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<p>Cooley is #2 in the [Cooley</a> Law Rankings](<a href=“http://www.cooley.edu/rankings/overall2010.html]Cooley”>http://www.cooley.edu/rankings/overall2010.html). That doesn’t make it a T14 either. UT, like Vanderbilt and UCLA, is in the tier right below the T14. As you can see from the LST data I provided earlier, these are all very strong schools regionally with a reasonable chance at placement into other markets. They are all below the bottom tier of the T14, however, which you can see by looking into the placement data of Georgetown, Cornell, Duke or Northwestern. The T14 are the 14 schools with historically strong placement and recognition that have sat in the top 14 USNWR slots since they were created. Really, the former matters and the latter doesn’t, but it holds just as true for both.</p>
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<p>The OP is a college sophomore. His very first sentence: “I am currently a sophomore at a community college…” As for whether legal careers require a top 10 law school, technically it is true they do not. After all, he could get employment coming out of Cooley or Thomas Jefferson. To give the OP advice based on mere logical possibility is at best disingenuous and at worst unethical. </p>
<p>Let me set out a few facts for you: There are roughly [45,000[/url</a>] law graduates per year. Of those, about [url=<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304458604577486623469958142]half[/url”>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304458604577486623469958142]half[/url</a>] will find jobs as lawyers. You can wipe those right off the table. Of the remaining 22,500 jobs, only a few (about 8% of employed grads) will pay market BigLaw (either because they are BigLaw or because they match salary). This is pretty important because 85% of law students (including those with no jobs at all) are walking around with roughly [url=<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/jmaureenhenderson/2012/06/26/why-attending-law-school-is-the-worst-career-decision-youll-ever-make/]one”>Why Attending Law School Is The Worst Career Decision You'll Ever Make]one</a> hundred thousand dollars in debt](<a href=“http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/02/historical-data-total-number-of-law-students-1964-2012.html]45,000[/url”>http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2013/02/historical-data-total-number-of-law-students-1964-2012.html). Employment is not evenly distributed among the schools. Not surprisingly employment prospects [go</a> down](<a href=“6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers”>6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers) as you drop in rankings.</p>
<p>So what we’ve got here is a situation where if you want to be a lawyer you are entering a highly glutted market, taking on huge debt with deeply uncertain prospects for repayment. The only thing you can partially control is what kind of employment risk you’re willing to take, and that means which school to go to. In the face of that you’re coming in and telling someone they’re ridiculous for only wanting a top 10 school. </p>
<p>Yeah, OP overreacted by thinking one bad class would sink a top law school application. But OP’s reaction is entirely justified based on just how much your law school matters. What the OP needed was cogent, reasonable advice based on a thorough understanding of both the legal market and the requirements for admission to a top school. What you provided was nonsense about where partners come from (hint: partners are not graduating in today’s market). Half of law students won’t ever be lawyers of any stripe and many will only survive on the doc review circuit. Law school matters tremendously and if you want to offer advice you have an ethical obligation to make sure you have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.</p>