Miami carries a ton of weight both in Florida and outside of the state. It's not cheap (when I did the math, I couldn't have graduated there with under $200k in debt, compared to around $100k from FSU or UF), but I think it's worth every cent if you go. And if you can get one of their many scholarships for a year or two, you're really cool.
Poeple who invest $200K in a Tier 2 pravate law school thinking it's worth every cent is simply naive, uneducated (about the legal market), and virtually guaranteed to regret their decisions.
(I would like to hear some law graduates' comments about this instead of some naive pre-1L or current law students).
Well I’m a T2 student, have spent more than 200k on my education and have offers for good jobs locally for when I graduate in May. I don’t think its such a bad investment given
two things you must understand before you undertake going to such a school:
1) You best odds of finding a good job will be to look local, so only go where you’re willing to live, going to a T2 school to work in another state, or even another city, is a very bad plan.
2) its imperative that you make things happen for
yourself from day one, relying on OCI or mass mailing as your job search techniques is very unwise, its puts all the eggs in someone else’s basket and it will only work reliably for the top 10-15% of the class. Simply put its about the worst odds way of finding a “good” job for most law students at T2 or lower ranked schools. Network, and network right, get involved in the legal community
outside of your school, to the point of next to grades this being your top priority from day one and you won’t be in the position of having to take a crap job at graduation because that’s all mass mailing got you. This ties into point 1, stay local, that’s where you networking and reputation will help you the most.
If your unable or unwilling to do those things - then don't go becuase you will end up as one of the bad "statics" coming from a lower ranked school. I have no regrets coming from my school, I could have transferred to a school ranked in the 30s one hour away, but honestly I think that would have
diminished my chances of getting a job I liked, not increased them. Being local in the largest city in the state meant I could intern, clerk and network more effectively than being an hour away. Right now my house is 5 mins from all the courthouses, big firms and lawyer gather places. I can network just about anytime of day or night. Its also meant I did not have to rely on the school or the schools rep to find me a job. While my grades would have made OCI pretty easy for me, I never really bothered with it, instead all my offers have come from people I met in the legal community while going to law school, and none of them have been for “crap jobs” or at crap pay, and most of them where offered only to me, since they were unadvertised word of mouth referrals from lawyers and judges who knew me outside of law school.
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