Top Law Schools

Down to these 3 for me. I am a California resident and plan to come back here after graduation (but I guess that could always change). Lived in California my entire life so part of me wants to get out of here for a few years to experience a new city. Planning on biglaw after graduation. After doing all the calculations it seems that Duke and NW would be about similar cost while UCLA would be about ~40k cheaper after scholarships.

NU gave you a good scholarship and they just ranked #1 (surpassing Columbia) for this year's NLJ250... So, I vote NU - experience a completely different walk of life lol (Chitown).

Approx 3 year cost minus scholarships
NW ~ 167k
Duke ~ 158k
UCLA ~ 120k

I used about 4% increase except for UCLA which I used the proposed increases that's floating around. The people I have talked to who finished law school said I should forget Duke really and consider between UCLA and NW...

I'd consider contacting Duke and Northwestern regarding West Coast placement, and see if those numbers are where you'd be comfortable enough to spend three years there knowing you wish to return to the West.

I went to Duke's ASW and they seem to have great placement in California/New York. Northwestern I'll find out this weekend upon visiting and asking them. My one question with the weight put into Northwestern's placement in big-law with the top 250 firms is, how much is that influenced by the fact that 98% of NW students have 2+ years of work experience, and thus would have good resumes on top of going to a top school like NW. I'm split on Duke/NW as well, however I have zero years of WE outside undergrad as I did undergrad in 3 years and what would be my 4th year (this year) was spent getting a one year master's, and my level of WE is crap to be honest. Does that skew NW's placement numbers in the top 250 for those of us who could matriculate with significantly less WE than most of the current NW students?

strokes788 wrote:I went to Duke's ASW and they seem to have great placement in California/New York. Northwestern I'll find out this weekend upon visiting and asking them. My one question with the weight put into Northwestern's placement in big-law with the top 250 firms is, how much is that influenced by the fact that 98% of NW students have 2+ years of work experience, and thus would have good resumes on top of going to a top school like NW. I'm split on Duke/NW as well, however I have zero years of WE outside undergrad as I did undergrad in 3 years and what would be my 4th year (this year) was spent getting a one year master's, and my level of WE is crap to be honest. Does that skew NW's placement numbers in the top 250 for those of us who could matriculate with significantly less WE than most of the current NW students?

Probably yes.

I'd go to Dook out of these 3. I'd go to Duke over NU mainly because I've found out that older people are the most competitive students in law school.

strokes788 wrote:I went to Duke's ASW and they seem to have great placement in California/New York. Northwestern I'll find out this weekend upon visiting and asking them. My one question with the weight put into Northwestern's placement in big-law with the top 250 firms is, how much is that influenced by the fact that 98% of NW students have 2+ years of work experience, and thus would have good resumes on top of going to a top school like NW. I'm split on Duke/NW as well, however I have zero years of WE outside undergrad as I did undergrad in 3 years and what would be my 4th year (this year) was spent getting a one year master's, and my level of WE is crap to be honest. Does that skew NW's placement numbers in the top 250 for those of us who could matriculate with significantly less WE than most of the current NW students?

I have the exact same reservations about Northwestern, which were only further exacerbated when I spoke to an unemployed 2L there who went straight from undergrad. He did say he didn't think the lack of WE made a difference & that he was supposedly just unlucky, but this seems to be the only logical explanation to me since he has good grades & isn't socially inept. I'm basically in the same position as you WE-wise, & I have no idea how to get a better feel for that while at ASW, other than harassing every student I can find about their background/job prospects.

jlk86 wrote:

strokes788 wrote:I went to Duke's ASW and they seem to have great placement in California/New York. Northwestern I'll find out this weekend upon visiting and asking them. My one question with the weight put into Northwestern's placement in big-law with the top 250 firms is, how much is that influenced by the fact that 98% of NW students have 2+ years of work experience, and thus would have good resumes on top of going to a top school like NW. I'm split on Duke/NW as well, however I have zero years of WE outside undergrad as I did undergrad in 3 years and what would be my 4th year (this year) was spent getting a one year master's, and my level of WE is crap to be honest. Does that skew NW's placement numbers in the top 250 for those of us who could matriculate with significantly less WE than most of the current NW students?

I have the exact same reservations about Northwestern, which were only further exacerbated when I spoke to an unemployed 2L there who went straight from undergrad. He did say he didn't think the lack of WE made a difference & that he was supposedly just unlucky, but this seems to be the only logical explanation to me since he has good grades & isn't socially inept. I'm basically in the same position as you WE-wise, & I have no idea how to get a better feel for that while at ASW, other than harassing every student I can find about their background/job prospects.

Ah thats a relief, so I'm not the only one with those reservations about the employment placement issue. If you're at the ASW maybe both of us should team up and harass the students about their background/job prospects haha. I am definitely going to try and bring that up though at the ASW and really see how much of an impact it makes. Because at Duke's ASW, from speaking to the career services people, the dean of admissions, and several faculty members, Duke has far more of the "straight from undergrad" types such as ourselves lacking post-undergrad work experience or in my case, having very little work experience at all (I have no idea how I got into NW, with their emphasis on WE), and they definitely seem to do a very good job placing those of us with little WE but who might end up with good grades in law school and aren't socially inept (similar to the unemplyed 2L you mentioned at NW), into good employment prospects and really making sure students can get a job. They were also very open about employment, giving us a list of all the firms students placed at for both summer internships this past summer as well as the 3Ls or 2Ls (cant rememberw hich) and which firms they have lined up for their actual jobs for this fall.

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I'll be 25 when I enter school this fall and have worked a little bit but not in the legal field. I also have some interest in business so since NW has the best business school that might be the thing to push it over...hopefully after I visit it'll be a lot easier to decide.