UMKC vs. Washburn Forum

[rad lulz]

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[firsttimelawschooler]

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[timbs4339]

Thank you. I know I'm nowhere close to being an expert in how lawyering works. I just have many friends who have graduated from Washburn and UMKC (and other law schools for that matter) that have landed big law ($100,000) jobs. One of the Washburn Alumni is the VP of Koch. A UMKC alumni is working in a law firm currently merging with a Japanese company. I just think a great deal should be put on the student, not necessarily all on the school.

2 follow up questions. How realistic is transferring after my first year to another school? Since we're talking T14 then let's say transferring to one of them. Second, I'm not appose to retaking the LSAT. If I did, would that up the scholarships these schools have already given me?

Oh, it's not impossible to get biglaw from those schools. Just very unlikely. Law School Transparency reports only about 7% of UKMC grads got jobs with AIII judges or firms of 50+ lawyers and for Washburn it is around 4%. With your debt load it is not a catastrophe if you don't but again, the work you are interested in will require such a job. I'd also hesitate to draw inferences from anecdotal stories about lawyers who graduated more than 5-10 years ago. A much different time.

1) It will be extremely difficult to transfer. Much harder than boosting your LSAT score. If you get the grades required to transfer to the T14 you are in the top 5% of your class at either school.

2) Your GPA seems to be much higher than each school's median, so I'd be optimistic about getting full rides with a few more points.

[firsttimelawschooler]

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[firsttimelawschooler]

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[timbs4339]

Ok. Lets just say I am in the top 5%. Do LSAT score come into play for transfer students?

This thread might help. http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 27&t=82937

The rule is: do not go to law school thinking you'll transfer. If you go to law school, expect to graduate at the median of your class from that law school, and assess whether the job prospects are acceptable then.

[romothesavior]

Ah yes, the Great Plains, a renowned hub of international business activity

Ah yes, another fine gentleman that lives on his computer getting off on making fun of other people's dreams. Deleting the thread due to zero actual answers to my question.

Look, no one is trying to kill your dreams. It sounds like you have a great reason for wanting to do work with Chinese businesses and your Mandarin will be a great asset to getting there.

The problem is, neither of these schools gives you much shot at all at achieving these dreams. You say that you know of a few firms in the KC area that do work with China and have China offices. You're right- I can think of SNR Denton and Bryan Cave off the top of my head. But do you have even the slightest idea how hard it is to get a job at one of these firms? You'd need to be top 15-20% at least to even be sniffed at by these firms from a school like Wash U. But from Washburn or UMKC? Uhh... you'll probably need to have a single digit rank in your class. Your odds are easily 5% or less of ever getting into these firms from those schools.

So no, we're not here to shit on your goals, we're here to help you get there. These schools are decent options if you're from Kansas and want to stay in Kansas, if you can go for cheap and are cool with doing small law for a mid-five figure salary. They just simply do not feed into your dream jobs in any meaningful way, so if your dream is to work in biglaw doing international deals or litigation, you'll need to retake for a much better school.

[romothesavior]

Ok. Lets just say I am in the top 5%. Do LSAT score come into play for transfer students?

No, but you have a 95% chance of not being in the top 5%. It's a terrible idea to go to a law school planning to transfer, and I just explained why this morning.

[firsttimelawschooler]

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[fruitoftheloom]

Ok. I realize now that I overreacted and that there is a lot of good information being shared. I just wasn't expecting all of this through the fairly narrow question I asked. I realized all along it would be very hard to make it into the goals I had, but I guess more miraculous things have happened in my life that I didn't properly weigh the outcome. However, I should have realized miracles are nothing to base a decision on.

That said. Does KU, then, give me a better shot at these firms? I calculated costs and I'm looking at 76K (rounded up 2K) COA at KU (this includes books, COL, inflation and travel... Not interest though).

No, not really. The T14 gives you a decent shot at your goals. KU might increase it to, say, 10%. But what's the value between top 5 and top 10%? Not much IMO.

[ineptimusprime]

KU 1L here:

First off, congrats on your admits and scholarships. I think your best bet is to visit both schools and see which you like better. I personally would rather live in or around KC, but Washburn is cheaper. Go find out which "fits" best.

Second, I don't think international law is a thing. At least not a thing that many people in Kansas do. If your goal is to practice law in a small Kansas or Missouri firm doing normal lawyer things, I think you're approaching this right and wouldn't benefit much, if at all, from a retake (applications are down and it's a buyer's market; who knows how apps will be next year? Also, you're losing an entire year on the back end of potential lawyer income if you wait another year).

Also, don't forget to negotiate scholarships with these schools. I wasn't originally awarded enough $$ to make KU appealing to me, but I was able to negotiate my way into a better deal just by sending an e-mail. Do that.

[lawguyjake]

Another KU Law Student:

I can, off the top of my head and within my close friend group, think of two classmates who landed jobs working internationally at multinational firms. One girl (who, in full disclosure, is in the single digits in our class and is fluent in Chinese) is in Beijing right now. The other (also ranked very high, also multi-lingual) is somewhere in India. A recent grad spent a summer doing some flavor of work in China and is barring in NY to continue that line of work, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't on publication. So if you are interested in being abroad and doing some flavor of international law in that regard, then I think it is possible. I understand that KU is (for whatever reason) not on your list of school options (it should be; contact me for a list of reasons why), but I think it is fair to make some general comparisons among our local competitors (although, as mentioned above, I am one of those people who has a bias favoring my institution; I just think KU is great).

However, here is the kicker: do not enter law school with such narrow career aspirations that your chances of realizing your goals are essentially impossible. It's foolish, regardless of where you go.

Look, I entered law school wanting to do LGBT advocacy, but I wanted to stay in Kansas to do it. If I had a dollar for every TLSer who told me that I would never be able to make that happen, I probably wouldn't have to go to law school any more. But you can find in-roads and networks and resources that enable you to do the work that interests you; it just might not be working at the UN, which is fine. I don't work for the HRC or Lambda (I don't like their politics, anyway), but I do private practice work for LGBT folks and their families every day with the baddest attorney on the block. It's bomb and all because KU folks hooked me up (#shamelesskuplug).

So trust me: as a KC native, I guarantee you that there is an agency that works with Chinese immigrants that could use legal assistance. If your legal dreams are so narrow as to preclude any options outside Biglaw or huge agency work, then your law school selection needs to reflect that. But rest assured that, T-14 or not, achieving those dreams is never written in stone.

Message me if you want to talk about KU (I am mystified as to why you wouldn't apply here...I mean, does Andrew Wiggins mean NOTHING to you????) or anything else having to do with law school selections. I tend to agree with most of what others have contributed, but just manage your expectations.

[timmyd]

If I may play devil's advocate for a second.....from these schools (if they are TTT I dont know) you don't need exactly top 5% to transfer. I got into Gtown from a TTT with top 5.5%. This being said, transferring is a black box and who knows how my personal statement or LORs compared with others with comparable numbers...either way theres a 94.5% chance you wont get there....even if you did you probably wouldnt get the kind of biglaw job handling international transactions you are talking about. Maybe you should just pick the cheaper option and if you are not in the top 5-10% after the first year drop out.

[Nova]

If I may play devil's advocate for a second.....from these schools (if they are TTT I dont know) you don't need exactly top 5% to transfer. I got into Gtown from a TTT with top 5.5%. This being said, transferring is a black box and who knows how my personal statement or LORs compared with others with comparable numbers...either way theres a 94.5% chance you wont get there....even if you did you probably wouldnt get the kind of biglaw job handling international transactions you are talking about. Maybe you should just pick the cheaper option and if you are not in the top 5-10% after the first year drop out.

That's a terrible bet dude

[timmyd]

I'm not saying it is ideal, but he is going for cheap. If he's not in a position to realistically continue pursuing this career path after a year, he won't be in a large amount of debt.

[firsttimelawschooler]

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[firsttimelawschooler]

Forgot I had this account. Don't go to either of these schools. Retook, graduated from better school, no debt, found a job. Not saying these schools are worthless, but listen to the people here before you consider going to either.

[Nebby]

Forgot I had this account. Don't go to either of these schools. Retook, graduated from better school, no debt, found a job. Not saying these schools are worthless, but listen to the people here before you consider going to either.

Good shit. Did you go to KU?