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I am in the process of choosing between St. John's Law School which gave me 25,000 per year and Brooklyn Law School which has not given me any scholarship. I would like to practice in New York but I do not know which type of law I want to practice. In addition, I am slightly considering Wake Forest, which would also be sticker price. Any advice is welcome. Thanks!

Everyone here will tell you, among these choices, St. Johns.
And if you want to have a decent shot at practicing in New York, not St. Johns.

Thanks for the reply, but would you mind elaborating on that a little more.. thanks

What they mean is that you're unlikely to land a big law gig, or any gig worth a shit if you're at median or below.

NYC is expensive but if the hipsters can do it, so can you. Have fun in Jamaica.

erniesto wrote:What they mean is that you're unlikely to land a big law gig, or any gig worth a shit if you're below top 10%.

NYC is expensive but if the hipsters can do it, so can you. Have fun in Jamaica.

Fixed. I'm not even one of the "T14 or bust" TLSers, but if you're going to go to St. Johns, you'd better kick some serious ass.

dperr971 wrote:I am in the process of choosing between St. John's Law School which gave me 25,000 per year and Brooklyn Law School which has not given me any scholarship. I would like to practice in New York but I do not know which type of law I want to practice. In addition, I am slightly considering Wake Forest, which would also be sticker price. Any advice is welcome. Thanks!

follow the money

MrKappus wrote:

erniesto wrote:What they mean is that you're unlikely to land a big law gig, or any gig worth a shit if you're below top 10%.

NYC is expensive but if the hipsters can do it, so can you. Have fun in Jamaica.

Fixed. I'm not even one of the "T14 or bust" TLSers, but if you're going to go to St. Johns, you'd better kick some serious ass.

Sorry I haven't seen anything even anecdotal to qualify this exaggeration. While marginally believable, I don't think its quite fair. Even Dozo and Brooklyn are spitting out the top 10% of their classes into big firms, which is only 40% of the legal market. As long as you avoid the temp market you should be able to etch something out of a career.

Uh, I can think of some anecdotes. People in the lower halves of t14'S are unemployed, and you think decent firms are digging deep at St. Johns? Not bloody likely.

MrKappus wrote:Uh, I can think of some anecdotes. People in the lower halves of t14'S are unemployed, and you think decent firms are digging deep at St. Johns? Not bloody likely.

Never implied or explicitly claimed any part of this statement. Woah there.

Though as an aside: Big law is only decent paying. Everything else about these firms is covered in shit. Your exit options are juicy, but you still need to put up with 3-5 years of being dumped on. I suggest you float over to autoadmit and ATL and see how miserable 75 hour a week employees are.

Haha I'm woah-ed...but reread your claim. We're talking about "gigs worth a shit," which I take to mean a gig that will allow OP to (1) live in NYC reasonably comfortably, and (2) pay back loans. A 50-70 gig will not allow that. And NYC firms that pay more than that do not dig deeper than about 10% at [typo edit: T2, not T3] schools. S'all I'm sayin'.

MrKappus wrote:Haha I'm woah-ed...but reread your claim. We're talking about "gigs worth a shit," which I take to mean a gig that will allow OP to (1) live in NYC reasonably comfortably, and (2) pay back loans. A 50-70 gig will not allow that. And NYC firms that pay more than that do not dig deeper than about top 3 students at T3 schools. S'all I'm sayin'.

Fixed for accuracy.

^

Haha thanks...I thought I was being pretty generous, that's why ern's response surprised me.

On a single income, trying to own a condo in Manhattan, definitely not.

But like I said, if the hipsters can do it so can a St. John's grad. I know people out in Flushings surviving comfortably on less than that. Caveat: with that kind of debt you'll have to hope IBR holds out though.

edit: I think our only disagreement is what it takes to survive in NYC, not that you're not fucked for big law coming out of St. John's. Cause you are.

St. John's, but only for the money. If the money comes with strings or a class rank requirement, drop out. Your job prospects from both are bad bad bad.