Decided on Pace.

[OConnorScribe]

So I've made the decision to send a seat deposit to Pace University School of Law. The more I researched and learned about the place, the more I came to feel as if the place is underranked and a real under-the-radar find. In building itself up, it seems to have done something clever: It chose to forge an identity as an environmental-law academy. By doing that, that enabled them to attract a pretty impressive faculty (Harvard/Yale types, former regulators, BigLaw stars) and gain strength in related areas such as property, regulation, commercial law, negotiation, white collar crime and science/tech IP. The dean is a former SEC commissioner; an alum is the senior partner in DC for Thatcher, Proffitt and Wood; and RFK Jr. runs an environmental clinic. So I feel as if I can come out of the place with a thorough theoretical training and some well-developed skills.

Makes me feel better about getting a 155 on the LSAT. :-) Only issue really is how I'll be able to infiltrate the job market from Pace -- it appears that most of the placements are in Westchester and the Bronx and at small and mid-sized firms. Manhattan is still possible. We shall see.

Anyone else headed to Pace? Anyone choose not to? Wondering what others' impressions are. 

[BeachBoy]

I know Pace has a good environmental law program that's ranked.

[OConnorScribe]

Only other reservation I have: The school is a bit of an island. It's a cluster of four or five buildings tucked into grounds it shares with a high school and church. It is barely visible from the street. And there really isn't much within a mile radius of it, so that I'd need to lean of the bus system and bum rides and hoof it to do anything off campus (I'll be carless for at least a year). It also is a weird looking campus, I must say, with a old church with an ultramodern attachment and the dorn sitting five feet away from it.

But the people and the possibilities make it the best first-year option for me. I can always revisit things and transfer or switch to part-time for 2L and 3L.