Belmont Law in Nashville Forum

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deadpanic

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Re: Belmont Law in Nashville

Post by deadpanic » Mon Apr 28, 2014 11:47 pm

The Roman wrote:So, I need to get into Vandy. Only way to do that is to kill the LSAT. Undergrad GPA isn't great, but I did graduate from Lipsomb University and received their highest honor, the SALT Scholar award, so maybe that will help. I looked into Nashville School of Law, and it isn't going to work for me. I can be flexible geographically once out of law school. I'll just have to be.

I also realize that a very small percentage of people score in the 170's, but if I want to be an attorney with my limited circumstances, what other choice do I have?
You're in a dilemma then. If you can't be flexible now geographically, there is a good chance you'll never be a lawyer. It's unfortunate but that is the reality you are facing being limited to Nashville. It is not like you will go to Belmont or a similar TTTT and have any job offers outside the middle TN area. It won't happen. So, it's irrelevant that you'll be flexible later on because that is not going to be an opportunity for you.

No one cares about SALT. They care about your LSAT and GPA and that's basically it. Don't take this personally and I don't mean to come off as harsh, but I am just trying to give you the most honest advice I can.

Why can you do Belmont but not NSOL? Not telling you to do Nashville School of Law either, just curious. You shouldn't go to either, but I would honestly say NSOL is a better choice than Belmont as it stands because it has more alums.

ETA--It does sound like you are retaking and that is really the best thing you could do. Good luck.

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yeslekkkk

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Re: Belmont Law in Nashville

Post by yeslekkkk » Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:07 am

Good luck. May the odds be in your favor.

The Roman

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Re: Belmont Law in Nashville

Post by The Roman » Tue Apr 29, 2014 10:12 am

Thank you. I appreciate honest advice, even if it may come off as harsh. At least I have narrowed school choices down with better insight. Now, I just have to kill that test. This is what I want, and I'm stubborn enough to keep going until there is 0 chance of success.

bella07

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Re: Belmont Law in Nashville

Post by bella07 » Thu Dec 06, 2018 5:50 pm

BankruptMe wrote:Vandy for big law

UTK for a Tenn law job

or dont go
Credited response. I'm a Vandy grad and have close friends and colleagues that went to Belmont, UT and Vandy that I respect tremendously.
Unless you get a full ride to Belmont; it's a waste of money. You'll find a job in Nashville but big law doesn't really exist in Nashville. Yea, there's Bass, Baker, Waller, etc but it's not really "BigLaw" because the salaries are $50k+ lower than BigLaw in most other major markets (incl Charlotte, Atlanta, Texas that have comparable COL) and the bonuses and raises are markedly lower. I doubt many firms outside Nashville will consider you with Belmont. I even know of firms outside TN that won't look at UTenn because of "poor academics". If you want BigLaw you have to go to Vandy or UT and apply outside Nashville, even then you'll only get big law if you're top 25% of class (at Vandy).
So, best scenario with Belmont, you get $130k in Nville. Most likely you get a job making $50k with state/local govt or something below $100k with a local firm. Salary increases will be minimal and may depend (in firm context) on billables and receivables that are largely discretionary (i.e. there's not written bonus policy, it's just up to partners, which is typical of smaller firms). You can't support a family on $50k in Nashville these days and I'm not sure less than $100k makes sense if you're incurring debt with limited mobility options for higher paying markets.

QContinuum

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Re: Belmont Law in Nashville

Post by QContinuum » Thu Dec 06, 2018 6:06 pm

bella07 wrote:
BankruptMe wrote:Vandy for big law

UTK for a Tenn law job

or dont go
Credited response. I'm a Vandy grad and have close friends and colleagues that went to Belmont, UT and Vandy that I respect tremendously.
Unless you get a full ride to Belmont; it's a waste of money. You'll find a job in Nashville but big law doesn't really exist in Nashville. Yea, there's Bass, Baker, Waller, etc but it's not really "BigLaw" because the salaries are $50k+ lower than BigLaw in most other major markets (incl Charlotte, Atlanta, Texas that have comparable COL) and the bonuses and raises are markedly lower. I doubt many firms outside Nashville will consider you with Belmont. I even know of firms outside TN that won't look at UTenn because of "poor academics". If you want BigLaw you have to go to Vandy or UT and apply outside Nashville, even then you'll only get big law if you're top 25% of class (at Vandy).
So, best scenario with Belmont, you get $130k in Nville. Most likely you get a job making $50k with state/local govt or something below $100k with a local firm. Salary increases will be minimal and may depend (in firm context) on billables and receivables that are largely discretionary (i.e. there's not written bonus policy, it's just up to partners, which is typical of smaller firms). You can't support a family on $50k in Nashville these days and I'm not sure less than $100k makes sense if you're incurring debt with limited mobility options for higher paying markets.
Hesitant to say this because I didn't attend Vandy, but its recent employment stats appear to show considerably higher placement into BigLaw than "top 25%." For the class of '17 it placed a whopping 67% of its grads into BigLaw or federal clerkships! AFAIK, Vandy's currently the strongest-placing T20 (above even traditional T14 Georgetown).

Granted, I have no clue what's fuelled Vandy's meteoric rise, and how stable those numbers are. It's also likely that number will plunge if/when the next recession hits (although other T20s would certainly be affected as well). But at least as of right now, it doesn't look like it'd be necessary to be top quarter to land BigLaw out of Vandy, so long as one is flexible about applying broadly.

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nealric

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Re: Belmont Law in Nashville

Post by nealric » Tue Dec 11, 2018 3:24 pm

QContinuum wrote:
bella07 wrote:
BankruptMe wrote:Vandy for big law

UTK for a Tenn law job

or dont go
Credited response. I'm a Vandy grad and have close friends and colleagues that went to Belmont, UT and Vandy that I respect tremendously.
Unless you get a full ride to Belmont; it's a waste of money. You'll find a job in Nashville but big law doesn't really exist in Nashville. Yea, there's Bass, Baker, Waller, etc but it's not really "BigLaw" because the salaries are $50k+ lower than BigLaw in most other major markets (incl Charlotte, Atlanta, Texas that have comparable COL) and the bonuses and raises are markedly lower. I doubt many firms outside Nashville will consider you with Belmont. I even know of firms outside TN that won't look at UTenn because of "poor academics". If you want BigLaw you have to go to Vandy or UT and apply outside Nashville, even then you'll only get big law if you're top 25% of class (at Vandy).
So, best scenario with Belmont, you get $130k in Nville. Most likely you get a job making $50k with state/local govt or something below $100k with a local firm. Salary increases will be minimal and may depend (in firm context) on billables and receivables that are largely discretionary (i.e. there's not written bonus policy, it's just up to partners, which is typical of smaller firms). You can't support a family on $50k in Nashville these days and I'm not sure less than $100k makes sense if you're incurring debt with limited mobility options for higher paying markets.
Hesitant to say this because I didn't attend Vandy, but its recent employment stats appear to show considerably higher placement into BigLaw than "top 25%." For the class of '17 it placed a whopping 67% of its grads into BigLaw or federal clerkships! AFAIK, Vandy's currently the strongest-placing T20 (above even traditional T14 Georgetown).

Granted, I have no clue what's fuelled Vandy's meteoric rise, and how stable those numbers are. It's also likely that number will plunge if/when the next recession hits (although other T20s would certainly be affected as well). But at least as of right now, it doesn't look like it'd be necessary to be top quarter to land BigLaw out of Vandy, so long as one is flexible about applying broadly.
Somewhere out there on the internet, there is a more than decade old post on a mostly defunct message board where I advised the person who would go on to found law school transparency to choose Cornell over Vandy. They chose Vandy, and I suppose the rest is history. That was pre financial crisis, and at the time it was thought that you could write your ticket from any T20. During the financial crisis, biglaw recruiting retreated to a small number of schools, and T20s suffered disproportionately. No guarantee history would repeat, but I don't think its far-fetched.

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LSATWiz.com

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Re: Belmont Law in Nashville

Post by LSATWiz.com » Tue Dec 11, 2018 5:24 pm

I'd just like to add a breakdown of the mindset the person going to law school planning to transfer has to have:

They attend law school with an unsatisfactory score. This could be due to only three reasons: (1) poor prep, (2) being a poor test taker or (3) some combination of (1) and (2).

If the reason is poor prep, that's almost always due to poor work ethic or poor planning. They accept that they can't find the motivation study for a single test for 2-3 hours a day for several months consistently, but expect that in under a year, a lightbulb will magically go off that will motivate them to be able to study for at least 8 hours every day for 4 or 5 tests for two entire academic semesters to get the top 1% grades needed to transfer to Vandy. Further, more than 1% of Belmont will have this work ethic - likely 20%+ will so you have to bet not only on a miraculous shift in work ethic and planning, but also on being better at law school exams than 95% of the other people following through with the same plan. You also need luck. You can't have a personal problem arise close to exam week, you can't get the flu in December, you can't get hurt playing basketball, etc., etc. You need to have a sudden change in study habits (which is overwhelmingly rare), you need to be naturally good at law school exams and you still need to be lucky.

If the reason is being a poor test taker, your ability to transfer will be entirely based on your performance on tests. You can't just be an adequate test taker to pull this off. You have to be an elite test taker. While there is not a 1:1 correlation between the LSAT and law school exams, they share some commonalities - both require you to analyze shit quickly, and to perform well under highly timed and stressful conditions in a less than ideal environment. Statistics show the LSAT is actually very good at predicting law school exam performance in 5 point increments. While there are many cases of people with sub-median scores grading onto law review, my hunch is that these people are the type that would get down to two choices and overthink the question. On law school exams, the person who could voice a logical argument for both B and C and wrongly pick B will probably do better than the person who just chooses C. The question is whether you're this type of test taker. If you're not, then it's unlikely that you're just a bad test taker but a dynamite law school test taker.

The plan is just so ill-suited that I don't think people who in good faith opt into it are psychologically mature enough to consent to it.

QContinuum

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Re: Belmont Law in Nashville

Post by QContinuum » Tue Dec 11, 2018 5:49 pm

nealric wrote:Somewhere out there on the internet, there is a more than decade old post on a mostly defunct message board where I advised the person who would go on to found law school transparency to choose Cornell over Vandy. They chose Vandy, and I suppose the rest is history. That was pre financial crisis, and at the time it was thought that you could write your ticket from any T20. During the financial crisis, biglaw recruiting retreated to a small number of schools, and T20s suffered disproportionately. No guarantee history would repeat, but I don't think its far-fetched.
Great anecdote. I agree with the advice that, in the event of another crash, the T20 schools (and likely even the lower T13) will take a disproportionate hit as any retrenchment will mean that BigLaw will more than be able to fill their reduced classes from the T13 alone.

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