Charlotte School of Law v. Pace Law School

[fortook]

The OP posted and never checked back.  If I had to guess, he's at Charlotte.  If he had read that- who knows.  That is entirely depressing.

[if it pleases the court]

Maybe the OP did not go to either. I am starting to get troubled by all these posts that seem to tell everyone that they will not be a successful attorney because of the school they attend or the lack of jobs available. I think whoever posts messages such as these demonstrates a very real problem with legal education and that is the negative attitudes of some of the students. The OP was asking for your help in deciding between the schools in a subsection called "Where should I go next fall?" and was not given the benefit of the assumption that he or she has done the research needed to make the very important decision to attend law school. In fact, the OP is being offer scholarships by both schools so that should hint that they might have what it takes. The bottemline is that it is extremely disrespectful to the OP to reply that they should not go at all in a public thread attached to their question no less. That is not what they asked. If the question was "Charlotte, Pace, or do not attend law school?", then that answer to not go becomes an appropriate answer.

Discouraging others from attending law school will not help anyones cause or careers. There are no shortcuts. I am enjoying law school thus far because I feel multiple times smarter and more confident everyday. I am not bringing in my liberal arts degree into a human resources office each day,  nor am I straining my family's important business relations in order to find some minimum wage, temporary office position. Instead, I use the law school career center to help me network and meet the real top lawyers and judges in my area who will have an Honest-to-God entry level associate attorney position available for me to apply for in good faith as soon as the ink on my diploma has dryed. If worst comes to worse, I will "Hang a shingle".

My advice to the OP is to attend Pace.

[blue54]

Go for it, hang a shingle and become a magnet for legal malpractice. I'm not challenging your capability to royally f**k in court.

The OP was asking which law school he should choose, and I was simply warning him on the dangers of choosing either of those schools at this point. Even if he has a scholarship, the requirements at those schools for holding that scholarship are stacked against him, since the forced curve forces the majority of those receiving scholarships LOSE them. 

The OP's question was like asking whether he should choose to visit Iran or Iraq.  Both are horribly dangerous choices, and I warned him against either.  You chastise me for not picking a side and instead warning him.  I cannot bring myself to tell someone he should choose Charlotte over Pace, just as I couldn't tell someone that visiting Iraq is better than visiting Iran.  Both choices are stupid.  This is a forum, and he came here for advice.  He received some real world advice.  Are you out there fighting for jobs right now?  Have you experienced, first hand, the horribly flooded legal market?  From the looks of your post, you are in law school (and feeling smarter every day!), and really have no experience to bring to the table. So, have fun hanging your shingle when you realize that when you have no real world experience in this market, your degree is worth s**t.

[if it pleases the court]

I will hang a shingle if that is what is takes to survive. It is extremely rude of you to come to a law students forum and try to discourage others from attending law school. A career in law is very realistic way to make a living. There are obviously lawyers who are not happy with job market. There are doctors, professors, engineers, accountants and business executives who are also not happy with the job market. Your message has always been that its better to take a four year degree into a bad job market, instead a taking a JD (unless it is from a T20) into an equally bad job market because there is an extra burden of repaying student loans. I disagree with you and I have plenty of real world business experience, statistics, and instinct to support my answer. The JD degree is by far the better option, and I am not going to simply sit back and watch you "warn" others from continuing their education. It is time for you to make a positive contribution to society, starting with how you interact with the law students in this forum. I want to see you encouraging others to succeed in earning their JD's, as well as sharing with us the optimism you have for your own career outlook. If you do these things then good things will happen in your career. If you do not, then I feel sorry for you because your negativity and anger has made you inconsolable.

[fortook]

Ha, WWJD.  WWJD.

[bigs5068]

There will always be naysayers and those who complain and say you can't and nobody can, but you just have to move on. Sounds like you have a good attitude and hopefully it works out, but it might not.  Attacking people who complain about how everything is will get you nowhere let them mope and tell everybody how awful things are. 

I agree with you there are a lot worse options than law school out there, but it is not a guarantee of anything. Blue54 is saying how awful it is as a recent graduate, but we will see what tune he/she sings in 5 years. At that point they will have some idea of whether law school was a good or bad idea. At this point he/she is 5 months out of school and likely awaiting bar results. I am sure there is nobody begging a recent grad awaiting bar results to work for them and finding your first legal job like your first job in any profession sucks. No profession starts out glamorously even if you go into a biglaw prestigious firm you will be stuck doing document review the first few years. Hopefully it works out for blue54 and everybody else on this board, but if it doesn't we all took the risk of going to law school and live with the consequences.

[blue54]

Bigs: I hope you are right and in 5 years I can turn around and say it was worth it to go to school. I hope we can all do that in 5 years.  Let's hope this job market turns around by then.

P.S. I'm actually not waiting for bar results.  I passed my state's bar exam a short time ago, and have been sworn in.  The problem is that every job I apply to is looking for 3-5 years experience, or 5-8 years, etc.  Every position is being filled by attorneys who are over qualified but have been laid of from other jobs.  I have seen starting salary for some jobs for attorneys with 0-2 years experience set at $30,000, which means a**hole firms recognize the market is stacked against us and are taking advantage of it to the point that it is like slave labor.  How can one possibly pay back his loans on $30,000 year?

[bigs5068]

I think and hope it will. Your situation is not faced law students alone and there has never been a time when recent graduates with little to no experience in any profession have been swarmed with job offers. Getting your first professional job in anything is a grind and your first job will consist of a lot of grunt work etc. It takes time to build a career, but by passing the bar and getting a J.D. you have an opportunity to succeed. Your a lawyer now and you will have that license the rest of your life. I;m sure I don't need to tell you how much can change in a year and you will have your bar license for a lifetime. During your career there will many ups and downs to count, but there will be good times.

The predicament of employers wanting 3-5 years experience is present in every profession. As you can see there are numerous opportunities for a law grad with experience you have half the puzzle with the J.D., but in 3-5 years you will have 3-5 years experience. Then your opportunities will improve, but more than likely your first job will not be high paying or glamorous, but that is the way it goes in anything. Remember education is a LONG-TERM investment and you are just starting out. I will literally be shocked and I imagine you will be to if in 5 years you don't have a job related to your J.D.

There are definite problems with legal education and higher education in general  no doubt about it, but you still have a great opportunity as a person licensed to practice law. If you stick with it things will work out eventually, but bad times will come as well.  This will happen to me, you, and everybody in every  profession. Good luck out there. 

[B212bb]

Maybe the OP did not go to either. I am starting to get troubled by all these posts that seem to tell everyone that they will not be a successful attorney because of the school they attend or the lack of jobs available. I think whoever posts messages such as these demonstrates a very real problem with legal education and that is the negative attitudes of some of the students. The OP was asking for your help in deciding between the schools in a subsection called "Where should I go next fall?" and was not given the benefit of the assumption that he or she has done the research needed to make the very important decision to attend law school. In fact, the OP is being offer scholarships by both schools so that should hint that they might have what it takes. The bottemline is that it is extremely disrespectful to the OP to reply that they should not go at all in a public thread attached to their question no less. That is not what they asked. If the question was "Charlotte, Pace, or do not attend law school?", then that answer to not go becomes an appropriate answer.

Discouraging others from attending law school will not help anyones cause or careers. There are no shortcuts. I am enjoying law school thus far because I feel multiple times smarter and more confident everyday. I am not bringing in my liberal arts degree into a human resources office each day,  nor am I straining my family's important business relations in order to find some minimum wage, temporary office position. Instead, I use the law school career center to help me network and meet the real top lawyers and judges in my area who will have an Honest-to-God entry level associate attorney position available for me to apply for in good faith as soon as the ink on my diploma has dryed. If worst comes to worse, I will "Hang a shingle".

My advice to the OP is to attend Pace.

But sometimes the answer really is "don't go at all". Look, the Bureau of Labor says that in the next decade the country will create 100,000 new law jobs. However, each year, 40,000 people graduate from law school. You do the math. A law degree costs a lot of money, and, if you don't have connections or do not go to a highly ranked school - especially in a very competative market like New York - you may end up in a lot of trouble. You could say "hang a shingle" -- but starting your own practice is expensive and requires prior experience practicing law. If you cannot get a job out of law school, or the only job you get is document review, the chances of hanging out a shingle 2, 3, 4, or 5 years out becomes far less likely. Moreover, because there is a glut of lawyers means that your salary, or future billing rate as a solo, may be depressed and undercut by all your competitors. When one has massive student loans + other costs (car, house, insurance premiums, etc.), it may not be enough to make a decent living. I would strongly discourage anyone from going to a T3 school, especially if they need to go in debt to do it.

[bigs5068]

I agree with everything you said it will be hard partiucarly if your going to a lower ranked school don't have connections etc. It is also very expensive to go to law school, but so is every other form of education. Architects, Business People, Doctors, Nurses list goes on and on in these professions if you graduate from Harvard will have more opportunities as an architect etc. The same logic you use applies to basically every profession I can think of so what do you do? Most people can't get into top tier schools for anything that is why Harvard is top tier if you can't get into Harvard law you probably couldn't get into Harvard nursing, architecture etc.

As far as the bureau of labor goes what profession is understaffed right now? America's population is growing at an exponential rate and with the world more connected many foreign people come here taking jobs. As a result finding gainful employment has never been more competitive and it applies to basically everything I can think of not law school alone. Life is hard and it is always hard to get your start and you may never get it.

People always talk about these connections as well as job things that you are either born into or not. However, you can make connections that is fully within your control in any profession. In my life I have met many people through basketball and gotten opportunities from it. Everybody is basically good at something and if your a person that has no interests that would allow you to connect with people well maybe it isn't your profession or school that is holding you back maybe it's you.

Again, I agree it is expensive with no guarantee of anything, but what else is there? If there is a guaranteed path to success I would get on it, but nobody knows the answer to that one. I strongly agree with getting out with as little debt as possible with law school merit scholarships so easy to manipulate it is a good idea to get out of law school with as little debt as possible.