For those of you who have experience, how good are Swiss Gear backpacks about holding up?  I have an expandable one that costs about $65... I was able to get two case books, a bluebook citation book, and two other thin books in it, as well as my laptop.  It all fits fine, but it weights close to 25 pounds.  Do I need to worry about putting too much stress on the straps (afraid it might break on me), or do those bags tend to be durable enough that I shouldn't worry about it.

I got to thinking about the controversy around the US News ranking and its faults.  I have an idea that would improve these rankings and make them (IMO) considerably more useful.  Instead of having a single overall ranking, divide the country into regions and have regional rankings.  Market the rankings to each region, and have them all available via internet.  The regions could be divided into things like the Pacific coast and the Southeast... New York would be its own region.  Rank the top 100 schools for each region.

For example, the top five in the Pacific may be 1. Stanford, 2. Yale, 3. Harvard, 4. Berkeley, 5. Columbia, where the top five in New York might be 1. Yale, 2. Harvard, 3. Columbia, 4. NYU, 5. Stanford.  This is just a guess, but it is possible to imagine that different regions are going to prefer different schools- therefore, one national ranking is insufficient.

The intentions of these rankings would not be to rank schools within regions- U.S. News already does this.  If you are applying in New York, a Stanford degree would still be more valuable than a Fordham degree, and a UPenn degree would still get you farther than a UC Davis degree- even in California.  The rankings would reflect this.  U.S. News could even still have their national rankings, and those could remain unchanged.  For example, if John Doe is positive that he wants to work in the Midwest after graduation, he would look at the Midwest rankings, which would probably place Michigan higher than Virginia and Penn.  However, if he is unsure where he wants to work, the national rankings would indicate that these schools are pretty much equal (as they already do).

I think that this could be fairly easily implemented and greatly increase the value of rankings for potential law school applicants.  Any thoughts?

I am starting school at UK in August, and I hope to continue to practice law in Lexington.  I have begun researching firms in the area, and I have found three particular firms that interest me the most.  All three of these firms hire 1Ls for summer, and they all hire a majority of their associates from UK.  They also conduct 1L OCIs at UK.

I am curious as to whether there is anything in particular that I can do to ensure that I interview with these firms when 1L OCIs come around.  I understand that the main thing I can do is keep my grades up and get on Law Review.  But is this enough?  Is the interview process so reliant on numbers that if I get good grades, I should get an interview, or is there anything I can do to make myself more attractive to each particular firm?  I'm posting this here because I'm guessing most of you posting in this board is already looking at/ going through the process.

Thanks for any helpful responses.

One of my former professors, who is also an attorney, wrote a LOC for me.  The other day, I sent him an e-mail just catching up and asking for advice, and he sent a response that (I thought) was full of valuable information.  One of the things he wrote about was an analogy between summer associate positions and picks in sports drafts- I just thought I'd share for those interested.

Knowing a little bit now about how firms hire, at my old firm years ago, we'd always ask ourselves, for example, why someone from such and such a place would want to come settle in CITY X.  If we couldn't figure out a reason, then we wouldn't bother to interview them.  It's the same reason why teams have to think twice about trading away quality young players or draft picks for a player that they know they can't sign to come back for next year.  The mega firms might have lots of clerkships, but the smaller firms just have one or two.  We can't blow them on people who will work for a summer then seek permanent employment elsewhere.  We'd really have to be in a must-win pennant race in terms of needing top-notch clerk work now to justify hiring a summer associate who was headed to different places later.       

Maybe various people have already made this same comparison, but I thought it was a worthwhile insight from someone who would know what they were talking about.  It underscores the importance of emphasizing why you want to work for a firm when going through the application process.

Exciting news- Luke Winn, from www.sportsillurated.com, has released his preseason NCAA basketball rankings early!  Don't want to spoil it for anyone, but let's just say Harvard and Yale don't come close to this list...

http://www.fannation.com/si_blogs/tourney/posts/60921-michigan-state-tops-2009-preseason-rankings#


Oh, and for those of you whose hearts just skipped a beat.... chill out.  The US News rankings aren't the end of the world.