Location vs prestige

Graduate School Law School
1

So i’m applying to law schools soonand I’m wondering what is more important, location or prestige. I’d like to practice law in Philadelphia. My top choice is UPenn but I plan to apply to all T14 plus Temple law. If my priority is to practice in Philly then is it okay to go to Temple? (Don’t be fooled by my stats on here lol)

2

It depends what your goals are and how much risk you’re willing to tolerate. Look up the schools on Law School Transparency. You can see that 58% of Temple grads find full-time jobs as attorneys and only 12% get jobs at big firms. By contrast, 90% of Penn grads get full-time legal jobs and 66% are at big firms.

So if you’re hoping to work in BigLaw or prestigious public interest, then Temple is a bad bet. You’d be better off going to any T14 even if it’s another state. But if you’d be happy doing family law or insurance defense or local government or something like that, and you know you want to be in Philadelphia, and you got a big scholarship, and you’re ok with the real (but not enormous) risk of not getting any job, then Temple can be a reasonable choice.

3

@SlippinJimmy is correct. Adding to that comment, your best bet is to attend a top 14 school–the higher up that ranking the better IMO. If you are at a school like that AND you want to work in Philly, you won’t have any trouble finding work there. Your competition will be reduced coming from, say, HYColumbiaNYU and you will compete with UPenn, only some of them.

What top schools provide, in addition to great education, include–

  • Alumni connections to top jobs;
  • Vetting for top candidates so that even if there are no alumni connections into a job, the school name tells employer that you are vetted somewhat;
  • Acculturation into the profession.
  • Alumni connections that will help you throughout your career, if you want to change cities, types of practice, etc.
  • Loan forgiveness, often, for public interest or government work (make SURE of this before you commit to a school).
  • Leverage into the upper range of salaries, rather than the lower range, as was pointed out earlier. Law salaries are bimodal. There's a group around the $50-$70K range and then the $150-170K range. To pay off loans you either go high and live small OR you attend a school with loan forgiveness and go into public interest or government work.

Get top grades in undergrad; score 172+ on the LSAT (start studying now.) (Yes you can).

4

Thank you. That is great advice