I’m looking at law schhols. I want to practice in Seattle. I’m considering: uw seattle, seattle u, UPenn, UVA, UMich and ut
austin. Is name better than location?
Considerint you are a senior in HS I would focus on doing well in undergrad rather then which law school to go to
I also wonder what the rush is. Do you have retirement planned as well? You may easily find new directions in college. In college, see what you’re good at and what interests you. Think about your life, and others as well. Best wishes.
Eh just a thought. I figured if i have some sort of an idea of where i want to go/what i want to do, then I can have a set of standards to measure by. I like to consider my future plans to map out where I can go.
FYI: i actually do have a retirement plan, I’m going to buy a cabin lol.
I’m moving this to the Law School forum just because. I agree that it is WAAAAY too early to start thinking about this…but as a tip, for law school, name is definitely, definitely more important than location. It’s commonly recommended that if you can’t go to a top 15 law school that you shouldn’t go at all unless you get significant scholarship support at a still-decent law school with no strings attached and have a very defined goal (aka, you get a full scholarship to Seattle U’s law school that has no GPA requirements and you don’t mind doing small family law stuff for the rest of your career). And even then, you still probably shouldn’t go.
Penn, UVa, Michigan, and UT-Austin are all top 15 law schools. UW-Seattle is top 25ish and might be okay, particularly in the Pacific Northwest (someone more well versed in the law school world might have a better idea). I would think that Seattle U is probably…not very useful.
Lol, we really should charge these kids for our advice.
If you want to practice in Seattle, you can go to any law school you want and if need be open up your own practice.
If you want to practice with a large, prominent firm in Seattle, Penn, UMich and UVa will open doors anywhere; other schools will open doors only if you have very good grades, which aren’t guaranteed in law school.
Thank you to all those who provided an answer. Yes, it is too early to think about law school but i want a plan. Nothing concrete but a plan nonetheless. How many of you wish you had given your future more though? Hm? There is nothing wrong with me wanting info that I can use to plan ahead in life, you guys are a bit judgemental of the responsibile youth.
By the way, ‘kid’, I’m 18 years old and want to think of my future so i don’t make the mistakes the last generation made, as ‘kids’. If anything, planning ahead and taking responsibility for my future should at least classify me as a ‘young adult’, don’t you think? Get off your high horse and realize that some people just want to do well, regardless of age.
nawfal, common sense says to do as well as you possibly can in college. Although you asked for advice about specific schools, the advice that you were given-- “do your best and then worry about a specific school”, is the right answer now.
I see plenty of threads on this board focusing on “how do I get into a specific school”, when the focus of an applicant should be to just do one’s best and then let things fall into place. The question shouldn’t be about getting into a specific school; the question should be, “how do I get perfect grades” or the like.
(I went to Harvard and before I got the acceptance letter, I had never given more than a few minutes of thought to it, other than the time spent filling out the application; for years beforehand, I was just in complete panic mode about getting As and thus studied like crazy, although I never had a goal of going to Harvard, and I would never have imagined that I’d have ended up there.)
in my first 3 years of high school, I had very little sense of direction. This meant that I accepted not trying my very hardest. As a senior with goals, I’ve out-accomplished myself in just 1 sesemester. I feel like having a goal such as work towards a 4.0 gpa to get into a t14, will motivate me in ways I wish I was motivated in high school. Things will change, plans will fall through, i know this, but there is nothing wrong with having a narrow,specific goal to work to.
nawfal, set your goal as something like, “get a 4.0 GPA”, “pick a major that I love” and “spend summers doing interships in a variety of fields that interest me.”
Then let everything else fall into place.
Honestly, today SeattleU might get you hired as a paralegal. At UW unless you’re top five percent, you’re gonna have a hard time getting a good job. Btw, in a decade things will change so all of this is speculation, to a point. Query: what’s your cum GPA?
No harm in planning, but the general advice given-have a good GPA and good LSAT-is spot on. If your numbers are good, you’ll have plenty of options regarding law schools.
To answer the original question – “it depends.” Certain “names,” namely HYS carry significant weight in all markets… Outside of that it might depend on the region, so you’ll probably want to talk to some Seattle attorneys about the legal market at some point. In Southern California, talented graduates from lesser ranked local law schools do fairly well, whereas graduates from outside of the region, even if from a relatively well ranked school, can have a harder time entering the market. So it may be a question of whether employers in Seattle have a national outlook, or are more insular.
^^outside of NYC, all markets are insular. The only difference is by how much? Certain regions, such as TX, the SE and PNW are more insular than average. Sure, HYS carries significant weight around the world, but HYS without ties to the PNW or Techsus, is really difficult, even with great HYS grades.
Just for fun, I looked up the Seattle office of K&L Gates, and for attorneys with last names A to C (I stopped at that point), 7 out of 25 went to Seattle U for law school, which underscores bluebayou’s point.
Our thoughts and perceptions differ but those who attend Seattle U Law, a TTT, do so at their financial peril. That goes for at least 100 other law schools, IMO. Be careful here because staggering debt could lead you to financial ruin.
The most recent ABA employment statistics for Seattle U LS: for the class of 2013
graduating class of 311; less than half(154) obtained jobs where bar passage was required; this includes full and part time, short and long term. So the lawyer rate is less than 50%; in addition, 50 students were unemployed. Pretty startling numbers.