Law School Discussion

The dubious value of law school rankings:

According to US News, Pace U. Law is a Tier 3 school (due, in part, to its outstanding environmental law program, no?) whereas Suffolk U. Law is Tier 4.

I recently persuaded Suffolk to take me off their Wait List and into their Day Division F/T - whereas I had previously accepted Pace's offer (and must now decline).

Without getting into too much detail: my wife and life are in Boston and it was more or less a necessity I remain here and attend law school in Boston (I asked Northeastern and BU for the same opportunity, but they declined).

if you are planning on working in boston after you graduate from suffolk, i would not be one bit concerned. i'll also be in the boston area for school next year and was trying to decide between suffolk (which gave me a full scholarship), bc and bu. i spoke to a cousin of mine who just retired as senior partner of one of the huge boston law firms. his take on the schools was this:

at least locally, suffolk has a very solid reputation and it is steadily getting better (especially with the construction of their new building). this isnt to say that suffolk is exactly on par with bu, bc or (of course) harvard... but the respect it garners is certainly leagues above what you would expect from a T4 school. he said he viewed it just a little below northeastern.

bottom line: if you want to stay in boston after graduating, i think (and i think my cousin would agree) that you would be infinitely better off going to suffolk than pace. with the exception of just a few super-elite schools (harvard, yale, columbia, etc...) just about every school is subject to its own regional bias. this bias is the result of both increased familiarity and name recognition as well as stronger alumni connections. even if two schools are ranked the same... the local school will always do better.

congrats on getting into Suffolk’s day division, btw.
.

Helpful Harry,

in looking at the website, this whole thing just sounds like one of those get-rich-quick scams: "EARN As IN LAW SCHOOL WITHOUT TRYING... etc..." basically, just too good to be true... like taking the easy way out. it also seems to be contrary to all the other books/advice ive gotten about studying in law school.

am i just missing the point, here? how come i havent heard more about this program? (this post was the first time ive heard the name)

do you mind answering where you went/go to school and how you are ranked?

ok, michelle... i called financial aid and here is the deal with the computer:

once you buy the computer, you need to send in a "P-letter" to the financial aid office as well as a receipt for the purchase price of the computer. once you do that, financial aid will increase your cost of attendance by the price of the computer. then you need to go to your private lender and request the additional amount.

this all has to happen no later than 4 weeks after classes start. also, the computer can't cost more than $3000.

so the one catch here is that you have to buy the computer first and THEN ask for more $$.


also, im considering buying a computer from a company called PCs for Everyone (www.pcsforeveryone.com). they are based in cambridge, ma and are VERY reputable. i first heard of them when i was at Tufts because the entire IT department buys their custom computers from this company. when i was in grad school (also at tufts) and i needed an extremely fast machine (faster than i could buy through dell or any of those companies) i had the school get me my research computer from this place.

the reasons why id go with this place over the dells at school is that (1) everything from the power supply to the hard drive is name-brand (as opposed to dell where only the "big" stuff is name brand and the rest is generic, (2) they are a local company, (3) they know their *&^% (unlike the tech people you speak to on the phone at dell and (4) the prices are just as low as dell's

the one down side is that, while they do offer a 3 year warranty, they dont offer a complete warranty like dell does where even if i break it they fix it. this warranty thing is the one reason im still considering a dell.

just wanted to let you know what other options are out there...

no problem... and no, im not sure about that, but its something i need to check on... though im still hoping my parents will come through and buy it for me

ill probably call financial aid today. ill let u know what i find out.

well, ive been getting a lot of conflicting advice about how much to spend and how nice a computer to get. some people have said just to get the absolute minimum... just something that can email and use ms word. other people have said to get a super nice computer as this is what my life is going to revolve around for the next 3 years.

i tend to agree with the latter point of view... its also a nice excuse to buy a really sweet computer

so, that said, the multimedia has twice as a better sound card, and twice as much video ram, and twice as much regular ram. ive heard that westlaw and lexis/nexis really uses up a lot of ram so i figure i might as well go with the max. also, itd be nice to be able to use this to watch movies and 64megs of video ram is really a requirement if you want to watch dvds on your computer (though, of course you can get by with 32 megs of ram and you would still be fine). the multimedia also has an 80 gig hard drive while the regular has a 60. this probably doesnt matter as both drives are bigger than i could foresee using (unless you play a lot of games... but when would you have time in law school?)

so, bottom line, the multimedia has twice as much ram as the other computer and that pretty much sealed the deal for me. if you arent familiar with what ram is, exactly, think of it like this:

the size of your hard drive is like a library: the bigger the hard drive the more books you can store in your library

the amount of ram you have is like the size of your table in the library: the more ram you have the more books you can have open and lying on your table at one time.

does any of that help?