Another Tier 3/4 question

[Lindbergh]

1.  They didn't go to a T14, or a T25.

2.  They didn't end up at the top of their class.

Once those two conditions are met, you're often happy to get any kind of job whatsoever.

...

Don't be stupid.

Sorry if the truth bothers you.

[Lindbergh]

1.  They didn't go to a T14, or a T25.

2.  They didn't end up at the top of their class.

Once those two conditions are met, you're often happy to get any kind of job whatsoever.

...

Don't be stupid.

I don't think it can be helped. Rule number 1 of LSD, pull salery numbers out of your ass for schools you don't go to in regions you have never worked then call them facts. 

Mattheis, you have some good insights into finding work when you're not at a top school.  That said, I know tons of people who didn't go to top schools, didn't end up at the top of their class, and therefore ended up struggling to find any kind of work whatsoever.  I personally know well-adjusted, studious, reasonably bright people who ended up taking jobs paying under $35K because those were the only jobs available.

I'm speaking from what I've personally witnessed with actual people.  If people don't want to believe this is the reality for many students, that's fine by me.  But they may face a rude awakening once they graduate if they don't recognize this reality.

Bottom line, if you're not at a T14/25, or not at the top of your class, you're unlikely to get a job through OCI.  At that point, once you're searching on your own, you're often happy to take any kind of legal job, even if it doesn't pay that much.  Not sure why this is considered particularly controversial.

[Resident CLS Troll]

C'mon, you can't tell me that there are not sizeable numbers in each class who go to those schools only because their daddy went there. Please!

Yes, I can.  There are not sizeable numbers of people here who are here only because their daddies went here.

[Lindbergh]

Everyone always cites employment data from this or that source when exhorting prospective students to "go to a T14 or else". The problem with this horrible, shallow analysis is that employment data for T14 schools is somewhat skewed. Many who attend T14s already have a job upon graduation and they had it from day one. Therefore, a true analysis of the employment prospects of T14 grads would have to eliminate those whose family connections afford them opportunities that the broad cross-section of law grads do not have (assuming the analysis was simply for those students, like me, who do not come from a priveleged background to determine which school to attend). If this type of analysis were done, my HYPOTHESIS is that the T14 schools are marginally better than other schools and not worth the debt load.

Don't be silly.  Family connections have almost nothing to do with who gets into law schools.  It's 90% LSAT+GPA, for starters.

If you review placement stats for T14 grads, you'll find almost none work with family or family-connected law firms.  Even those T14 students with lawyer parents will generally have far better options than working with the family firm.

[Lindbergh]

For the record, I do not know a single person at my law school (or at any other "T14", for that matter) who got his or her law firm job through personal connections that existed prior to law school.  And yes, I know a large number of people at my school.

Agreed.

And in case anybody wonders why I put "T14" in quotation marks, it's because I think the category is stupid.

Why?  You don't think the T14 places significantly better than other schools?

[Lindbergh]

For the record, I do not know a single person at my law school (or at any other "T14", for that matter) who got his or her law firm job through personal connections that existed prior to law school.  And yes, I know a large number of people at my school.

And in case anybody wonders why I put "T14" in quotation marks, it's because I think the category is stupid.

I agree with this, if you have connections there is no reason to to go to a T14 in the first place. Go to your local school live at home, party your ass off and have you parents pay for it. The t14 (which I also agree is stupid) is a magnet for social climbing poor people desperately trying to become socially important. But, thank god, we know who you are and can spot you from your new rich Acura/Lexis/Infinity and know to keep our daughters away from you so you don’t taint our blueblood with your commoners. Nobody from a good family goes to anything less than Yale or Harvard, or they go local. We don’t want our children mixing with the townies at Cornell for god sakes. Sure we will pay you a lot of money to work for the firm our name is on, but we know we never have worry about you moving in next to us in the Hamptons, we give you just enough to taste it but never enough to really be one of us, we invented SoHo for you to feel like you made it so we don't have to mingle with you at the yacht club.

You really as rich as you're pretending to be here, Mattheis? 

That said, remember that H and Y are also part of the T14.  And the truly rich people don't go to law school at all.  (Is your Audi exempt from your Acura/Lexis/Infinity analysis?   

[Lindbergh]

For the record, I do not know a single person at my law school (or at any other "T14", for that matter) who got his or her law firm job through personal connections that existed prior to law school.  And yes, I know a large number of people at my school.

And in case anybody wonders why I put "T14" in quotation marks, it's because I think the category is stupid.

C'mon, you can't tell me that there are not sizeable numbers in each class who go to those schools only because their daddy went there. Please!

Legacy admissions are almost nonexistent in law school.  Aside from AA, law school admissions are incredibly meritocratic/numbers-driven, if only by necessity.

If you pay $43k per year to attend an elite law school, that's on you. If mommy and daddy pay for it, great! Yet, if you incur that debt all on your own and gamble with your future, you are either far braver than I. Why let your debt load dictate your job options?

Here's the problem:

1.  Most law schools cost about the same amount. 
2.  At an elite school, you're pretty much guaranteed a high-paying job.
3.  At a non-elite school, you're clearly not.
4.  The non-elite school is therefore much more of a gamble, generally speaking.
5.  Even if you get a full-ride, you're investing 3 years of your life, lost earning opportunities, etc.  There's no guarantee you'll make law review.  So there's no guarantee you'll get a respectable job.

Either way, it's a gamble.  Even if you go T14, you may hate the work, and quit after a year.  But that's generally a more secure gamble than attending a lower-ranked school, which could handicap your entire career, depending on what you want to do.

Put another way:  Why let your pedigree/short-sightedness dictate/limit your job options?

[Matthies]

1.  They didn't go to a T14, or a T25.

2.  They didn't end up at the top of their class.

Once those two conditions are met, you're often happy to get any kind of job whatsoever.

...

Don't be stupid.

I don't think it can be helped. Rule number 1 of LSD, pull salery numbers out of your ass for schools you don't go to in regions you have never worked then call them facts. 

Mattheis, you have some good insights into finding work when you're not at a top school.  That said, I know tons of people who didn't go to top schools, didn't end up at the top of their class, and therefore ended up struggling to find any kind of work whatsoever.  I personally know well-adjusted, studious, reasonably bright people who ended up taking jobs paying under $35K because those were the only jobs available.

I'm speaking from what I've personally witnessed with actual people.  If people don't want to believe this is the reality for many students, that's fine by me.  But they may face a rude awakening once they graduate if they don't recognize this reality.

Bottom line, if you're not at a T14/25, or not at the top of your class, you're unlikely to get a job through OCI.  At that point, once you're searching on your own, you're often happy to take any kind of legal job, even if it doesn't pay that much.  Not sure why this is considered particularly controversial.

That is exactly the problem. 99% of law students have no idea how to find a job, take away OCI and they have no clue what to do to find a job (see student side of this board for plenty of examples). That is the students fault, not the schools. If 10% of law students would realize before 3L how the legal field works, the number and placement at all schools would go up, even the top 14.

Students take crap jobs precisely because that is the only choice they have when they put all their cards in one OCI basket. Then they turn to mass mail or asnwering adds in the newspaper, guess what these jobs are empty becuase they suck, good jobs get filled by referal. Do most law students give any thought to this before hand, of course not becuase they are like deer in headlights for OCI.

And that says something about the student and the future type of lawyer they will be. You don't make partner sitting around waiting for your school to hand you a new client.  You either make things happen or you sit around and wait for things to happen to you. The later is the default option for most people, as it’s the easiest path.

[Matthies]

For the record, I do not know a single person at my law school (or at any other "T14", for that matter) who got his or her law firm job through personal connections that existed prior to law school.  And yes, I know a large number of people at my school.

And in case anybody wonders why I put "T14" in quotation marks, it's because I think the category is stupid.

I agree with this, if you have connections there is no reason to to go to a T14 in the first place. Go to your local school live at home, party your ass off and have you parents pay for it. The t14 (which I also agree is stupid) is a magnet for social climbing poor people desperately trying to become socially important. But, thank god, we know who you are and can spot you from your new rich Acura/Lexis/Infinity and know to keep our daughters away from you so you don’t taint our blueblood with your commoners. Nobody from a good family goes to anything less than Yale or Harvard, or they go local. We don’t want our children mixing with the townies at Cornell for god sakes. Sure we will pay you a lot of money to work for the firm our name is on, but we know we never have worry about you moving in next to us in the Hamptons, we give you just enough to taste it but never enough to really be one of us, we invented SoHo for you to feel like you made it so we don't have to mingle with you at the yacht club.

You really as rich as you're pretending to be here, Mattheis? 

That said, remember that H and Y are also part of the T14.  And the truly rich people don't go to law school at all.  (Is your Audi exempt from your Acura/Lexis/Infinity analysis?   

Yes. Rich people don't buy re-badged accords. We buy cars that break down a lot from Germany becuase that's how we keep the economy going.

[Matthies]

the problem is that a "decent income" working for a small firm is not going to be $70,000 a year in most cases. biglaw pays around $100-160K....the next step down is often to $35,000-50,000 a year. so if you're comfortable earning that salary out of law school, tier 3/4 without loans should be fine.

I don't think this is entirely accurate. The next step down from big law is not making 35-50,000 a year. This may be true for a small firm (10 or less attorneys) because they simply don't have the money for the high salaries. But midsize firms you can easily make between 50-80,000 and still have a life.

I agree with what people are saying for the most part. If you are in a legal market that is not flooded with higher ranked schools AND your school has a good local rep and you want to stay there, take the money and run. Make sure your school has a good rep though. I would not go anywhere that is consistently trashed by others.

I completely agree. I don't know where this rumor started that it was $160,000 or $40,000, but from what I've seen that's very inaccurate. Everyone I know that has gone into non-biglaw private firms has started in the 80's, or 90's.


Take everything you read on this board with a grain of salt.

It's definitely not $160K or $40K.  Some people make under $30K.

You are correct, but just about all of them didn't go to law school.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but many of them did.

I can't help but wonder what somebody did (or didn't) do to put themselves in that position.

1.  They didn't go to a T14, or a T25.

2.  They didn't end up at the top of their class.

Once those two conditions are met, you're often happy to get any kind of job whatsoever.

I would agree with this if you added:

3. most law students have no clue how to find a job on thier own

4. most law studnets are lazy or late when it comes to the job search.