Regret Attending Law School?

NYULawyer
Wed, 19 Dec 2012 15:06:37 +0000

I agree with the lottery analogy, though I think the stated numbers are too low.



Not sure about Harvard Law, but at my school (NYU) close to 65% of student body my year landed employment of their desire, based on the statistics 2L’s received this year from our career office. (Biglaw + clerkship + PI all combined) That still leaves ~35% of the students at my school with less than optimal employment outcome.

Re Georgetown, based on NLJ250 stats, ~31% of their 2L’s landed at big firms. Add extra 10-15% of student body, at most, who opted for clerkships, PI, or other mid-sized firm jobs, and the rough figure comes out at 40-45%.



I’d say the numbers are too high. You don’t have a 5-10% chance of BigLaw from a T2. Maybe the top 5 students have a shot…



Regarding a T2 law school, I don’t consider landing Biglaw as the metric of success, since most people going to a T2 know they won’t get Biglaw going in. I was more addressing the rough likelihood of T2 grads being able to get full-time, associate jobs in their region or other legit lawyer jobs at PI, DA office, government, etc that would justify 3 years of opportunity and financial costs.

I would still say that a JD from a top school is a better bet than a B.A. in non-engineering/CS/math major from a top college.