<p>Yeah, but if you aren't in the top 14 you better have good grades if you want to make moola. And as I said, the lower rank your school, the more risk you're taking since you have to be in basically the top 10% of your class to make any money.</p>
<p>That's not discounting the high attrition rate of lawyers too.</p>
<p>I also keep hearing horror stories about how people in the bottom of the top 14 have trouble finding jobs too.</p>
<p>Also, costs are also higher because you can't declare bancruptcy and get rid of student loans. So banks don't care how much you borrow or whether you'll be able to pay such loans back.</p>
<p>If you (i.e. your son) can get into a Top 14, he should go. There really aren't guarantees that anyone will perform substantially better at a lower-ranked school; generally, performance in law school is correlated to work ethic and aptitude. </p>
<p>Now, there is the issue of money. Even about ten years ago, it was possible to borrow your way through the most expensive of schools and be able to pay it off. By the time your son enters law school, he should plan on having almost $200,000 of bills. Yes, you can do fairly good work and have reasonable hours and make $80k, $90k starting, but that simply may not be enough to pay off the loans. </p>
<p>Lower-ranked schools aren't any cheaper, although they may offer merit aid which would be very useful. Do consider the risk inherent in attending a top school and having all the loans; consider as well the risk of saving a bit of money attending a lower-ranked school but not having the job opportunities. Furthermore, some of the best schools have very, very generous loan repayment terms.</p>
<p>Please also remember that the "CC atmosphere" is here as well - many people here are focused exclusively on working in corporate law for a NYC firm. If that isn't what your son wants, then he should find people who do what he wants to do and figure out how they got there.</p>
<p>My final word of caution is this: if your son is focused on patent law, he can theoretically practice anywhere. However, there are certainly areas of the country that have more patent opportunities than others - and those tend to be the big-city job markets that are hard to break into.</p>
<p>GOSH, i'm really scared about going into law. Who's knows what kind of a job I'm going to get if I don't go to a famous law school ?! Maybe I should rethink law, plus lawyers stay up late at times and have to do a lot , a lot of work.</p>