Top Law Schools

I have been accepted to both. With in-state tuition at Illinois plus a small scholarship vs. scholarship at Wisconsin, they are roughly equal in price. I have 1 year experience in insurance (claims), and I either want to continue my career in insurance or pursue a career in a prosecutor's office (possibly special prosecutor for the dept. of insurance). Obviously, Bloomington, IL and Chicago are big insurance markets (State Farm, Country, Allstate, etc.). Does this affect the availability of insurance defense firm jobs?
I would prefer to go to Wisconsin for personal reasons, but if it is a wiser career move to go to Illinois, I will consider the option.

This isn't even a close call. Illinois.

Is that based solely on rankings, or is there a different reason?

shadeswrinkle wrote:Is that based solely on rankings, or is there a different reason?

Illinois is generally a better school, particularly for Chicago and clearly for central Illinois. A couple years ago Wisconsin would send a small percentage of its school to Chicago, but I think that's pretty much died recently with how competitive the Chicago market has gotten (a lot of people want to be there and there isn't that many jobs). But, in your situation with the price and everything else being equal at both schools, and how you want to work in Illinois, it really doesn't make much sense to attend UWisconsin. I think it would be a different situation if you one hundred percent knew that you wanted to be in Wisconsin and had no desire to work in Illinois (in which case UWisconsin might be the better choice). Also, attending U of I will give you ties to central Illinois (assuming you don't already have ties there), and ties are going to necessary to get a job in a place like central Illinois (because law firms are going to skeptical of a person who applies to its central Illinois law firm who has never lived in central Illinois and knows no one there -- it's just too much of a flight risk).

The reach of each school is generally regional, although there are always exceptions. Thus, you should base your decision on what region you want to be in.

If the answer is Wisconsin, go there, as it aligns with your personal reasons for wanting to be in Madison. Else, balance the benefits of the Illinois region against your personal reasons.

Or you can just realize that Badger football is sick and call it a wash...

Oh, also pay no mind to the ridiculous assertion that Illinois is "generally" a better school - this reflects common TLS poisoning syndrome / 6 places higher in the rankings syndrome.

The measure of a law school's strength is ridiculously difficult to accurately conceptualize, let alone meaningfully quantify with a level of accuracy that would render such an assertion even demonstratable.

The one thing you can know that there "is" an objective standard out there, after all it can be accepted by consensus that Harvard > Wisconsin and that Wisconsin > Cooley. These reflect insurmountable black & white numerical differences in endowment, LSAT score, median GPA, and so forth.

However, when comparing say Columbia and NYU, or Wisconsin and Illinois, the differences simply are too small to be of any importance beyond mere puffery.

Go with your gut.

shadeswrinkle wrote:I have been accepted to both. With in-state tuition at Illinois plus a small scholarship vs. scholarship at Wisconsin, they are roughly equal in price. I have three years experience in insurance (claims), and I either want to continue my career in insurance or pursue a career in a prosecutor's office (possibly special prosecutor for the dept. of insurance). Obviously, Bloomington, IL and Chicago are big insurance markets (State Farm, Country, Allstate, etc.). Does this affect the availability of insurance defense firm jobs?
I would prefer to go to Wisconsin for personal reasons, but if it is a wiser career move to go to Illinois, I will consider the option.

Being from central Illinois and being intimately familiar with Bloomington and State Farm, I can tell you the answer is clearly Illinois. I'd say if you want to work anywhere in Illinois, or anywhere in the Midwest outside of Wisconsin, the answer is Illinois (unless money or a strong personal reason pulls you to Wisconsin). Without a doubt, being at Illinois would give you a FAR better opportunity to work in central Illinois (and State Farm or Country in particular). Do you have any ties to this region?

As a side note, State Farm currently is not doing their summer program due to the economy, but in good years, they are one of the few companies I know of that will hire people straight out of law school to work in-house. I am keeping my eye closely on them and I am very interested in working there long-term. If you want to work for State Farm, you'll likely start out doing claims litigation in one of the regional zones, and then work your way into corporate. This is actually a pretty decent route, because it gives you a few years of courtroom experience, then allows you to settle into the much more structured, far less stressful atmosphere of their corporate law department. Many of the high-ranking people in their corporate law dept. started out in Claims Litigation Centers out in the zones.

4llin wrote:However, when comparing say Columbia and NYU, or Wisconsin and Illinois, the differences simply are too small to be of any importance beyond mere puffery.

True, but not when you're talking about working 30 minutes up the road in Bloomington or in Illinois' main market of Chicago. If OP is really serious about wanting to be in Illinois, he should absolutely go to Illinois. Illinois natives LOVE the University of Illinois, and while I won't say it would be impossible to break into downstate Illinois without strong ties (aka growing up here) or going to UIUC, I'd say its pretty damn close to impossible.

Also, go Illini.

Right.. which is why his geographic employment preference should be measured against his personal preference for living in Madison.

If the desire to work in Illinois overcomes the Wisconsin preference, then do that. Else...

Well, just read the post again.

Leave it to an Illini to get owned by a Badger

4llin wrote:Oh, also pay no mind to the ridiculous assertion that Illinois is "generally" a better school - this reflects common TLS poisoning syndrome / 6 places higher in the rankings syndrome.

Not really. It reflects the fact that Illinois places a lot better in Chicago, and there are higher paying/better jobs in Chicago than in Wisconsin. As I previously mentioned, if OP were 100 percent certain that he wants to live in Wisconsin after graduation, then UWisconsin might be the better choice. But based on what he said, it sounds like the opposite is true (i.e. he wants to be in Illinois after graduation), making Illinois a better decision.

Depends on what the personal reasons are. If it's a girl - go to Illinois.

Kilpatrick wrote:Depends on what the personal reasons are. If it's a girl - go to Illinois.

Also this.

shadeswrinkle wrote:I have been accepted to both. With in-state tuition at Illinois plus a small scholarship vs. scholarship at Wisconsin, they are roughly equal in price. I have three years experience in insurance (claims), and I either want to continue my career in insurance or pursue a career in a prosecutor's office (possibly special prosecutor for the dept. of insurance). Obviously, Bloomington, IL and Chicago are big insurance markets (State Farm, Country, Allstate, etc.). Does this affect the availability of insurance defense firm jobs?
I would prefer to go to Wisconsin for personal reasons, but if it is a wiser career move to go to Illinois, I will consider the option.

Wisconsin is pretty big on health insurance too, fyi. I would just visit both and pick whichever city/state you'd rather live in or building/program you'd rather go through. That's the biggest difference, really. Ignore ranking-mongers, it's irrelevant.

To clarify, I have a few personal reasons:
1: my ex fiancée is a graduate student at u of i, and seeing her or fearing seeing her is a bit like going to the dentist with a cracked tooth.
2: I do have ties to U of I and the Central Illinois area (I grew up in Mahomet, and most of my family lives in the Champaign-Urbana area or in the Quincy area), but I don't necessarily want to be that close to all the people I grew up with.
3: I don't have a preference over Milwaukee or Chicago. I've had great drunken nights in both, and I have ample friends who live in or near both. I also love Madison and also have friends there.
4: I always have a solid business to fall back on if things go sour in terms of the market, or a family member gets sick, etc. (my dad has a very successful insurance agency that I could expand with a law office or expand the types of coverages I sell to businesses, and as I've stated, I have insurance experience), so I'm less concerned about the general market and more concerned about the type of work I could do (i.e. prosecution, special investigation unit insurance work, civil litigation, etc).

Well, there is my personal life in a nutshell, so if this changes anyone's opinions, let me know.

P.S. Thank you for all of the helpful posts thus far.

shadeswrinkle wrote:To clarify, I have a few personal reasons:
1: my ex fiancée is a graduate student at u of i, and seeing her or fearing seeing her is a bit like going to the dentist with a cracked tooth.
2: I do have ties to U of I and the Central Illinois area (I grew up in Mahomet, and most of my family lives in the Champaign-Urbana area or in the Quincy area), but I don't necessarily want to be that close to all the people I grew up with.
3: I don't have a preference over Milwaukee or Chicago. I've had great drunken nights in both, and I have ample friends who live in or near both. I also love Madison and also have friends there.
4: I always have a solid business to fall back on if things go sour in terms of the market, or a family member gets sick, etc. (my dad has a very successful insurance agency that I could expand with a law office or expand the types of coverages I sell to businesses, and as I've stated, I have insurance experience), so I'm less concerned about the general market and more concerned about the type of work I could do (i.e. prosecution, special investigation unit insurance work, civil litigation, etc).

Well, there is my personal life in a nutshell, so if this changes anyone's opinions, let me know.

P.S. Thank you for all of the helpful posts thus far.

As far as number 1 goes, the law school at Illinois is pretty isolated. I've never ran into another grad student. And it's a huge university, I don't think there would be too great a risk of running into her.

Ah yes, but I love Murphy's and so does she...

did you get full scholarship at Wisconsin?

shadeswrinkle wrote:Ah yes, but I love Murphy's and so does she...

I've spent far too much of my life in Murphy's than I'd like to admit and I never ran into a law student there.

Don't they hang out in other bars.

Also TCR is Kam's to pick up 19 year old freshman.

Haha, I hate going to Kam's. The floor is always sticky, and there are enough bro's there to start brovolution.

Do the law students go to downtown Champaign? Like, to the blind pig or the esquire?