<p>I’ve been away from this site for a few days. Flowerhead, your posts are so filled with misinformation, it is startling! Which legal markets have been shrinking lately? California and Illinois, for starters. (Just look at the number of former major San Francisco firms that no longer even exist, for example.) Why? Their economies are in the tank. On the other hand, the major Texas firms have not had the massive layoffs of associates in recent years that their counterparts in the other cities you named have suffered. Why? In a word, energy. In two words: energy and economy. The Texas economy and population are growing in decided contrast to all the other states you named, with the exception of DC. New York, of course, will always have a strong legal practice, but if I were starting out today, I sure wouldn’t be looking at California or Illinois, frankly. As for all the schools in the T14 being “national schools.” Frankly, not true. The major Texas firms don’t even recruit at over a third of them. Why? They don’t have to. They go to UT and get the cream of the crop.</p>
<p>As for the ITAM program. I agree that Mexico is not as big a market as other countries in latin america, e.g., Brazil (which is why Obama will be in Rio next week). Having had to retain local counsel in those countries or special counsel to assist with projects in those countries, however, I can assure you I would jump at the chance to use an attorney trained at a top US law school to assist. Many firms now have Latin American practice groups and I think would lap those kids up. I focused on UT’s ITAM program because it is unique to UT and I practiced international project finance. Needless to say, they have lots of other irons in the fire under their new dean.</p>