Why do people give Cooley such a hard time?

[Matthies]

I think a lot of it has to do with the general perception of third or fourth-tier schools in general.  Despite testimonials from former students that a Cooley education is actually pretty good compared to other schools, I still tend to see some not-so-subtle shots at this school on the blawgopshere.

But I look at it like this -- it shouldn't matter what the name on the diploma says.  If you know your stuff, you can excel no matter where you graduated from.

- I understand why the name matters to hiring partners.  If you were contracting a firm, wouldn't you rather know that you have a team of ivy league grads opposed to random regional grads?  The resources are greater; generally, the professors are of a higher calibers; and, the schools self select students have shown a much higher adaptation to legal research and previous achievement.  So, it makes sense why all things being equal, the Yale grad will get the job over the Roger Williams grad.  There's a significant logic to it.

I’ve posted this before in a another thread, and I’m sure what you are saying applies in large legal markets and for clients who do massive amounts of legal work. But when I worked at a large local firm here is town the new lawyers, if they went to ANY school outside of the state where told to put their diploma BEHIND the client. This was because it was so commonly asked by clients of all backgrounds, education levels and income if their lawyers “knew Colorado law” or why did they not go to a Colorado law school.

For most lawyers in most cities your clients will come to you based on reputation. They won’t really care nor give much thought to where you grads went to school. What they will care about is what other people in their business think about your law firm. If they have a $3 million dollar EPA regulation permit on the table they are going to call the guy then know over at similar company X and say who did your permit? Or they are going to ask people who work in the industry what firm in town is the best to handle this for us? They are not going to ask what firm in town has the most Harvard grads.

 Like I said maybe they do do that in NYC, but most of us won’t be working there and will run into what I’m describing far more often then they will a client who is impressed by the credentials of the lawyers working on his case. Most cleints can tell you the names of the law schools in thier state, but would have no idea Emory had a law school much less a good one if they had even heard of it before (rumor has it at this firm that came up once and a client who owned a bunch of corpate jets asked if Emory was "that flight school" Emory-riddle becuase that's the only Emory he was familer with). Cleinst don't read US News law school rankings, they study thier biz, not the law biz. All clients care about round here is if you win or not. You win you get more business than if you lose, regardless of what degrees are hanging on the wall. That's the only logic they care about. 

[big - fat - box]

Cooley gets a bad rep among employers b/c of it's huge class size and very low entrance standards. Cooley is seen as the school of last resort, which it pretty much is. I.e., if you can't get in anywhere else, Cooley will accept you. A few years ago, they also had abysmal bar passage rates. Also, I don't think the satellite campuses they've opened up are helping the schools rep any.

Cooley has a bad rep among law students b/c of the insane attrition rates. Not only do they routinely flunk out 1/4-1/5 of the 1L class, students are also flunked out during 2L and 3L. The reason for this is the school sets the grading curve very, very low. The curve is designed to flunk out the weakest students (a large chunk given the curve and class size) which the school thinks will avoid bringing down the bar passage rates (if they were allowed to continue). The kicker is, some of the students at Cooley who got bad grades or even some that flunked out would have done much better if they had just gotten their LSAT up and gone to a decent state school that isn't trying to flunk out a huge portion of the class.

If you go to Cooley, you are in for a rocky ride, period. Ask anyone whose actually gone there. Do some google searches. Also look how many students transfer out of there each year. A lot of them will simply go to another tier 2/3/4 school to finish b/c things at Cooley really are that bad. Even to do that, you need to do quite well at Cooley first year. Most students there will just be stuck there and a good portion will flunk out before graduation.

[Ninja1]

I think a lot of it has to do with the general perception of third or fourth-tier schools in general.  Despite testimonials from former students that a Cooley education is actually pretty good compared to other schools, I still tend to see some not-so-subtle shots at this school on the blawgopshere.

But I look at it like this -- it shouldn't matter what the name on the diploma says.  If you know your stuff, you can excel no matter where you graduated from.

And the bolded reinforces why I think Cooley students generally have no place in law school or the law. I've also heard a few testimonials from Cooley grads that claim this, but how would they know? Did they transfer to Cooley from somewhere else (there were 8 that did in the newest LSAC numbers...)? Are they now law profs that have taught at a number of law schools across the nation? They likely have nothing to base that assertion on, but a number of Cooley grads seem to believe it.

You have the right overall outlook, but the name in the frame is a pretty good way to start sorting people out from one another.

[Matthies]

I think a lot of it has to do with the general perception of third or fourth-tier schools in general.  Despite testimonials from former students that a Cooley education is actually pretty good compared to other schools, I still tend to see some not-so-subtle shots at this school on the blawgopshere.

But I look at it like this -- it shouldn't matter what the name on the diploma says.  If you know your stuff, you can excel no matter where you graduated from.

And the bolded reinforces why I think Cooley students generally have no place in law school or the law. I've also heard a few testimonials from Cooley grads that claim this, but how would they know? Did they transfer to Cooley from somewhere else (there were 8 that did in the newest LSAC numbers...)? Are they now law profs that have taught at a number of law schools across the nation? They likely have nothing to base that assertion on, but a number of Cooley grads seem to believe it.

Well, um, what do you have to base your arguemnt on that they don't get a good education? Did you go there, transfer to anouther school, had law profs that tuaght there and scucked? I mean I get your point but making the argument that way just sort of leaves a big ass hole in your argument for the same reasons you made it.

[Ninja1]

I think a lot of it has to do with the general perception of third or fourth-tier schools in general.  Despite testimonials from former students that a Cooley education is actually pretty good compared to other schools, I still tend to see some not-so-subtle shots at this school on the blawgopshere.

But I look at it like this -- it shouldn't matter what the name on the diploma says.  If you know your stuff, you can excel no matter where you graduated from.

And the bolded reinforces why I think Cooley students generally have no place in law school or the law. I've also heard a few testimonials from Cooley grads that claim this, but how would they know? Did they transfer to Cooley from somewhere else (there were 8 that did in the newest LSAC numbers...)? Are they now law profs that have taught at a number of law schools across the nation? They likely have nothing to base that assertion on, but a number of Cooley grads seem to believe it.

Well, um, what do you have to base your arguemnt on that they don't get a good education? Did you go there, transfer to anouther school, had law profs that tuaght there and scucked? I mean I get your point but making the argument that way just sort of leaves a big ass hole in your argument for the same reasons you made it.

I didn't say anything about if they get a good education or not (in fact, I don't think I've ever weighed in on that point because I believe you probably can get a good education from anywhere), I was only attacking the reasoning used to arrive at their conclusion.

[Matthies]

I think a lot of it has to do with the general perception of third or fourth-tier schools in general.  Despite testimonials from former students that a Cooley education is actually pretty good compared to other schools, I still tend to see some not-so-subtle shots at this school on the blawgopshere.

But I look at it like this -- it shouldn't matter what the name on the diploma says.  If you know your stuff, you can excel no matter where you graduated from.

And the bolded reinforces why I think Cooley students generally have no place in law school or the law. I've also heard a few testimonials from Cooley grads that claim this, but how would they know? Did they transfer to Cooley from somewhere else (there were 8 that did in the newest LSAC numbers...)? Are they now law profs that have taught at a number of law schools across the nation? They likely have nothing to base that assertion on, but a number of Cooley grads seem to believe it.

Well, um, what do you have to base your arguemnt on that they don't get a good education? Did you go there, transfer to anouther school, had law profs that tuaght there and scucked? I mean I get your point but making the argument that way just sort of leaves a big ass hole in your argument for the same reasons you made it.

I didn't say anything about if they get a good education or not (in fact, I don't think I've ever weighed in on that point because I believe you probably can get a good education from anywhere), I was only attacking the reasoning used to arrive at their conclusion.

Yea and I was attacking the reasoning you used to get to your conclusion becuase it seems to suffer from the same flaw you pointed out. 

[Ninja1]

I think a lot of it has to do with the general perception of third or fourth-tier schools in general.  Despite testimonials from former students that a Cooley education is actually pretty good compared to other schools, I still tend to see some not-so-subtle shots at this school on the blawgopshere.

But I look at it like this -- it shouldn't matter what the name on the diploma says.  If you know your stuff, you can excel no matter where you graduated from.

And the bolded reinforces why I think Cooley students generally have no place in law school or the law. I've also heard a few testimonials from Cooley grads that claim this, but how would they know? Did they transfer to Cooley from somewhere else (there were 8 that did in the newest LSAC numbers...)? Are they now law profs that have taught at a number of law schools across the nation? They likely have nothing to base that assertion on, but a number of Cooley grads seem to believe it.

Well, um, what do you have to base your arguemnt on that they don't get a good education? Did you go there, transfer to anouther school, had law profs that tuaght there and scucked? I mean I get your point but making the argument that way just sort of leaves a big ass hole in your argument for the same reasons you made it.

I didn't say anything about if they get a good education or not (in fact, I don't think I've ever weighed in on that point because I believe you probably can get a good education from anywhere), I was only attacking the reasoning used to arrive at their conclusion.

Yea and I was attacking the reasoning you used to get to your conclusion becuase it seems to suffer from the same flaw you pointed out. 

But you're saying that I said that Cooley does not provide a good education. This is not the case, I did not, and as far as I can recall, have never made such a claim.

My conclusion was simply that the testimonials are using baseless assumptions to reach their conclusion that Cooley gave them a good education. Maybe they did get a good education, maybe they didn't, whatever, that's immaterial to my point that the reasoning used to arrive at that claim is flawed. I can say that FSU gives me a better education than Harvard and Appalachian, but I have nothing to base that on, and that's what the "better education" testimonials are doing.

[Matthies]

I think a lot of it has to do with the general perception of third or fourth-tier schools in general.  Despite testimonials from former students that a Cooley education is actually pretty good compared to other schools, I still tend to see some not-so-subtle shots at this school on the blawgopshere.

But I look at it like this -- it shouldn't matter what the name on the diploma says.  If you know your stuff, you can excel no matter where you graduated from.

And the bolded reinforces why I think Cooley students generally have no place in law school or the law. I've also heard a few testimonials from Cooley grads that claim this, but how would they know? Did they transfer to Cooley from somewhere else (there were 8 that did in the newest LSAC numbers...)? Are they now law profs that have taught at a number of law schools across the nation? They likely have nothing to base that assertion on, but a number of Cooley grads seem to believe it.

Well, um, what do you have to base your arguemnt on that they don't get a good education? Did you go there, transfer to anouther school, had law profs that tuaght there and scucked? I mean I get your point but making the argument that way just sort of leaves a big ass hole in your argument for the same reasons you made it.

I didn't say anything about if they get a good education or not (in fact, I don't think I've ever weighed in on that point because I believe you probably can get a good education from anywhere), I was only attacking the reasoning used to arrive at their conclusion.

Yea and I was attacking the reasoning you used to get to your conclusion becuase it seems to suffer from the same flaw you pointed out. 

But you're saying that I said that Cooley does not provide a good education. This is not the case, I did not, and as far as I can recall, have never made such a claim.

My conclusion was simply that the testimonials are using baseless assumptions to reach their conclusion that Cooley gave them a good education. Maybe they did get a good education, maybe they didn't, whatever, that's immaterial to my point that the reasoning used to arrive at that claim is flawed. I can say that FSU gives me a better education than Harvard and Appalachian, but I have nothing to base that on, and that's what the "better education" testimonials are doing.

Exactly look at the argument, not the point, so if “better” testimonials are flawed because they have no basis to compare them to other schools, then “not better” comparison would also be flawed because we have no basis to compare them to other schools. The premise is flawed I agree, but it does not prove its flawed by asserting, tangentially, that it can’t be proven as false because we have no basis to compare when we have no basis to make that presumption either. It’s a circular argument it can’t be proved true by those that went to only one school and it can’t be proved false by those that only went to one school. Neither of us have gone to other schools, so we can’t prove or disprove the premise. And even if we had gone to other schools we could only at beast prove the premise based on those two schools and out personal experiences. Hence if its flawed to say better because we have no experience doing it than its as equally flawed to assume, by the opposite, that they are not better.

[alienwalrus]

I worked at Cooley in the Career office, am going to enter the upcoming class as a 1L, and have many friends and contacts who are Cooley grads. I hope this qualifies my response for you.

The number one reason I have come across as to why Cooley has such a bad reputation is the Cooley rankings. They are pretty absurd when looked at objectively.

As for the bad rep and the problems it may cause in job searching, the best advice I can give is that the further away from Michigan that you apply, the harder it will be to get an interview. Cooley has a very good reputation within the state.

I used to be the one who would call and invite firms for on-campus interviews (OCI) and resume collections (RC). The only human resources person who ever said anything about Cooley's reputation to me while I actively tried to recruit their firm was from California. All she told me was that she would take resumes, but from only the top two or three ranks. Every other firm I talked to, which was in the hundreds, would at the least look at the office's recruitment packages.

It was hard to get OCIs from states other than Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana, but it wasn't impossible. Many of the OCIs that we did get from states further away were piggybacked from OCIs that they had setup at U of M and MSU. While this tactic may seem suspect to some others, it is a necessary act for any career office since the OCI season is so short and firms have a limited amount of time to send HR reps.

If you're worried about finding work, I can tell you the kind of students that found work. They were the ones who actively sought work, kept updating and reworking their resumes, applied in a timely fashion, and had a positive attitude.

If you want an edge go for law review and moot court. Almost all job postings in the classifieds had "law review/moot court preferred" added to the reqs. Take a summer associates every year you can and be active there in making connections. Do the same for your externship.

Above all else, be positive. -alienwalrus

[lawrookie]

When you worked in the office did you bring it up with other staff, what was their responce/justification(if anyu) to it? Do you know if they have any future plans to update it?

I worked at Cooley in the Career office, am going to enter the upcoming class as a 1L, and have many friends and contacts who are Cooley grads. I hope this qualifies my response for you.

The number one reason I have come across as to why Cooley has such a bad reputation is the Cooley rankings. They are pretty absurd when looked at objectively.