NGOs I'm thinking of.</p>

<p>Whether it's possible to actually get work with these groups I have no idea. And of course, no one should ever do something like this JUST to position themselves for LS; the spirit should be there.</p>

<p>Good luck to your S!</p>

<p>Momof2- My d is also exploring the idea of doing something interesting, meaningful, fun etc. before she embarks on another 3 years of school. She became aware of a certain program and her "eyes lit up" just thinking about the opportunity this program would give her.
OK it is also abroad, and she really loved her study abroad semester so that may too be adding to her enthusiasm about this particular program.
But once I saw that excitement in her, I really believe she decided to delay law school for a year. And seeing her response, I feel more confident that taking a year off between college and law school is the right thing for her.<br>
I am going to go with Roscoe on this one- ideally kids shouldn't do things solely because they think it will position themselves to get into a better law school. I think they will get alot more out of the situation if they do it because that is what they TRULY want to do. With that said-
My d did have a book "Delaying the Real World", Make the World a Better Place by Colleen Kinder. It's on Amazon and that book will link you to other similar type books geared for post grad kids. Just did a quick glance of the book and they did offer some interesting ideas. Good luck.</p>

<p>In my day all of the SF lawfirms paid for bar exam prep fees for those who accepted offers -- I don't know if it is still true.
Boalt also has an idiosyncratic grading system: HH (top 10%), H (next 30%), and P (all the rest); one could skate by with all P's and still say he/she was in the upper 40% of the class...although there was no ranking, Boalt has Order of the Coif, which identifies the top 10% of the class -- and it does make a difference in terms of job opportunities. Doing well in the first year, before applying in the Fall of second year for summer associate jobs can be a tremendous boon, at least in this area; if you have an offer, the remaining grades will hardly matter, except perhaps for clerkships. At least at the outset, and at the high end, law is competitive and grade/prestige conscious -- where you clerked, whether you were on the top law review, etc. The culture was very different from graduate school (which is also competitive, of course, but values different things and has a different dominant mentality). And back to the OP -- go to graduate school if you are interested in it, not as a way to increase chances for law school...you should be doing what you really want to do, and doing it well, regardless what it is.</p>

<p>Jonri- Roscoe and any other lawyer familiar with the NYC market:</p>

<p>Got a question-- For a NY kid who does not get into a T-14, are they better off going to a "T-20" school like UCLA, Vanderbilt, Boston etc. or are they better off going to Fordham??</p>

<p>It's real possible my d may find herself in that type of situation. Though her LSAT's and GPA make it likely that she could get one or two T-14 acceptances, nothing is guaranteed.<br>
I saw too many kids on law school #'s (another website) with 166 LSAT's and 3.5 GPA's getting waitlisted at Cornell this year. My d's stats are a bit higher, but not by much.
Any insight would be very much appreciated.
Thanks- Marny</p>

<p>I'm less familiar with the NYC market than others, but I would say, if she knows she wants to stay in NYC, Fordham would be better. The top graduates from Fordham will be in demand anywhere in NYC, and if she's not a "top graduate" then at least she has good training for the NY bar and she's been in the market, probably working part-time, etc., for three years, so she probably has a job. If she goes to Vanderbilt or UCLA, and she's not a top student there, then she has a harder time (but not impossible by any means) finding a good situation in NYC. But if there's any chance she doesn't want to be within 50 miles of Times Square (or anywhere on Long Island), she would probably be a little better off at Vanderbilt or UCLA (assuming her relative success in law school is the same wherever she goes).</p>

<p>By the way, I seriously doubt UCLA or Vanderbilt is meaningfully easier to get into than Cornell. Maybe I'm wrong -- I haven't checked recently -- but I wouldn't just assume that. I know that among the elite-er schools, admissions can be very unpredictable. The last person I was close to who applied to law school was a fabulous candidate -- Ivy BA, high GPA, Oxford MA from competitive fellowship, great recommendations, great EC-type stuff -- who was accepted at Stanford and Columbia but rejected at Penn and Chicago (among others).</p>

<p>Thanks for the info JHS- You may be right that it isn't much easier to get into UCLA or Vanderbilt (may be especially true of UCLA and U of Texas too, as they are state schools and probably have some type of quota on OOS students) but there is a bit of a difference with LSAT scores for Top 14 and almost all the other schools-- A top 5 % rank on the LSAT (or a 167) will only make you a "contender" for a top 14 school, and that includes Cornell as their median seems to be 167. Once you look at the top 20 schools like Vanderbilt, Boston, or USC that 167 score will put you at the the top 75 % of their students. so if she applies to a few of the schools in the 15 to 20 category, I am hopeful she would get a good # of acceptances. If you throw in Fordham and GW too, their should be several great acceptances to choose from (fingers crossed).
An extremely important factor for the kids who get LSAT scores of 166-169 is that their GPA's become a VERY critical component for admission to a T-14. Looking at Law school #'s website, the 166 LSAT with a 3.8 seems to do as well (if not better) than the kid with a 169 LSAT and a 3.3 GPA. Law Schools seem to love kids who get LSAT's of 170 or higher, so they can get a T-14 acceptance even with a pretty low GPA (3.2). Either way- I am pretty certain my kid will wind up doing just fine. If anything is going to help her the most in getting into a T-14, is that her GPA is pretty high (unless she gets screwed with LSAC conversion)
That's a whole nother issue!!</p>

<p>If there are other opinions as to Fordham vs T-20 in NYC, please chime in.</p>

<p>PS- just got back from my visit to LSD.Org. I think the June LSAT scores just came out. I do not think my d is even considering a re-take. She is just happy to be done with it.</p>

<p>If the student definitely wants to stay in NYC, then its Fordham Fordham Fordham!! </p>

<p>Placement is really good. My firm, for example, considers Columbia, NYU and Fordham its "target hiring schools" in the NY area. It's not all that far below the others you name in the rankings, even if you care about rankings. And the student gets to live in NYC. Plus they make lots of $ awards to those with 3.6+/168+ (roughly) plus good soft factors.</p>

<p>I urged my S to go to Fordham if he didn't get into a "T14."</p>

<p>I concur--if you are sure she wants to stay in NYC, Fordham. Fordham is currently ranked #25--it's not a huge difference. Moreover, it has really shot up in the rankings. Which schools are in the 15-20 range changes. If you go to somewhere like UMinn, there's no guarantee that 4-5 years from now it will be ranked higher than Fordham anyway.</p>

<p>Thanks Roscoe- I think my gut told me the same thing- the only major factor may be if d wants to be in a totally different type of atmosphere for a few years like a Vanderbilt or USC. After spending the past few winters in upstate NY, I think she would like somewarm weather for a change. As she could conceivably spend the rest of her life in NYC (I haven't left yet), she might want something different for a while before she starts the real world.
Anyway, I think she is going to have an extra year to mull this over as she may be eyeing a post graduate program. There's also on campus recruting in the fall, so we really have no clue what is in the future for d. But she's the type of kid where things usually work out just fine- whatever she decides. Thanks for the advice.</p>

<p>Hi Jonri- I see you just got on too.<br>
U of Minnesota is not even in the equation. It's probably colder there than in Ithaca so that is not even being considered.</p>

<p>Roscoe,
Just checking back after being out of town. Thanks for the advice on NGO's. I spoke with S about this and he liked the idea. He's currently seeming interested in civil rights law. Anyone a civil rights atty? What do those kinds of job opportunities look like these days? Is it all private practice?</p>

<p>
[quote]
That's really true at all the top law schools, but Yale really stands out because probably only about half its (small) class actually goes to work as lawyers coming out of law school

[/quote]
</p>

<p>YLS grad here. just came upon this thread.<br>
Sorry but your facts are not correct here. Are you just talking about the number that go to work for law firms? When you count in the number going for judicial clerkships immediately out of school (the vast majority of who then go on to practice law after their clerkships), plus those going into public sector jobs, the overwhelming majority of YLS grads go to work as lawyers upon graduation. even 5 years out, most are still working as lawyers - though many in public sector. <a href="http://www.law.yale.edu/studentlife/cdo5yrsurvey.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.law.yale.edu/studentlife/cdo5yrsurvey.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
And an argument can be made that there is really only one truly national law school: Harvard. (Yale would count, too, if it weren't so small and so little focused on the practice of law that it's hardly worthwhile for firms in most places to recruit there.)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I agree that the instruction at YLS was not particularly focused on the practice of law. But it is simply not true that this means that YLS is not a national law school and that firms in most places don't recruit there. Firms from the entire country came to recruit - and many that didn't invest to come sent letters expressing interest in hiring interested students. YLS first years were able to get jobs through out the county at firms that often did not otherwise hire first years (ie for the summer between first and second year)
YLS is small -- so the number of grads ending up in any one place may be less than coming from the much larger HLS -- but that DOES NOT translate into the YLS grad having less employment opportunities in the least.</p>

<p>I have a question, and please, pardon my ignorance. I noticed in several posts in this thread that one of the things mentioned in looking at what law school you wanted to attend was "politics." Are you speaking of Republican/Democrat in attitude/atmosphere or are you referring to whether you wish to go into politics? My S is a college freshman this year, hoping to attend law school, and we are beginning to try and figure things out so we're not caught off guard when it's time for him to apply for law school. I have so appreciated threads like this which give an overview to the "uninitiated." </p>

<p>Zebes</p>

<p>"Got a question-- For a NY kid who does not get into a T-14, are they better off going to a "T-20" school like UCLA, Vanderbilt, Boston etc. or are they better off going to Fordham?"</p>

<p>I've done recruiting at top NYC firms for over 20 years and I can tell you without question that Fordham is the place to go if NYC is the destination of choice. Fordham is considered in the same pool as Harvard, Yale, NYC, Cornell for recruiting here. Absolutely not for the other schools you listed.</p>