What do you want to know? Forum

[jenesaislaw]

Part of making an informed decision about law school is understanding the stakes. How much will it cost me? What are the job rates? What's my expected salary?But job statistics don't tell you much for your own decision unless you have a good idea about your career goals.

LST is looking to change that for prospective students in an upcoming initiative. In planning "this" I have a few questions for anybody on here.

What do you want to know about practicing law? What would you want to hear about from lawyers? From non-lawyer law graduates?

If you're a student (or grad), what would you have liked to know before?

Specifically, with these questions, imagine you have somebody interesting and knowledgeable to ask questions to. That's the frame of mind I want you all to help from.

Thanks in advance..

[thevuch]

i have asked this question to every law student ive seen at the admitted student days. i realize its probably hard to categorize into a statistic but the question is basically ' how helpful was the career services office' because every school has their shiny pennies that they parade out in front of the admitted students but my question is always 'was it you doing to footwork?' did you have to see this out? or did the CSO really help you out?

[jenesaislaw]

Ah, I should clarify. Goal isn't quantitative but qualitative. I like the way you put that, though: Was it you doing the footwork?

[cron1834]

New LST is awesome.

That is all.

[californiauser]

percentage of students with 1 or 2+ years work experience would be nice on the employment score page

[jenesaislaw]

percentage of students with 1 or 2+ years work experience would be nice on the employment score page

What evidence is there that this matters? Where would we get this data? Why should we emphasize it? Three essential questions.


Another clarification. This thread has zero to do with the Score Reports and data.

[thevuch]

there is this website. http://www.ratemyaward.com it is that basically tells you if the school is lowballing your scholarship offer or if it is a good one. some sort of scholarship data like this would also be really awesome.

i'd also be interested in what kinds of legal jobs lead to the greatest quality of life (vague i know)
but a way to answer this would be to select certain legal careers and have someone who does that just give a kind of 'day in the life' sort of run down, or talk about how their existence goes from day to day week to week

and i'd also be interested in, and this may be self explanatory upon arrival to law school, how one can control the trajectory of their goals for their careers like if you want to do biglaw you should seek this clinic and this externship and these classes and these job opportunities if you want to be a prosecutor it should be these classes this clinic this summer opportunity if you want to do nonprofit do X public defender do X get a fed clerkship do X that sort of thing if that makes sense

[cotiger]

but a way to answer this would be to select certain legal careers and have someone who does that just give a kind of 'day in the life' sort of run down, or talk about how their existence goes from day to day week to week

Considering that most applicants have no idea about what lawyers really do, I think this would be invaluable.

[banjo]

LST is the best.

Quantitative: OCI participation and offer rates

Qualitative: Our picture of lawyers a few years out is pretty blurry. People should know where people end up 10 years down the road.

[jenesaislaw]

but a way to answer this would be to select certain legal careers and have someone who does that just give a kind of 'day in the life' sort of run down, or talk about how their existence goes from day to day week to week

Considering that most applicants have no idea about what lawyers really do, I think this would be invaluable.

Yep, and that's the point. I can't get into what we're doing yet, but I'm really excited about it. I'm hoping this thread will spark a bunch of ideas about what we should focus on. Part of the problem is that people don't know what they don't know, and this forum is largely 0Ls.

[jenesaislaw]

there is this website. http://www.ratemyaward.com it is that basically tells you if the school is lowballing your scholarship offer or if it is a good one. some sort of scholarship data like this would also be really awesome.

We actually have something in development that will blow your mind I saw this the other day, but it pales in comparison. Unfortunately it's not going to be ready for this cycle.

[Tiago Splitter]

What happens after the "out" in "up or out"?

[A. Nony Mouse]

Not sure how to make this a simple question, but I wish I'd known the difference between academic study and practice. That is, the topics I found most interesting to read about/study did not turn out to be what I wanted to do in practice, because the way you practice in those areas did not appeal to me and has basically nothing to do with practice. (Example: I was really interested in civil rights litigation, took courses in it, and ideologically/politically/whatever I highly value vindicating people's civil rights. But in practice, unless you get into high-profile impact litigation, civil rights litigation often looks a lot like personal injury law, relying on high volume and the opportunity to get a settlement out of a local/state entity because it's cheaper than going to trial, with an awful lot of shady plaintiffs.)

I guess this is really another way of getting at the "day in a life" thing, but really getting across that what you study doesn't match what you actually do as a lawyer would have helped. (May have just been me, though.)

[dabigchina]

What happens after the "out" in "up or out"?

this

also i'd like a comprehensive list of firms that participate in OCI at given schools.

[cotiger]

What happens after the "out" in "up or out"?

this

also i'd like a comprehensive list of firms that participate in OCI at given schools.

https://www.nalpdirectory.com/Page.cfm?PageID=34

[Nomo]

I'm not a 0L, but I think 0L's would benefit from having some information about where graduates are 7 years down the road. I picked 7 because most biglaw attorneys will have moved on; and most attorneys who started out in those 40-60k jobs will have had time to either get raises, get pushed out, or move on to something else. We really don't have a good idea of what happens to lawyers when they leave biglaw. And we really don't have an idea of what types of raises small firms give, and how many people can move from small firms or government work into successful solo practices. I realize you won't get data without a longitudinal study; and that this is probably beyond what you're realistically working on - but even getting a few attorneys to write down their reasoned opinions on this matter would be helpful. Its a real black box.

[NonTradHealthLaw]

percentage of students with 1 or 2+ years work experience would be nice on the employment score page

What evidence is there that this matters? Where would we get this data? Why should we emphasize it? Three essential questions.


Another clarification. This thread has zero to do with the Score Reports and data.

I think these questions are fantastic. Although I don't have anything other than anecdotal evidence, I do know that my job came from hustling, and that other candidates with similar grades were not given even a sniff. However, I have 10 years of work experience and another advanced degree in a related field. Prospective K-JD students should know that life after OCIs is difficult in TT land - hell, prospective K-purgatory-JD students should know it's a crap shoot.

[Ramius]

I think something helpful would be more granularity on "school-funded positions." What are they for specific schools, what kind of offer rates after a year are they, were they fallback options or a necessity for PI folks. There seems to be excessive cloudiness surrounding whether they are a somewhat necessary outcome or a scheme to improve usnwr rankings.

[whippersnappery]

It would be great if there were data on what graduates who clerk do after they clerk. That is, are they going into biglaw, PI, another clerkship? With schools with high clerk rates, it can be hard to tell what kinds of jobs the graduates are getting after one year clerkships.

LST is incredible--thank you so much for your work on this!

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

7 years out info. We have some older longitudinal studies (ex from UVA) but this info is dated and reflects a different economy/world. How are class of 2005-7 law grads doing? What % are still lawyers? What's their median salary? This is very important info given the financial decision to attend law school.

[jenesaislaw]

I'm not a 0L, but I think 0L's would benefit from having some information about where graduates are 7 years down the road. I picked 7 because most biglaw attorneys will have moved on; and most attorneys who started out in those 40-60k jobs will have had time to either get raises, get pushed out, or move on to something else. We really don't have a good idea of what happens to lawyers when they leave biglaw. And we really don't have an idea of what types of raises small firms give, and how many people can move from small firms or government work into successful solo practices. I realize you won't get data without a longitudinal study; and that this is probably beyond what you're realistically working on - but even getting a few attorneys to write down their reasoned opinions on this matter would be helpful. Its a real black box.

A longitudinal study is something I hope to do someday, but it's expensive. It'll only work if LST is sustainable with a staff of 3 or more people. So, once I build the foundation, I want to do it. Just have to build that (financial) foundation.

[twenty]

Quantitative: OCI participation and offer rates

This would actually be pretty great.

[worldtraveler]

Quantitative: OCI participation and offer rates

This would actually be pretty great.

Yeah this would be really helpful.

Also more clarity between different PI jobs. Some schools just have PI and gov lumped in together, or all PI together. Any way to break that down into more groups, such as legal aid, policy non-profits, etc? Same with government, break it into state, fed, local, etc?

And data on what happens to people on school funded fellowships and what the fellowships are. They vary widely from pretty desirable opportunity to the last thing you would want to do.

[Dingo Starr]

How difficult is it to get schools to cough up LRAP funds? Some schools have higher hoops to jump through to qualify but there isn't a lot of info about how hard applicants have to fight to get it, regardless. Is it really as simple as filling out some paperwork?

[ladybug]

Information about the curve, how it works and how it can affect your scholarship. My school never explained it to me, the info can be hard to find, and I bet a lot of 0Ls don't know to look for it.