Several Questions about Law School

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>1) What are some top sports law programs? So far I know about Tulane and Marquette (interested more in Tulane because its the better overall law school) but what are the other ones and how would you "rank" them?</p>

<p>2) I've got some mixed signals on this one. How does a sports management major translate into law school admissions? Sports management is what I want to do (double majoring or minoring in business along the way) and I anticipate being able to keep up top notch grades if I do a sports management cirriculum. However, if a top law school sees a sports management major do I automatically go to the reject or waitlist pile?</p>

<p>3) What does a sports law program really entail? Is it just a few extra classes? Do those classes replace other classes? Is it a whole curriculum?</p>

<p>4) How much reading is it really? I'm a slow reader, like really slow, would I be able to keep up?</p>

<p>5) Most jobs opportunities (at least while your in law school) require you be above a certain percentile of your class, so wouldn't that be a negative to go to a top top law school, at least in that regard?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance, even if you can't answer them all!</p>

2

<p>1.) Unfortunately specialty rankings are basically meaningless. “Top schools” tend to be top schools in all respects.</p>

<p>2.) Poorly. It won’t quite be automatic, but it’s a negative. Of course, if you have an astronomical GPA and LSAT, nothing will stop you – but this will probably harm your application moderately.</p>

<p>3.) Nothing, really. You could enter any law school. Since your latter two years are entirely electives, you can take whatever you like – including anything in sports law.</p>

<p>4.) A lot. If you’re REALLY slow, this is going to be a major problem.</p>

<p>5.) No. Most job opportunities require you to be in a certain percentage of your class if you’re at a low-tier law school. Upper-tier law schools can send much larger proportions of their graduates to these same jobs, and the very highest tier won’t even tell employers until after interviews have already been conducted.</p>

<p>In other words, the percentage varies – the better the school, the higher the percentage.</p>

3

<p>Bluedevilmike, I have a question- if you had the opportunity to complete a 6 year program, 3 years if business (the business school is internationally accredited) and 3 years of law (the law school, unfortunately, is only a tier 3) for free, would you go? Chances are, I’d be within the top percentiles of my class. Or would you do the traditional 7 year path and end up paying much more money to attend a higher-tier law school?</p>

<p>I know a grad of the law school who right after graduation got a job at a law firm making 200K. How rare exactly is this, and how rare is this at a higher-tier school?</p>

4

<p>It depends on what kind of law school you think you’d be going to otherwise. The sorts of jobs you’re referring to are extremely rare. A school’s starting salary is published in US News and World Report, and that number is usually an inflated one. So take that, reduce it substantially, and take a look at it.</p>

<p>You can see that the availability of these jobs is CLOSELY correlated with school rank. As a rough proxy, you can use the firms among the nation’s largest 250 firms:
<a href=“http://www.law.com/img/nlj/charts/20080414gotoschools.jpg[/url]”>http://www.law.com/img/nlj/charts/20080414gotoschools.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>(You’d have to correct it for clerkships for Harvard/Yale but otherwise it’s about right.)</p>

<p>Things go from Columbia at 75% to Duke at 60% to Vanderbilt at 40%. A precipitous drop. 40% isn’t bad odds, but Vandy is the #15 school in the country. You have to pay attention not to the absolute total (since 40% ain’t bad) but to the rate at which these things fall. At this rate, get to school #35 and you’d have to be basically the valedictorian of your class.</p>

5

<p>I wouldnt put too much weight into that link you posted considering Yale is at 30 something percent even though it is ranked #1 in the country</p>

6

<p>As I *explicitly *said:</p>

<p><a href=“You’d%20have%20to%20correct%20it%20for%20clerkships%20for%20Harvard/Yale%20but%20otherwise%20it’s%20about%20right.”>quote</a>

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Add in Yale’s 50% clerkship correction and you’re back in business.</p>