Master of Jurisprudence

[smartandunique]

I don't think thats a fair analogy. I think the point is don't let others define success for you. some people r t14 or bust because they assume people have the sames goal as them. Yes I want to earn a nice salary but I don't need a designer degree to do so. Yes it'll be harder to land a job interview but not impossible. I think bigs point is to be realistic.
I appreciate both of ur opinions.

[bigs5068]

No I am not saying it will be awesome tier 4's are amazing and all your dreams will come true. If you can get into a top 10 school GO!!! by all means you would be stupid not to. I have made this analogy before in that Kobe Bryant can't give Luke Walton advice on how to negotiate his contract, anybody would rather have Kobe Bryant's basketball talent and contract opposed to Luke Walton's.  However, not everybody can be Kobe Bryant in fact 99% of extremely talented basketball players are not even close to his level. He would tell Luke or even me you can't play for less than 20 million that's crazy. I would say no dude I will pay for 50 bucks to be on the Lakers. Me and Luke Walton do not have the same expectations as Kobe Bryant, but Luke Walton is not living a miserable life by any means.

Well a Harvard Law Grad have more options than me? Hmm, lets think of course. As I said my school had 60 people come for OCI, which is probably 1/10 of what Harvard has. However, that is 60 places that are hiring not to mention you can and should look for jobs outside of OCI.  I realize you probably had a cakewalk to getting a job and that is awesome. However, you are in a way different situation. Again, I pose the question what would you do if you got a 155 on the LSAT and you could not do any better. Honestly, what would you do? It is pretty easy to say tier 1's are great, and yea that is not news to anybody, but the reason these schools are great is because most people cannot get into them even if they try their hardest. Most people about 99% of the world cannot get into Harvard, Yale, or Stanford for any degree.

[the white rabbit]

I don't think thats a fair analogy. I think the point is don't let others define success for you. some people r t14 or bust because they assume people have the sames goal as them. Yes I want to earn a nice salary but I don't need a designer degree to do so. Yes it'll be harder to land a job interview but not impossible. I think bigs point is to be realistic.

Just because you shouldn't let other people define success for you doesn't mean that there aren't certain outcomes that are not, objectively speaking, failures.  In the case of bungie jumping, if you've miscalculated and you hit the bottom of that gorge at full speed, that's failure.  If after school you are $200k in debt and unemployed, that's failure (and I'm not saying this is what happens automatically when you go to T3/T4, but it's something that happens to people sometimes).  My goal isn't to say, "you shouldn't got to law school unloess you're likely to get biglaw"; it's to point out that in general, the outcomes that result from law school are far less positive than conventional (lay) wisdom tells us that they are.

And I don't mean to be a downer here, or to repeat the T10 or bust theme.  For the record, I have friends who went to T3/4 and did pretty well for themselves, and I have friends who went to T10 schools who ended up doing poorly for themselves.  So it's not just school ranking that matters.  Still, best to go in with eyes wide open.

Good luck. 

[bigs5068]

Okay so we basically said the same thing. I agree if you go 200k in debt, and do not get a job in that field it is a failure. If you go to a top 10 school your chances of going into an exorbitant amount of debt, and not getting a job are much lower than someone who goes to a tier 4 school. However, neither one is a guarantee and a lot of success in the law or any profession is up to the individual. Going to a top 10 school will not result in automatic success, but the likelihood of succeeding is much higher. On the same token going to a tier 4 does not mean your legal career is doomed, but the odds of you succeeding are significantly lower than someone at a top 10 school. So bottom line is top 10 schools open more doors, but tier 4's are not these awful places where nobody ever succeeds. I would say around 60-70% of tier 4 grads do alright after graduation, which is not an atrocious number by any means when compared to other types of education i.e. bachelor degrees, art school, master's programs etc. While, I would estimate that 90-95% of top 10 graduates succeed right after graduation. I made those numbers out of thin air, but I think they portray an accurate estimate.

[the white rabbit]

I made those numbers out of thin air, but I think they portray an accurate estimate.

That last part is where we disagree.  That's not to say I think it's 0% of tier 4 grads and 100% of top 10 grads, since I know for a fact that that's not true.

[bigs5068]

Again we said the same thing. I think nobody in their right mind would say a Tier 4 opens the same doors as a Tier 1. The ranking of a school makes a difference, but a tier 4 will provide you with an education and you can get a job. I think anyone who goes to a tier 4 knows or at least should know nothing is going to be handed to them. Th same applies to tier 2's and 3's. I still cannot understand why people give up full scholarships at GGU to go o Santa Clara or USF it makes no sense to me, but that is another topic. Anyways, my point was and always has been that tier 4's are not these cesspools of education where professors are doing lines of coke and nobody is learning anything. In San Francisco I know for a fact  schools have a lot of the same professors. I worked with a lot of people from Hastings this summer and out of the 6 professors we had 1st year 3 were the same. Literally same text book and same professor for Contracts, Torts, and Civ Pro Hastings is Tier 1 I think and we are tier 4, but identical educations from the same book and professor. Why wouldn't the professors do that the schools are a mile apart and take two seconds to get to on MUNI so why wouldn't the professors just double their money.  Tier 1 schools have a better name though and if you have a choice between a top school or a tier 4 go to a top school. If tier 2,3,4 is what you end up doing and you want to be a lawyer then know you are going to have to work extra hard, but it can and is done.

[the white rabbit]

Again we said the same thing.

We just disagree on the number.  I think your 60-70% is high.

[bigs5068]

There is no way to pinpoint the number until LSAC demands actually salary information from every school from Harvard to Cooley.  The b.s. way they report employment statistics where an unpaid internship counts leaves people like me and you to simply guess at the number.  My school's ABA info says 84.9% are employed, but I highly doubt that all 84.9% of people are "employed" in the way you would expect to be i.e. a job where you earn money in the legal field. Hastings a tier 1 has a 84.1% employment rate. However, do those numbers actually mean anything without salary information. NO. Anybody can get a job doing "something" and I really think they need more detailed information for every school opposed to the very vague numbers they give. Granted it is way better statistics than any other type of education gives, as far as I know undergraduate schools are not required to keep any kind of tabs, same as art schools, MBA's etc. 

[rebeca14]

Thanks-I'm really aiming for law school but I wanted a back up plan.

If you want it you"ll get it!
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[rebeca14]

I need a JD to practice law. It would be a nice to have a fancy degree and I agree it would make me more marketable but at the end of the day I need a legal education to get me where I want to be. I'm not interested in BIG Law or clerking. Besides being poor isn't really a new condition for me.

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