How bad is Touro?

[bigs5068]

Wow Byebye benny law school is hard. Were you surprised by that?  You sound quite bitter? Law school is ridcuously expensive and extremely difficult and stressful. If you are not willing to put in a lot of work and realize that 100K is a lot of money to be boring then you will be as bitter as this guy. 

No matter what law school you go to that will be the case.

[byebyeny]

That's just your opinion. I don't believe there is anything wrong with warning pre-law students about the reality. Also, there is nothing wrong with being bitter. Maybe your experience was not hard enough for it to make you bitter. Mine was. Absolutely nothing wrong with saying what my/many of my friends' experiences were. Plus, I wasn't talking to you. You seemed to be doing good? Good for you. Remember many people are not doing so well, and doing well in law school has almost nothing to do with one's intelligence, it has a lot more to do with the way you approach the material. What I intend to do by posting is to make these new students realize what they are getting into. Not such a bad intention, eh?

[bigs5068]

Yea it is your opinion, but law school is hard and it sounds like you were surprised by that. There are people in my school that complain about things and say it is to hard etc. However, that is law school it is hard and demanding and I knew that going in. 

This is no offense to you, but I am just curious did you go to law school straight from undergrad? I notice the people at my school  that went straight from undergrad are the most unprepared and complain the most.  I am just curious if that was your case or not.

[byebyeny]

Yes, I was. Many 1st year students who come straight from the undergrad are more likely to be unprepared because they were in school just couple months before they started law school. We all know undergrad education is largely about getting spoon-fed knowledge/expressing your opinions. Not only that, the last year of college is considerably more work(larger amount of info to memorize, more papers to say what we THINK is right, etc) After doing all that stuff, you just want to forget about school for a while, and naturally, when you get to LS, you find yourself very unprepared. Unless you are the son of a judge or have siblings who are lawyers, dramatic change in academic setting can be a problem. Having said all that, I don't want to exaggerate the problem, but still, it's better to warn and warn some more than just say 'be happy now and work hard when you get here' I don't think being cynical about people who complain is the way to go. I belive better approach would be try to suggest different approaches and helping people understand that what they are about to get into is a new world. If you have been attending law school for a while, you know it's an unfair game. Life/job opportunities are unfair game. Undergrads (usually) don't fully realize that, esepcially if they got 4.0's and 165 LSAT that confirms their supposed intellectual superiority.

[bigs5068]

I agree 100% I really don't think they should let people in straight from undergrad. You pretty much said what I say on this board all the time, school is nothing like the real world. 

Law School is a little tougher, but a breeze compared to the pressure you will be under if you are an actual attorney. On a final you just need to choose between answers A or B. If you are a real life attorney you make choices that could potentially ruin someone's life or cost someone a million dollars that is real pressure and that is what law school prepares you to do.

I would highly recommend to anyone considering law school to work as a paralegal for a year or two or at least in some substantive job. If you go to law school straight from undergrad you will probably be unprepared. I am sure there are exceptions, but it is not a good idea, because undergrad is a breeze like you said. 

Furthermore, getting a good G.P.A. and a good LSAT score says you have the potential to be a good law student. Just like a 7'0 has the potential to be a good basketball player. However, many there are many 7'0 guys that don't make the NBA and plenty of 6'6 guys that do. Potential is nothing without the appropriate work ethic and life is hard and potential means jack in the real world. 

[byebyeny]

You are right on the real job comment. Legal work affects peoples' lives. Would partners teach you the secret of practice? No. Possible consequences are much more severe than merely failing out of school.

GPA/LSAT could be an indicator of aptitude, but then again, aptitude doesn't mean jack sht if you don't know how to play the game. Law school/practice/life/financial management are unfair/difficult because there are certain rules that are well accepted/generally supposed to work if applied correctly, but no one will teach you the rules. Figuring it out is the part that troubles most people.

In this sense, most liberal arts education one receives in college is totally useless. College graduates think they can make rules/arguements (this is well demonstrated by 'jumping to conclusion' mistakes made by numerous law students who think they know what they are doing, but in fact have no clue how to make legal arguments)

I mean, that's horrible quality to have for someone to start law school(or real life). I think paralegal working experience may be valuable not necessarily because you will somehow learn the law from the lawyer guy you are working for, but because your experience of working in a busy legal office and 'seeing' the seriousness of this business called 'the law'. To maximize the benefit of such working experience, I would recommend the paralegals to actually learn substantive law/legal writing skills while they are at it. (But then this would be a bit to much to expect for those who are working full-time)

[mnewboldc]

I hear from a lot of students who are headed to T3 or T4 schools that they "don't want" biglaw, etc., and that they'd be satisfied with something more modest. That seems like a reasonable goal, especially to the 0L's trying to make sense of a very muddled employment picture.

I have a friend at a T4 school who says that, of his 3L class of 170 students, about 5 have jobs.

According to another post only 1/3 of the recent graduates at UMinnesota (T25) have responded to an employment survey.

There are plenty of 3L's up here who are still looking for work.

So the problem with schools in the T3 or T4 (and, in this economy, down deep into the T1) isn't that the education they provide is demonstrably different from that up here, or that they don't provide an opportunity to perform high-paying legal work. The problem is that there is very little legal work out available at all right now, and whatever is out there is going to be taken by us, not by people at Tuoro and other schools of that ilk.

Good luck with your networking.

[janeycotley]

nice post, you know a bad person can measure in heart,expression and in aura not in face, because not always ugly person looks like a bad one! almost all of them are very nice and kind

[janeycotley]

you know you can consider a person if he/she is a bad or not, because you can fell its essence aura, movements  and etc. not always ugly people are bad because there is a time when people saw a ugly one they are bullying it and trust it like a bad one

[bigs5068]

In response to the Cornell guy's post he is absolutely the legal profession is down and so is everything global recission. My dad was an engineer for Boeing and after the Cold War ended the industry had a massive reduction and aerospace engineers were having an incredly tough time finding a job, but sure enough new conflict openend up and now it is a booming industry again.

Right now Real Estate is an utter mess the economy is a mess and lawyers are a service industry and if nobody is doing anythhing lawyers won't have work.  That is the problem right now.

The economy will pick up and America has gone through numerous recissions and it has nothing to do with the quality of your school etc right now.  It is just a matter of supply and demand and right now is a terrible time to gradute from law school, but your degree lasts a lifetime and the industry will pick up. 

A guy who graduated with Aerospace enginnering degree in 1991 had few if any opportunities, but it picked up and it is a good degree to have right now and for the last 10 years it is been so that degree the person earned in 1991 lasted until the present and now he probalby has a good job.

If you graduate law school in 2009/2010 it is not a good time, but it will pick up again and that degree will last a lifetime and things pick up.

Furthermore, coming out of any type of education it is very difficult to get a job. Particularly if your not at Harvard etc, but most t-3/t-4 students know or should know you will have an uphill battle, but plenty of people figure it out.

So in response to the OP if you want to be a lawyer go to Touro if that is your only option. Touro is not Harvard and if you are going to law school expecting to get rich don't go. If you are doing it because you want to be a lawyer then go.