Best School in the T20 to practice internationally? Forum

[zomginternets]

Which school in the T20 would place best internationally (excluding HYS)? I'm thinking maybe GULC since each graduating class is so big, and also seems to have a relatively large percentage of international students each year. Maybe also Columbia/NYU?

Any breakdown by region (Asia/Europe) would also be great!

[ndirish2010]

Go to school in the country you want to practice in...

[MrPapagiorgio]

Go to school in the country you want to practice in...

Lolz. Law schools are regional. Lolz.

[FlanAl]

depends on what you mean by internationally...

i'll try to give you a decent answer since you are probably going to get ripped on a bunch in this thread.

if by internationally you mean practicing in a different country you are way better off going to school in another country and maybe getting an LLB conversion or the like. Some of the magic circle firms go to oci at the top schools but i think this is mostly to fill their us offices. i do know of one case of a guy from penn who did his sa in london for a magic circle and is working there now. other than at the very top schools and if you pretty only want to practice in the uk you'd be way better served just going to law school in the country where you want to practice.

If by internationally you mean something like representing nicaragua in front of the icj then it isn't necessarily HYS or nothing but you have to make sure your career pans out really well. most of the people who do that sort of thing are like rockstar academics and HYS is usually the path to get to that level.

[Grizz]

depends on what you mean by internationally...

i'll try to give you a decent answer since you are probably going to get ripped on a bunch in this thread.

if by internationally you mean practicing in a different country you are way better off going to school in another country and maybe getting an LLB conversion or the like. Some of the magic circle firms go to oci at the top schools but i think this is mostly to fill their us offices. i do know of one case of a guy from penn who did his sa in london for a magic circle and is working there now. other than at the very top schools and if you pretty only want to practice in the uk you'd be way better served just going to law school in the country where you want to practice.

If by internationally you mean something like representing nicaragua in front of the icj then it isn't necessarily HYS or nothing but you have to make sure your career pans out really well. most of the people who do that sort of thing are like rockstar academics and HYS is usually the path to get to that level.

And if you want to go to law school in the USA to do French law or whatever, then lol

[zomginternets]

depends on what you mean by internationally...

i'll try to give you a decent answer since you are probably going to get ripped on a bunch in this thread.

if by internationally you mean practicing in a different country you are way better off going to school in another country and maybe getting an LLB conversion or the like. Some of the magic circle firms go to oci at the top schools but i think this is mostly to fill their us offices. i do know of one case of a guy from penn who did his sa in london for a magic circle and is working there now. other than at the very top schools and if you pretty only want to practice in the uk you'd be way better served just going to law school in the country where you want to practice.

If by internationally you mean something like representing nicaragua in front of the icj then it isn't necessarily HYS or nothing but you have to make sure your career pans out really well. most of the people who do that sort of thing are like rockstar academics and HYS is usually the path to get to that level.

Ha, yeah I realized after I posted that 90% of the replies were gonna consist of "lulz u so stopid."

To clarify, I'm not looking to practice internationally right out of law school. I'd like to work in the US for a few years doing BigLaw and then perhaps transfer to the european/asian branch of the firm. I've searched a whole bunch of lawyer profiles of international firms (Paul Hastings, OMM, some other Vault firms), and there are a decent number of T20 grads working at their European/Asian branches--both associates and partners--who have not done conversions and not admitted to practice before their courts. A good number seem to come from GULC, which makes sense given their unusually large international student make-up. Anyway, so I was looking for any information or opinions on whether a particular school would help me on this route.

[zomginternets]

.

[FlanAl]

i'd try to email a few of them (or a lot of them) and ask their opinion. practicing law in another country seems like a pretty badass thing to do and i'm sure they think so as well and would be more than happy to share. most "badass" people love to talk about their badassdom

[Grizz]

depends on what you mean by internationally...

i'll try to give you a decent answer since you are probably going to get ripped on a bunch in this thread.

if by internationally you mean practicing in a different country you are way better off going to school in another country and maybe getting an LLB conversion or the like. Some of the magic circle firms go to oci at the top schools but i think this is mostly to fill their us offices. i do know of one case of a guy from penn who did his sa in london for a magic circle and is working there now. other than at the very top schools and if you pretty only want to practice in the uk you'd be way better served just going to law school in the country where you want to practice.

If by internationally you mean something like representing nicaragua in front of the icj then it isn't necessarily HYS or nothing but you have to make sure your career pans out really well. most of the people who do that sort of thing are like rockstar academics and HYS is usually the path to get to that level.

Ha, yeah I realized after I posted that 90% of the replies were gonna consist of "lulz u so stopid."

To clarify, I'm not looking to practice internationally right out of law school. I'd like to work in the US for a few years doing BigLaw and then perhaps transfer to the european/asian branch of the firm. I've searched a whole bunch of lawyer profiles of international firms (Paul Hastings, OMM, some other Vault firms), and there are a decent number of T20 grads working at their European/Asian branches--both associates and partners--who have not done conversions and not admitted to practice before their courts. A good number seem to come from GULC, which makes sense given their unusually large international student make-up. Anyway, so I was looking for any information or opinions on whether a particular school would help me on this route.

Keep in mind GULC has a shit-ton of grads. What you want is to get a firm that will get you biglaw, then you want to catch a good break.

[Grizz]

i'd try to email a few of them (or a lot of them) and ask their opinion. practicing law in another country seems like a pretty badass thing to do and i'm sure they think so as well and would be more than happy to share. most "badass" people love to talk about their badassdom

Also a good idea. I'd suggest trying to find some people that went to your UG.

[suspicious android]

GULC had me do a pre-admission interview with a honest-to-God international law guy, he had worked in three countries, done deals in a dozen more. I asked him about his work a little and it was boring as hell, but at least he could say he was an international lawyer!

[Grizz]

GULC had me do a pre-admission interview with a honest-to-God international law guy, he had worked in three countries, done deals in a dozen more. I asked him about his work a little and it was boring as hell, but at least he could say he was an international lawyer!

He's not an international law guy, he does international business transactions. There is actually a market for this stuff. No knowledge of foreign law required. This isn't what most 0Ls think of then they think of intl. law.

[suspicious android]

There is actually a market for this stuff. No knowledge of foreign law required. This isn't what most 0Ls think of then they think of intl. law.

Well, that's kinda my point. Anyway, I have a tough time imagining that there is going to be one school that's especially likely to get you into this kind of work apart from the likelihood that school will get you a job in a big firm.

[Veyron]

GULC had me do a pre-admission interview with a honest-to-God international law guy, he had worked in three countries, done deals in a dozen more. I asked him about his work a little and it was boring as hell, but at least he could say he was an international lawyer!

He's not an international law guy, he does international business transactions. There is actually a market for this stuff. No knowledge of foreign law required. This isn't what most 0Ls think of then they think of intl. law.

Isn't international buisness transactions the only kind of international law that, you know, actually exists in, you know, reality?

[Adjudicator]

Isn't international buisness transactions the only kind of international law that, you know, actually exists in, you know, reality?

[pu_golf88]

Isn't international buisness transactions the only kind of international law that, you know, actually exists in, you know, reality?

So win

[Informative]

You'll want (though not need) biglaw to practice internationally. The top non-T14s for biglaw are:

Vanderbilt
Texas
USC
UCLA
Boston College
Notre Dame
Boston Univ
GW

Out of those schools, typically you'll find that USC, UCLA, BC, BU, George Washington and Fordham are the schools that place into the V100 more than the others, largely due to location close to major markets and feeder systems. The V100 have the top international law practices.


This all assumes you want to work at a firm.

[FlanAl]

GULC had me do a pre-admission interview with a honest-to-God international law guy, he had worked in three countries, done deals in a dozen more. I asked him about his work a little and it was boring as hell, but at least he could say he was an international lawyer!

He's not an international law guy, he does international business transactions. There is actually a market for this stuff. No knowledge of foreign law required. This isn't what most 0Ls think of then they think of intl. law.

Isn't international buisness transactions the only kind of international law that, you know, actually exists in, you know, reality?

guess the icj doesn't exist...

[Rule11]

It seems like a funny question, but I don't think it actually is. Basically, you want to know whether there's some reason to believe that the general rankings don't match up with how foreign/international employers rank schools.

There are two realistic ways to practice internationally. One is to do transactions or (much less realistic) international arbitration at a big, multinational firm. For this, there is no distinction--go to the best school you can, and get good grades. Since you excluded HYS, that means Columbia. Language ability will matter, but isn't always required.

Another suboption related to this first option is to work as a foreign legal consultant at a Japanese or Korean firm. Japan has a few large homegrown firms, such as Anderson Mori, Nagashima Ohno (both in Tokyo), and Oh-ebashi (Osaka) (there are a couple of others that I just forget at the moment), and Korea has basically one megafirm for corporate work called Kim and Chang. All of these firms employ foreigners to facilitate work that they do in English. At the Japanese firms, though, you will definitely be a second-class citizen with less pay and less substantive work--more like a staff attorney at a US biglaw firm than an associate, although the roles don't quite map exactly onto each other. I suspect this is also the case at Kim and Chang, although it seems like you get more "real" work there as an FLC. (That said, Kim and Chang is notorious for hours that make NYC biglaw seem like the French civil service--it's a set 6-day work week, you'll often work that 7th day, and 12 hours at the office per working day is pretty standard.) At any rate, for these jobs, if you're interested, language ability and school prestige will probably be most important, but the standards will not be as high as US/UK biglaw foreign offices.

For international employers, such as the UN or the ICC, prestige of your law school is the most important factor (I should add here that, from what I've been told, grades do not matter for these jobs at all). In some ways, the rankings might not align exactly here, because we're talking about international prestige, which is probably more closely aligned with the notion of "lay prestige." So, HYS win again, and Columbia is certainly next. After that, it might be hard to predict how an international employer would distinguish between, say, NYU and Duke. Penn might be marginally more internationally prestigious than either.

edit: I should add, so that I can be accused of negativity, that your chances at one day living the expat lawyer lifestyle dwindle rapidly as you move down the rankings out of the T10. After t10sh, you'd better have a solid plan B or law school probably isn't for you.

[Veyron]

GULC had me do a pre-admission interview with a honest-to-God international law guy, he had worked in three countries, done deals in a dozen more. I asked him about his work a little and it was boring as hell, but at least he could say he was an international lawyer!

He's not an international law guy, he does international business transactions. There is actually a market for this stuff. No knowledge of foreign law required. This isn't what most 0Ls think of then they think of intl. law.

Isn't international buisness transactions the only kind of international law that, you know, actually exists in, you know, reality?

guess the icj doesn't exist...

That is correct. Lol, the ICJ.