Should I apply for Law School?

Graduate School Law School
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<p>I just finished my Sophomore year at a highly regarded public university in Ohio. I am a Chemical Engineering major, with a minor in Mechanical Engineering. My current GPA is a 3.94.</p>

<p>Over the last few months, I have become very interested in Patent Law. Do you think it is worth it for me to go to Law School, and pursue Patent Law? All you ever hear about right now is how Law graduates are accepting minimum wage jobs because the Law field is so flooded with applicants. </p>

<p>Also, if I went to Law School, I would prefer to go to University of Cincinnati, as I am from Cincinnati and could live at home while I attend school (obviously reduces my loans). Would it be that much more beneficial to go to a T14 school, if I could get in? I would think that if I can keep my GPA up, and pair it with a good LSAT score, I would have a decent chance of getting into one.</p>

<p>Thanks for any help.</p>

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<p>For a T14 to offer you financial aid good enough to make debt more manageable on a patent law salary you still need 171+ on the LSAT. You want a Rubinstein or Hamilton? (a.k.a. a full-ride to Chicago or Columbia respectively) Aim for 175+.</p>

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<p>why not become a practicing engineer?</p>

<p>But to answer your question, do NOT go to Cincinatti Law. Work for a year or two, rock the LSAT, and pick your choice of scholarships to the T14.</p>

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<p>@Bluebayou-- I read your posts in the law school section sometimes, and honestly, you often have no clue what you are talking about. Are you a lawyer? Have you worked at an Am Law 100 firm?</p>

<p>I have worked at an AM Law 100 firm my whole career (25 years) and I am managing partner of my firm’s office in a major metropolitan city. I also have a J.D. from an Ivy law school.</p>

<p>So that @bamabound is not mislead, the fact of the matter is that if you want to be a patent lawyer, where you go to law school does not matter all that much. And, if you want to stay local in Ohio (as it appears you do) you will not be held back by going to a local school provided you do reasonable well in law school. </p>

<p>Lest you doubt what I am saying, feel free to review the CV’s of the IP partners at Jones Days office in Cleveland. <a href=“http://www.jonesday.com/_lawyers/Search.aspx”>http://www.jonesday.com/_lawyers/Search.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>You will see that VERY FEW of the IP partners in their Cleveland office went to T-14 schools and most went to law school locally in Ohio.</p>

<p>Jones Day is one of the largest and best law firms in the country, and its profits per partner are about $1M per year. </p>

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<p>Are there other legal fields where institutional prestige doesn’t matter much? As I have come to suspect, how important institutional prestige is in order to find a job depends on the legal field sought.</p>

<p>I acknowledge that IP is a legal field where getting a job may not depend on how highly-ranked the law school is (JD or LLM) much but maybe there are other fields where one can find work without having to attend a T14 school.</p>

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<p>@alum68: Bluebayou is right and you are not. Did you really just link to the CVs of partners? For someone claiming to be as experienced as you are, it’s mind-boggling you can’t see how ridiculous that is. But that’s ok, I’ll spell it out for you. Partners, by necessity, graduated at least 6 (and likely at least 8) years ago. The OP is set to graduate at least 5 (and hopefully 7 after some work experience) years from now. In between those partners graduating and the OP graduating, guess what happened? That would be 2007, often referred to as the Great Recession. You see, back when those partners graduated you were right, since AmLaw 100 firms (why are we even using that as a metric for patent shops?) hired in droves. Now, they don’t, so you’re wrong. </p>

<p>I highly recommend you spend some time on [url=&lt;a href=“http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/]LST[/url”&gt;http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/]LST[/url</a>], looking at hiring statistics. Where you go to school is one of the most important factors in actually getting a job. No doubt OP will benefit from the IP bump and be able to take advantage of a lower-ranked school. With a 3.9 that hopefully means a full ride at a lower T14, but definitely not Cincinnati with its whopping [url=&lt;a href=“http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/cincinnati/2013/]53%[/url”&gt;http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/cincinnati/2013/]53%[/url</a>] employment. </p>

<p>Also, <a href=“mailto:lol@PPP”>lol@PPP</a>. As if that number actually means anything.</p>

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<p>It really depends on your goals with regard to practice area, lifestyle, desire to make a lot of money etc.</p>

<p>Criminal law (excluding white collar), personal injury, and family law (matrimonial, probate etc.) are usually smaller firm practices and the competion for jobs is not as fierce in the sense that academic pedigree is much less important. Same goes for getting a job in a local DA’s office.</p>

<p>With regard to Am Law 100 type firms (a/k/a BIG LAW), it is certainly possible to get hired coming from a non-T14 law school. It is just harder. To illustrate, at a non-T14 school, a firm recruiting on campus will screen candidates in advance based on grades/resumes. If you are not on law review or near the top of the class, forget it. On the other hand, at most T-14 schools (and I have recruited at almost all of them), firms are not permitted to do this. Instead, firms are required to interview those students who signed up to interview. There is no advance screening based on grades. (Indeed, at HLS, for e.g., there are no grades first year). </p>

<p>Supply and demand also is a factor. At the T-14 schools, virtually every national, Am Law 100 firm will be recruiting on campus. At a non-T14 school, there will be far fewer firms recruiting and many will be regional firms. In my graduating class of about 180 students virtually every person in the class who wanted a job at an AmLaw 100 type firm got one, with the exception of those at the very, very bottom of the class (or people with serious personality problems). </p>

<p>All that said, if you are a really strong student (law review etc.) from a 2nd tier law school, you will be able to get job offers from top firms, and there will be nothing holding you back from succeeding based on academic pedigree, provided that you are a really stronger performer.</p>

<p>It is important to realize that AmLaw 100 firms are filled with many, many partners who are incredibly successful and were educated at 2nd tier law schools. In my firm, for example, which is a very large international firm, 6 of the top 10 highest paid partners are from non-T14 schools, and this not at all unusual among the AmLaw 100. In practice, what matters most in regard to partner compensation is “rain-making” ability, and one’s LSAT score or grades in college have very little, if anything, to do with that. Also, I can’t tell you how many times I have heard other partners remark that the associates hired from lower ranked schools who were at the top of their class are stronger ‘real-world’ performers than their counter-parts from T14 schools. In my experience, with a few notworthy exceptions, it would be hard for me to distinguish whether an associate working for me was a T14 graduate, or not, without knowing in advance (but remember, the non-T14 students we hire are from the top of their class).</p>

<p>One other word about making money as a lawyer… There are many non-T14 graduates who become very wealthy as lawyers as a result of their business sense. Typically, these are people who start their own practices (for e.g. doing plaintiffs work/personal injury). They run their practice more like a business than a law firm. If your goal is to make money, there are ways to do it as a non-T14 graduate, working outside the world of the AmLaw 100.</p>

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<p>@Demosthenes49-- You can listen to what I say, or not. I am someone who is actually doing the hiring at an AmLaw 100 firm that you claim to know so much about. During my career, I have been on the hiring committees of 2 different AmLaw 100 firms for more than 15 years, and I have recruited at both T14 schools and 2nd tier schools, and I will be doing so in August when OCI period rolls around. I am also an adjunct professor of law at a T14 school, and I am quite familiar with the current market. With regard to IP, not attending a T14 school is not a meaningful disadvantage. We have one of the largest IP practices in the country and I know exactly what the background is of the students hire.</p>

<p>Why don’t you check the CVs of the IP associates and partners in Jones Day’s Cleveland office and see what schools they went to? If you bother to do so, you will see that most went to 2nd tier, local OH law schools (including U of Cinn, where the OP has expressed an interest in going). Would it be better to go to an Ivy if the OP can get in? Sure! But does it mean the OP can’t achieve great success as a patent lawyer, even at an AmLaw 100 firm, by going to a second tier law school? Of course not!</p>

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<p>@alum88‌ and @Demosthenes49‌ </p>

<p>Given my ACT score in high school (31), it seems like i would project somewhere in between 166-170 for the LSAT, using given formulas found online. I know it’s obviously not the best way to project your LSAT score, but it just gives me a rough estimate for now.</p>

<p>With these credentials of a 4.0 GPA (weighted as they do for law admissions), and an LSAT of 168 (hypothetically) I feel like it would leave me with the following possibilities:</p>

<p>1) Accept a full ride (or close to it) at a more local law school such as University of Cincinnati, Ohio State, or University of Dayton</p>

<p>2) Get accepted into a lower-end T14 school (Northwestern, UVA, etc.) and receive very little, if any, scholarship money. </p>

<p>So my next question is, is it worth it to go to a T14 school, and graduate from law school with ~$200,000 in debt? Or go to a more local school, graduate with no debt, and potentially make just as much as I would as a practicing engineer?</p>

<p>Thanks for all of your input. </p>

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<p>I am asked this question all the time, and I think T14 (with debt) is the better course because you will have a very high probability of getting hired by am AmLaw 100 firm at the so-called going rate ($165/year) for first years. You will be able to repay the law school debt within a matter of years, and you will get first rate training at a large law firm (which is invaluable). You will also have the firm pedigree on your resume which will help with future options if you chose to leave, or are asked to.</p>

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<p>Well I don’t claim to know a thing about law school, but here is my two cents just from reading this forum. 200,000 is ALOT of debt. If you decide you don’t like law, are unable to get employment in the law field, or are severely unemployed, you still have options if you graduate with no debt from the closer school.</p>

<p>On the other hand, if graduate at near the bottom of your class, even from the T-14 school, and are unable to pay off those loans… they could cripple you after graduation.</p>

<p>Out of curiosity though, are you sure you want to do law? What is wrong with engineering, which you already have a degree for, and is nearly as high paying as a law degree? (more job security as well)</p>

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<p>@alum88: Alright, I’ll pick up the gauntlet. Jones Day Cleveland has 9 associates in its intellectual property department. Of those, 1 went to Michigan, 2 went to Akron, 1 went to Case Western, 1 went to UT, 1 went to Cleveland State, 1 Duke, 1 U Cincinnati, and one OSU. You’re right that the majority did not go to T14 law schools. But, let’s take a look at the others. 1 went to UT, generally ranked 15, which is unquestionably a great school. A lot better than Cincinnati the OP was looking at. The rest are made up of: 3 summa, 1 magna, 1 coif, and the OSU fellow. So, you’re right that he doesn’t have to go to a T14 to get into Jones Day Cleveland. Instead, he could go to a lower ranked school and just be first in his class. Good luck with that.</p>

<p>The reason we tell people to go to T14 schools isn’t elitism, it’s risk management. Yeah, he might be ok if he goes to a lower-ranked school, but he probably won’t be. We don’t advise people to do things based on the mere possibility of avoiding disaster. Not when we can send them to schools with far better employment stats. You claim to be a lawyer, so let me put it like this: OP is your client. What risk threshold would you advise?</p>

<p>@bamabound714: With a 4.0 LSDAS and a 170s LSAT, you stand a very good chance of getting a full ride to a lower T14. That’s almost certainly your best bet (not Northwestern though, since they demand work experience, and not GULC because they are notoriously stingy). If your only choices are between a full ride at a low-end school and full freight at a T14, your best bet is to retake the LSAT. Seriously, the only way you’d end up that way is if you did poorly, and it’s a far better investment to take another 6 months and get a better score than it is to either attend a bad school or pay full freight at a higher one. </p>

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<p>@Demosthenes49-- Of course those associates have outstanding grades. What did you expect? The point is that even at a firm like Jones Day, the majority of associates come from the local, lower ranked schools. Only 1/9 IP associates is from a T14 school. Among Jones Day’s IP partner ranks the numbers appear to be even more slanted in favor of the local schools. If you bothered to read the advice I gave the OP 2 posts above you would see my views about “risk management.” I’m not here to be insulted, or have my bona fides questioned by the likes of you @Demosthenes49. So, I’m done with this thread. @bamabound, if you want the benefit of my advice and expertise feel free to PM me.</p>

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<p>@alum88: I expected them to have lower grades. Otherwise, your point would have been “it is theoretically possible to go to a low-ranked school and still get a decent job.” That’s a pretty bad argument, and not one I’d expect to see from someone claiming to be the managing partner of an office. </p>

<p>Oh, and 2/9 went to T14. The one from Duke and the one from Michigan. Plus, one went to UT, which is one point shy of being a T14 and is by no accounts a lower-ranked school. I don’t need to make the point about partners again, do I?</p>

<p>As to your point about being insulted, spare us. You came in to tell Bluebayou he didn’t know what he was talking about. I responded by saying that you didn’t know what you were talking about. I also provided some data to prove you didn’t know what you were talking about. If you’re insulted by that, that means you intended to insult Bluebayou. If you didn’t intend to insult Bluebayou, then you shouldn’t be insulted either. Either way, feel free to run away. I’m always happy to see people giving bad advice leave.</p>

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<p>OP, I am an attorney and am familiar with the schools you are looking at. On a whim I checked into the associates at a well-respected IP firm in Cincinnati. I could have missed some, but I counted 14 Associates (so presumably hired within the last 5 years) and they went to the following schools: UDayton (2), UC (5), OSU, Capital, NKU, IU(2), Duke and Georgetown. I would NOT take on 200K in debt. I think UC or OSU (with little debt) are absolutely acceptable alternatives.</p>

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<p>OK, I just checked the Cincinnati office of a very large firm regional (national maybe?) firm. In the IP Practice group I counted 14 Associates. Of them, 3 went to OSU, 2 to UC, and 2 to UD. </p>

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<p>It’s not just a question of Cincinnati firms having associates from Cincinnati. It’s also about where in the class they need to be. The problem with just looking at population sizes is that it fails to account for self-selection. That is, Cincinnati firms like to hire people who won’t move to New York at the first opportunity. They like to hire people with ties to Cincinnati. A lot of people with ties to Cincinnati go to school in Cincinnati, either because they have commitments there or because they (like most law students) couldn’t get into the top schools. Because Cincinnati firms like to hire people with ties, and because a lot of people with Cincinnati ties go to school in Cincinnati, firms end up with many Cincinnati students. That’s why you have to examine class standing too.</p>

<p>Self-selection works on the other end. That is, most of the students in the top schools aren’t looking to work in Cincinnati. They generally want to either go home or work in the major legal markets (NY/DC/SF/LA/Chi/Tex). Because few will want to go to Cincinnati, few will end up there. However, looking at their class standing will reveal a lot.</p>

<p>Before, when I looked at Jones Day, we had 9 associates, 3 from top schools and 6 from mid- or lower-ranked schools. The lower ranked schools’ students all graduated at the very top of their class (except the fellow from OSU; he’s an outlier). The top students generally had no honors (I think one was cum laude). That paints a relatively simple picture: Cincinnati firms hire mostly Cincinnati people because they have to, but there are enough Cincinnati students that they can afford to be extremely selective. Cincinnati firms hire few top students because few apply. When they do apply, Cincinnati firms have to reach far deeper into the class, and they’re willing to do so. That’s why there aren’t many top students and they don’t tend to be honors-level. </p>

<p>What this means for the OP is that, generally speaking, it’s still a way better bet to go to a T14 than a Cincinnati school, even if he wants to end up in Cincinnati. His expected value at law school is median. Median doesn’t get hired in Cincinnati from a lower-ranked school, but it does get hired from a top school. Plus, a top school gives him access to many other markets that Cincinnati doesn’t. That means the top school also provides a backup plan. With a hefty scholarship to a T14, definitely doable with a decent LSAT score, the lower T14 is the clear way to go.</p>

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<p>JD also has IP Associates from local law schools in their Cleveland office, but note, only one has been hired in the past few years, and that one attended a T14 (Duke). All others have been around several years. </p>

<p>To recap: just…ONE…IP hire…in JD’s Cleveland office in the past few years. </p>

<p>Cincinatti Law graduates ~150 students per year, and ~16 of them get a job with a so-called AmLaw100 Firm. Not great odds, unless of course the OP truly is that special snowflake. But then anyone who believes going in that s/he will certainly be in the to 10% of the class has a fool in the mirror. The odds are just better for a T14 grad. And a T14 at a huge discount is a no-brainer.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/cincinnati/trends/2013/”>http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/cincinnati/trends/2013/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>A 3.9/17x would earn big money at Michigan, just across the border. Plus Ann Arbor is a wonderful place to live for three years. Win-win.</p>

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<p>Almost all of the advice you could want’s already been said, except for your third option:</p>

<p>3) Intensely study for the LSAT and get $$$ at a T14.</p>

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<p>There’s also option four: Don’t go to law school; do something useful for society as an engineer instead; and avoid prolonged exposure to jackasses. </p>