Pix or will not have happened.
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Enthusiastic lurker here from the Parents of the HS class of 2021 thread. This seems to be the most currently active thread on CC about law school. My college junior D has decided to apply to law school, come hell or high water, without the recommended year or two of post-college employment. English/History double major (of course!) …has worked one summer and a half interning under a couple of judges in our local, small-town courthouse…limited experience, I know, but she did find it interesting. Has studied casually for the LSATs for a few months but is now starting to do so in earnest (was selected to be part of an all-expenses-paid LSAT coaching class through her college that will meet weekly this spring semester, plus a full-time boot-camp for two weeks in late spring once the semester ends. She hopes to get a congressional internship this coming summer while getting applications together.
GPA is good and has risen every semester (currently 3.92). Hard to know how she will fare for the LSAT…multiple-choice test-taking is not always her forte but she did score a 780 verbal on the SAT (math considerably lower). Anyway, she is not gunning for a T14 or a job in Manhattan Big Law…she really doesn’t know where she will end up but it likely won’t be in our home state. She’d like to go to a solid, decently-respected school in a common-bar state for versatility. This thread has brought up the idea of 2nd-tier and 3rd-tier schools. My question is this: what would be the general dividing line between the 2nd and 3rd tiers? While she’s not super status- or money-seeking, I’m pretty sure she would not want to land in that 3rd-tier designation. Obviously, scoring as close to 170+ as possible would be her goal, but what would be a reasonable score to achieve to be competitive within that solid 2nd-tier zone, especially applying (as she may be) without post-graduate work experience. I realize there is no objective measure for this, but just trying to get some ideas here (lots of lawyers on this thread). Thanks for your input!
You can look at the bar passage rates by school- and then % employed in a job REQUIRING a JD 9 months after graduation for a good proxy of “what’s the difference between 2nd tier and 3rd tier”.
It is easy to say “I won’t be in that unfortunate group that doesn’t pass the bar” but the numbers are the numbers. And nobody wants to finish law school and end up in Plan C because Plans A and B were just not possible.
Big Law is NOT a “Manhattan phenomenon” btw. There are Big Law firms with offices in Houston, Cleveland, Boston, DC, Atlanta, LA, SF, Chicago… she doesn’t have to start crossing things off her list now (I’d encourage her to keep an open mind.) Some firms have better/worse quality of life, work/life balance, and she won’t start to appreciate the differences until she’s actually interviewing (which is down the line, not a decision she needs to make right now).
She should also keep in mind that there are MANY high status legal jobs which are not that highly paid-- and that’s a good thing. So she needs to keep the two things separate. Being a Federal Prosecutor (on the GS scale for public servants… so a decent salary for sure but a fraction of what a similarly educated lawyer could make elsewhere) is highly prestigious, intellectually challenging, and if you care at all about justice and trying to “bend the arc”, a wonderful way to earn a living. Not an easy job to get-- yes, prestige of the law school matters here. Working for an advocacy organization- typically not that high paid- but in parts of the country you couldn’t drink the water out of the tap or eat the fish you catch were it not for the lawyers who have sued polluters and successfully cleaned up the disasters that were made. Lawyers for the EPA-- same deal, but this time working for the government.
She has a fun journey ahead of her!
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The US News law school rankings have a median LSAT score attached to each school.
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for maximum career flexibility, its best to attend the highest rank LS that one can afford. A 3.92 is outstanding. Put that with a 170, and she’ll have plenty of offers with merit money.
What state is she a resident? Which one would she prefer to work?
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Hi @inthegarden. I remember you from parents of 2021.
Your daughter’s GPA is outstanding and going to be well over 75% percentile at tons of schools. That bodes well for merit money.
She needs to really spend time this summer studying hard for LSATs. Take it early in summer and maybe again in early fall.
My D18 actually graduated in 3 years and still went straight to law school. Clearly the trend tends to be to work a year or two but with your daughters grades and what I expect will be great LSAT scores she will be fine.
As to what type of school besides the GPA and LSAT which are dominant criteria the other issues are cost (obviously) where she sees herself practicing and the type of law she wants to practice.
There are some good websites to explore law schools, employment statistics etc. www.lawschooltransperancy.com; www.lawschoolnumbers.com
If you have any other questions feel free to PM me.
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I also vote for doing everything possible to maximize the LSAT to go with that GPA, then chase merit. It may seem crude, but there is a lot to be said for going to the best ranked law school that offers you serious merit in terms of optimizing your practical options for starting your career.
My only caveat is at least for private practice, you could also consider any reasonably well ranked law school in a state/market you would be happy to start working in. But again, ideally with serious merit.
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I don’t know where it fits in the pantheon of big time but I know of three law students.
One Florida full ride - had private firm lined up b4 he took it but is in a clerkship for a judge for x years first. He undergrad UF too. I’m told high level firms want you in that clerkship and you get paid real well when it’s over. Not sure if true but what I’m told by his mom. No work experience prior.
One undergrad UF now at Fordham. No work experience. Think they are rated 2nd tier ?
One Rutgers to Miami Florida full tuition. Turned down Vandy full pay. I know Miami rank is very low. Not totally sure but I don’t think work experience.
Hope they all end up successful. I suspect they all will.
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Thanks everyone!
For confidentiality I haven’t identified our state except to individual posters that I PM occasionally. I’ve described, in plenty of posts on cc, other specific markers about my D and family that are unusual in our little community and region that could be a giveaway to D’s identity if someone local should be reading here so I’d like to be careful. But we’re in the eastern US. D goes to school in Virginia (OOS).
Our perfectly OK state law school isn’t her first preference but she would go there if it’s the best option she gets, so she’ll apply there. Fortunately, we do live in a state that uses the uniform bar exam. Complicating things in her mind, she’s in a fairly serious relationship of 2+ years (or as serious as one may be at 21 years old). BF may also go to law school eventually but wants to work a year or two (and already has good prospects for employment after graduation). He’s from a major metropolitan area that D likes (regardless of what does or doesn’t happen with this relationship in the future). Boyfriend’s city is also located in a universal bar state (whew!) She absolutely knows she should go to the best-fit law school but the relationship is a factor she doesn’t want to ignore ant this point either! She’s also attracted to the idea of a DC school…Georgetown is likely out of the question but maybe GW or George Mason/Scalia? Ohio State could be an option…it seems to be ranked higher per US News than its median GPA and scores would suggest so maybe she’d have a good chance of admission/scholarship there. She’s leery of the political leanings of Florida, Texas, Alabama.
I guess she will see how her practice testing goes in the next few months and go from there in her planning. She’ll take the June test and decide later if August if necessary. (She had to decide on this already so that the correct prep course would be ordered since logic games will be dropped for the August test). Everything seems to be moving so very fast! She added the second (history) major and an honors thesis (which will take three semesters) just this past fall. Seems like yesterday that she was applying to college and now is already so grown up. My head is spinning.
I love updates like this…I remember cheering for your daughter during her application process and start of her first year at college. So exciting to hear what a great fit her school has been, the exciting additions to her educational journey and now, a great relationship as well!
Fingers crossed with LSAT prep going well, it is so helpful to the process. I do agree with the other posters that knowing where one might want to practice (location wise) does help with figuring out what schools may be the best to target.
DH went to a T14…which helped when he changed his mind about location mid-law school career. His 1st summer internship was with BigLaw and he was able to ask to switch to another office of the same firm for his second internship (he worked at that BigLaw firm for several years post law school).
If he had known for sure where he wanted to end up location wise, he could have pick any number of very well regarded regional law schools in our area and probably had the same basic career (including starting at a BigLaw firm since they do recruit in their local area as well as nationally). The only big advantage of going to a T14 over a very well rated regional school (in his opinion) was the flexibility he had to changing his mind about location mid process.
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I just want to say that the single college course that helped me most on the LSAT was Logic (including symbolic logic) that I took over the summer in the Philosophy department. It actually helped me organize and gave me speed on the logic puzzles section of the LSAT (which I think is still a thing, but may not be, so if it is not, feel free to ignore this tidbit).
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Logic games portion of the LSAT is being removed as of August test I believe.
Oh no! Kid is loving his honors philosophy deductive logic class this semester!
ps: I am loving this thread and will be showing it to him this summer, so please, everyone keep it going!
And if anyone has insights into social justice or civil rights-type law, and how that should factor into your law school application decisions (location/the T14 factor, merit, best schools) bring it!
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I heard yesterday that the last date for the current test is February!
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My best advice for social justice/civil rights is to aim high (prestige wise) and to max out on clinics, research opportunities for professors, etc. Even if many of your classmates are gunning for jobs defending Wall Street CEO’s, the faculty at the top schools are going to have greater access to learning opportunities. So the journals, clinics, internships- robust. And the support staff at the top schools have a well oiled machine for getting kids in front of judges for clerkships after graduation which are important for a variety of prosecutorial roles.
Yeah, you can do this from a law school nobody has ever heard of. But it’s easier- whether Public Defender at the federal level, local level, Innocence projects (which to nobody’s surprise mostly deal with minority men who are serving time for crimes they did not commit) etc. when you’re coming out of a top school.
The curriculum is much less important. Your kid will have to take civil procedure, constitutional law, etc. like every other law student. And since these building blocks are critical for social justice/civil rights work, that’s a good thing.
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Dont worry. There’s still a large logic component, it just wont be the logic puzzles.
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So first, make your kid watch that Don’t Be a Lawyer video. One of the hilariously true things about that video is when the person wanting to go to law school starts talking about these areas of the law.
Not to ruin it, but the basic problem is a gazillion smart kids want those jobs, at least the ones with any sort of social status (aka “prestige”) associated with them, and there is simply not much funding. So a lot of them just take less pay, much less pay sometimes. And to be very blunt, sometimes that is because they have family money, or a spouse with a high income, or so on, meaning they do not need that job to pay well because the cost of law school and then a subsequent professional class life is being paid for mostly in other ways.
A few jobs like that at least pay OK, though, like federal attorney jobs, or the ACLU. But then the competition for those jobs is insane. I mean, even the competition for the higher prestige but lower paying jobs is already stiff, and then for the ones that pay at all well? Crazy.
OK, so if that is the goal, you really do need to try to go to a really good law school, do really well, get an editorial position on law review, clerk for a federal judge, and then . . . maybe.
Oh, and at the same time you can’t be saddled with a bunch of law school debt you need a lucrative private practice job to help pay off.
I don’t mean to be dismissive, but this is just a really, really tough road. It is like the lawyer version of wanting to be a film actor, or a professional athlete. Some people pull it off, but most who want it do not.
And then there is the alternative–work for real money, and then do pro bono. Not necessarily what a lot of people dream of doing (again, see video), and it probably doesn’t have the prestige factor a lot of kids are hoping for. But it is a far more realistic path to actually helping people while having a sustainable legal career.
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Yeah, aside from the puzzles, it’s probably still not a terrible idea to take a class on logic.
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We would really prefer our kids not become lawyers.
The only plus side is they know exactly what’s ahead of them if they want to go to law school.
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I have numerous lawyers in my family, both older generation and new young grads.
None of them regret their decision to become lawyers and so far, it looks as though the young ones have figured out terrific career paths.
ALL of them knew what they were getting into (even the one graduating into the financial meltdown which had hiring implications for four cycles). And all of them worked (some for a while) before applying which I think made a huge difference. It wasn’t “Oh I’m graduating next year and have no clue what I want to do so there’s always law school”. It was a very intentional “I am very good at X and want to combine X with a law degree/become a practicing attorney.”
I realize it’s hard to talk a kid with no practical work experience into deferring talk of law school until they’ve actually HAD a job… but working does seem to cut down on the buyer’s remorse/OMG, I hate this syndrome of the law students who go directly from undergrad.
Plus- huge difference one you are interviewing for that 2L summer job!
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