Vermont Law School Forum

[stuckinthemiddle]

I have a friend who is all set to pay close-to-full price for Vermont Law School. She is not a U.S. citizen, but she was attracted to Vermont Law School's ranking in Environmental Law (#1).

Is this a big mistake that will lead to financial ruin? Or is this EL ranking going to significantly boost her chances for employment in the environmental law field? Will she be able to get a working visa from any employer out of VLS?

Some honest feedback would be much appreciated.

[romothesavior]

This is a simply awful decision. Around half of Vermont grads fail to get full-time, long-term, JD-required jobs. The school costs well over $200,000. About 1% of their grads get jobs in firms of 100+, which are the types of jobs generally needed to service $200,000+ in debt. Your friend will be lucky to snag a 40-60k job as a lawyer. Vermont at sticker is a monumentally terrible decision. Take a look at the data:

http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=vermont

And no, specialty rankings don't mean anything. The school teaches a lot of environmental law, they probably have faculty dedicated to it, maybe some clinics and other programs. But does it help people get jobs? The data pretty much speaks for itself. There are are literally dozens, maybe 100+ schools that I would go to for environmental law over Vermont.

[stuckinthemiddle]

Damn. That was my suspicion after hanging around TLS for a while.

Have you ever been in this situation? How do you go about telling someone this? I do not want my friend ruining her life.

[Lincoln]

Edit: scooped by romo.

First, less than half of VLS's graduates were in full-time, long-term legal jobs: http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=vermont.

Second, although big firms do sponsor H1-B visas quite readily, they tend not to hire from VLS even when they do have energy/environmental practice groups.

Third, any other types of employers that may be interested in someone from VLS -- small firms, non-profits, VT and local governments, etc. -- are generally not in a position to sponsor H1-B visas.

Fourth, given that your friend is not a citizen or permanent resident and therefore not eligible for federal loans, I assume s/he is paying out of pocket for law school. That is a huge sum of money that will likely lead to an unprofitable outcome. If your friend is taking out private loans, that's even worse, because the loans will not qualify for IBR, meaning a lifetime of misery.

Draw from this what conclusions you will, but I wouldn't recommend going to VLS to my worst enemy in your friend's situation.

[romothesavior]

Damn. That was my suspicion after hanging around TLS for a while.

Have you ever been in this situation? How do you go about telling someone this? I do not want my friend ruining her life.

It depends on how good of a friend you are with her. If you're a close friend and you can break this gently, then maybe tell her that you've heard a lot of negative things about the legal market, and point her to the LST data and maybe even towards TLS. If she's not a good friend, it may not be your place to really get involved.

Like most things in life, it's about doing this tactfully.

[Ti Malice]

VLS is shedding staff. It might be the first law school to actually fail.

[deadpanic]

And yeah, I wouldn't go to VLS debt free. It is basically worthless and will put you at odds of getting a legal job, even with good grades.

It might be the first law school to actually fail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alben_W._B ... ool_of_Law
(I don't know if this is the first, but I thought this school was random as hell.)