This is a continuation of my prior post.
COST-This is something I did think about when choosing law schools, but many students don’t. With your numbers you are probably capable of getting some pretty outstanding scholarships and one thing that doesn’t change regardless of your personal opinion, location, or what U.S. News thinks is debt. Paying off 150,000 that is accruing 8.5% interest or 6.8 % the whole packages is a very real factor. I don’t know what each school costs, but look into it. Apply to some other schools in the locations and get scholarship money, BUT if you get scholarship pay attention to the conditions this article does a good job explaining why.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/business/law-school-grants.html?pagewanted=allReally be careful about it I remember one school in Miami I think FIU is only 10,000 a year, which is a phenomenal price and you don’t even have to worry about scholarship conditions just something to think about. There are few schools around the country that offer in-state tuition and those are phenomenal deals. Just factors to consider.
REALITY OF LEGAL EDUCATION At basically every ABA school you will essentially learn the same thing. First year will be torts, criminal law, LRW, con law, civil procedure, contracts, property, criminal procedure or some variation on that. No matter where you go you will be using the same textbook and reading Supreme Court cases whether no matter what school you go to that will be your first year possibly with some slight variation.
You may get some entertainment law classes mixed in, but there is a 50% chance you will be in the bottom 50% of whatever school you go. Nothing personal just how law school works, everybody on the first day is pretty certain they will be in the top 10%, but 90% will be wrong. Then there is a 50% chance you will be in the bottom half of the class and you may freak out about the bar and then start taking bar related courses opposed to anything with entertainment law. Or after going through first year you might just freak out about the bar even if you do well. I imagine most schools have a 40-50 required units and most require between 85-88 to graduate so you might have 30 units of course and I doubt any place offers 30 unites of entertainment law course and even if they did the courses would overlap during a two year period and these again are just realities to think about.
ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY DREAMIt is great you want to do entertainment law, but unfortunately so do a lot of other people. It is a very competitive field and there is a good chance you will not the ideal entrainment law job your seeking. Don’t let me deter you it is just a fact plenty of people overcome odds, and I’m sure your capable of doing it, but it is very competitive.
Furthermore, do you have any actual experience with entertainment law? Do you actually know what it is or do you just think it sounds fun to work on movie deals? I don’t know you or your situation, but if you just think it would be cool to do movie deals and have no experience in it I would recommend seeing what is they do. There are some cool things, but fighting for 6 months about clause 242 of Mick Jagger’s contract that imposes shipment costs on the studio instead of Mick might not be as exciting as it sounds. Again I don’t know if you have experience you do, but these again just things to think about.
Honestly, many people go in to law school thinking they know exactly what they want to do, but it usually changes. I thought IP law was where it was at when I started (of course I knew nothing about IP law had no background in computer science or anything like that, but my school was ranked top 10 in IP law (stupidly this was a factor in my decision). Of course I did not end up taking one IP law class after the first year and got really into any trial advocacy, which when I started law school is something I never though would happen since I Was terrified of public speaking when I enrolled, but things change.
-I was an idiot for making that a basis of my decision and I’m sure your not making the same mistake, but I wanted to relay that story just in case. Thankfully things worked out for me and I found that I loved trial advocacy and I get to do it all the time. I don’t think this is a unique situation one of my 1L friends is now really big into Water-Law just things happened and he got into that and he enjoys it, but he was interested in Entertainment law when he started. So point is things change.
LOCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT LAW DREAM: If you are really focused on entertainment then remember to apply common sense. Studios, etc are in New York and L.A almost exclusively. Entrainment law internships, adjunct professors, and so forth would therefore be in L.A. or New York. You are much more likely to get an entrainment law internship from a small L.A. school like Southwestern than Tulane. Simply because 9 months out of the year you would be in Louisiana and I don’t think any major movies or studios are located in New Orleans. While are 7 ABA law school in L.A and this place called Hollywood nearby and those companies will just draw from those schools simply because the students are there and they could work with them during school.
Maybe some place would keep a spot for a Tulane Law student instead one of the 100’s of applications they get from students readily available year round, but using common sense you can see why that is unlikely
As for the location this applies with all specialties if you want to do IP law go to the bay area that is where most of it is happening Apple, Cisco, AOL, E-Bay, Facebook, etc are in the Bay Area. Of course my top IP law school was not in the bay area which made my decision even stupider, but you can see that logic
If you wanted to do Agricultural law go to school the midwest, Maritime law go to school on a coast and I can’t imagine Nebraska would have a good maritime program.
COURSE SCHEDULES: If you really are someone that wants entertainment law and you have considered all the other above factors. Then look at the course schedules for these schools if Cardozo offers 12 units of entertainment law or a certificate then use that as a tiebreaker over Brooklyn, but the reality is as other posters stated that you can’t learn much from school. It will help and certainly if it is your absolute dream go for it. Unfortunately, a lot of incoming law students don’t realize how competitive, unglamorous, and low-paying it can be. Again I don’t know you or your situation you know better than anyone else how bad you want it or how little you know I can’t speak for your and no anonymous poster can.
CONCLUSION: This is quite a long post, but I think it is important for incoming OL’s to think about all the possibilities, I didn’t and maybe I was just an idiot, but I don’t think my situation was that unique. Good luck whatever you end up doing and hopefully some of it was helpful. Also remember I am nothing more than an anonymous internet poster and despite my good intentions everything I said could be 100% wrong.
Good luck
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