Texas v. Virginia Forum

[sprezz]

heyyo, uva student checking in full disclosure

a) ignore fed clerkships when making this decision, and always assume median then adjust as grades come in. i know you're doing it in your head as some gymnastics to show a path to an end game that avoids passing the biglaw square, and i don't mean you shouldn't gun for a clerkship... i think you absolutely should once you're a 1L somewhere given your preferences. but factoring it into your decision is silly because it highlights a fraction of a percentage edge UVA has over UT on the "can completely dodge biglaw and end up ok" question and makes you treat that as an independent reason to prefer UVA, when so many things would have to go right for that fraction of a percentage to impact the overall outcome you actually care about that they almost certainly won't.

b) this isn't employment so i can't anon, but i had a similar approach to yours re: #fuckbigmarkets that pushed me to uva and then guided my ogi approach. it is super risky, but i landed several CBs in markets you couldn't really say i had any ties to. problem with this is they're all small summer classes, so it's really high risk high reward even after a CB.

you need to be way more proactive about what markets you want for this approach to work, starting yesterday. if there's a city you want to work in, get there and talk to attorneys before going to school. you can do it under the guise of "if you had these LS options, d'you think the choice would make a difference in this market?" etc. there are other threads on the mechanics of this on TLS. the point is, it's on you to manufacture connections and a recruiting presence in a market before 2L OGI (before 1L is best). you have to know what you're looking for, or at least what you're open to. you don't have to pick your one city, you just gotta start representing to employers in some target city(ies) that you'd like to end up there.

and a corollary of that is: it's sooooo much easier to get this done at the regional "biglaw" level because they've institutionalized the recruiting process, have better websites to extract info from, are more likely (just by number of attorneys) to have someone with a UG or LS connection to you, and reliably have some jobs open up every year for summer positions and recent graduates. none of these things are true of the 45-60k jobs. good luck coming up with a clear and repeatable (important if you're chasing multiple markets) plan for flirting with 40-60k jobs in random markets.

laying down your infrastructure in markets you don't have ties to is really hard to do after you start law school for obvious reasons. you gotta do some digging to figure out if you're okay with regional biglaw (which is a really hard thing to get) and if so in what cities before you can answer this thread's question imo. cool with richmond/charlotte "biglaw" as target options? uva's looking better. prefer houston/dallas? austin is. coming down hard on the not-even-kind-of-biglaw-ever desire? neither of these looks like a particularly good investment imo, because you're losing any upside either school would have provided at -$70k. if i were shooting for a 35-50k job i'd find a full ride at a lower ranked school--those are the kinds of jobs your school affiliation doesn't really open doors for, you're just going to be on your own for the most part anyway so might as well not pay the affiliation premium. of course, if you want to just get a law degree and wing the job hunt post grad, that'd satisfy the adventure desire for sure... but that's a waste of three years + $$$, just go wing a job hunt now without a law degree.

glad to hear our ASW did its job though. praise #swoon, wahoowa.

[Law Sauce]

heyyo, uva student checking in full disclosure

a) ignore fed clerkships when making this decision, and always assume median then adjust as grades come in. i know you're doing it in your head as some gymnastics to show a path to an end game that avoids passing the biglaw square, and i don't mean you shouldn't gun for a clerkship... i think you absolutely should once you're a 1L somewhere given your preferences. but factoring it into your decision is silly because it highlights a fraction of a percentage edge UVA has over UT on the "can completely dodge biglaw and end up ok" question and makes you treat that as an independent reason to prefer UVA, when so many things would have to go right for that fraction of a percentage to impact the overall outcome you actually care about that they almost certainly won't.

b) this isn't employment so i can't anon, but i had a similar approach to yours re: #fuckbigmarkets that pushed me to uva and then guided my ogi approach. it is super risky, but i landed several CBs in markets you couldn't really say i had any ties to. problem with this is they're all small summer classes, so it's really high risk high reward even after a CB.

you need to be way more proactive about what markets you want for this approach to work, starting yesterday. if there's a city you want to work in, get there and talk to attorneys before going to school. you can do it under the guise of "if you had these LS options, d'you think the choice would make a difference in this market?" etc. there are other threads on the mechanics of this on TLS. the point is, it's on you to manufacture connections and a recruiting presence in a market before 2L OGI (before 1L is best). you have to know what you're looking for, or at least what you're open to. you don't have to pick your one city, you just gotta start representing to employers in some target city(ies) that you'd like to end up there.

and a corollary of that is: it's sooooo much easier to get this done at the regional "biglaw" level because they've institutionalized the recruiting process, have better websites to extract info from, are more likely (just by number of attorneys) to have someone with a UG or LS connection to you, and reliably have some jobs open up every year for summer positions and recent graduates. none of these things are true of the 45-60k jobs. good luck coming up with a clear and repeatable (important if you're chasing multiple markets) plan for flirting with 40-60k jobs in random markets.

laying down your infrastructure in markets you don't have ties to is really hard to do after you start law school for obvious reasons. you gotta do some digging to figure out if you're okay with regional biglaw (which is a really hard thing to get) and if so in what cities before you can answer this thread's question imo. cool with richmond/charlotte "biglaw" as target options? uva's looking better. prefer houston/dallas? austin is. coming down hard on the not-even-kind-of-biglaw-ever desire? neither of these looks like a particularly good investment imo, because you're losing any upside either school would have provided at -$70k. if i were shooting for a 35-50k job i'd find a full ride at a lower ranked school--those are the kinds of jobs your school affiliation doesn't really open doors for, you're just going to be on your own for the most part anyway so might as well not pay the affiliation premium. of course, if you want to just get a law degree and wing the job hunt post grad, that'd satisfy the adventure desire for sure... but that's a waste of three years + $$$, just go wing a job hunt now without a law degree.

glad to hear our ASW did its job though. praise #swoon, wahoowa.

Such a solid post. +1000 to manufacturing connections to markets for regional big law (which is not the big law you have heard horror stories about)

[splittems180]

OP checking in once again to say a huge thank you to all of you, especially Sprezz and Law Sauce.

Obviously TLS is not the only place I went to chew on my options, but everything that you have pointed out combined with input from my friends and family has helped guide my decision and give me a bit of peace about what I'm doing.

Thanks for the time and the discussion. Wish you all the best in your endeavors (even the "you'll be median" haters). Peace.

[Tuxedo]

I've just lived in Houston and Dallas and can't do the "two hours of driving without leaving solid concrete" thing.

A few different points:

First, according to a study of cities with the worst gridlock (http://inrix.com/scorecard/), Austin (41 hours wasted in traffic annually) is ahead of both Dallas (22.1 hours wasted) and Houston (26.7 hours wasted). So are your views of Austin traffic relative to Dallas/Houston based on perception or actual experience?

Let me go ahead and give the anecdote here. I currently live in Austin and DAMN do I spend a lot of time sitting in traffic. When half the city jumps off the freeway to take back routes and traffic still doesn't get fixed you know there's a problem. Good thing we've got a few great radio stations to make the pain worse.

And while you wouldn't be an undergrad, the city would still hate you for your UT student status. The relief we experience during Christmas Break, Spring Break, and summer is soo soo wonderful.