ND ($$) / UNC ($$) / WM ($$) / Temple (Full) Forum

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What would you do

ND
3
14%
UNC
3
14%
WM
2
9%
Temple
5
23%
Retake
9
41%
Other
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 22

america1211

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ND ($$) / UNC ($$) / WM ($$) / Temple (Full)

Post by america1211 » Tue Apr 07, 2015 5:32 pm

-The schools you are considering
Notre Dame (35k per year in scholarship)
UNC (18k per year in scholarship, but in-state 2nd and 3rd years)
William and Mary (27k per year in scholarship)
Temple (full)

-The total Cost of Attendance (COA) of each. COA = cost of tuition + fees + books + cost of living (COL) + accumulated interest - scholarships. Here is a helpful calculator.
Notre Dame: ~95k total for all 3 years
UNC: ~80k total for all 3 years
William and Mary: ~80k total for all 3 years
Temple: ~20k total for all 3 years

-How you will be financing your COA, i.e. loans, family, or savings
Loans


-Where you are from and where you want to work, and other places where you have significant ties (if any)
From: Philadelphia
Where I want to work: East coast (aside from NYC)... pretty much open to anything between Philadelphia and Atlanta... preferably Philadelphia, DC, Charlotte, etc
Significant Ties: undergrad at UNC, so I am familiar with / like the Chapel Hill area

-Your general career goals

Considering JD / MBA... would like to do some sort of corporate law most likely. Not 100% sure- flexible

-Your LSAT/GPA numbers
GPA: 3.8 with double major
LSAT: 165

-How many times you have taken the LSAT
Once

BigZuck

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Re: ND ($$) / UNC ($$) / WM ($$) / Temple (Full)

Post by BigZuck » Tue Apr 07, 2015 5:42 pm

If you mean what I think you mean by corporate law then you're going to have to retake the lsat and focus on the T14 schools, none of these schools place well into those types of jobs. If you have more modest career goals- small firm, local government, things like that- then Temple would be fine for Philadelphia.

I would drop the JD/MBA, it's not really going to provide value for you most likely. If you want to do business, do business. If you want to do law, do law.

america1211

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Re: ND ($$) / UNC ($$) / WM ($$) / Temple (Full)

Post by america1211 » Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:34 pm

BigZuck wrote:If you mean what I think you mean by corporate law then you're going to have to retake the lsat and focus on the T14 schools, none of these schools place well into those types of jobs. If you have more modest career goals- small firm, local government, things like that- then Temple would be fine for Philadelphia.

I would drop the JD/MBA, it's not really going to provide value for you most likely. If you want to do business, do business. If you want to do law, do law.

By corporate I don't *necessarily* mean traditional BigLaw. It'd be nice but I'm not dead-set on it honestly. I'd be fine with a smaller or medium-sized firm so long as it enables me to pay back any debt I would incur.

I do like Temple (especially considering the very minimal debt), but feel as if it pretty much only places in Philadelphia. And while I think I would be happy working there, I don't necessarily want to pigeonhole myself into one market.

I feel as if ND and UNC offer a bit more national reach than Temple, although both (UNC more so) are mostly regional.

For instance, I feel as if I could probably get a job in Philadelphia or DC , etc out of ND or UNC- but don't think I could get a job in Chicago or Charlotte out of Temple. Does that make sense or am I wrong?

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Mullens

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Re: ND ($$) / UNC ($$) / WM ($$) / Temple (Full)

Post by Mullens » Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:42 pm

You're only 2 LSAT points away from some great T14 options. You have to retake the LSAT if you want a good chance at practicing corporate law or you want geographic flexibility.

Nomo

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Re: ND ($$) / UNC ($$) / WM ($$) / Temple (Full)

Post by Nomo » Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:50 pm

america1211 wrote:I do like Temple (especially considering the very minimal debt), but feel as if it pretty much only places in Philadelphia. And while I think I would be happy working there, I don't necessarily want to pigeonhole myself into one market.

I feel as if ND and UNC offer a bit more national reach than Temple, although both (UNC more so) are mostly regional.

For instance, I feel as if I could probably get a job in Philadelphia or DC , etc out of ND or UNC- but don't think I could get a job in Chicago or Charlotte out of Temple. Does that make sense or am I wrong?
I think you're making a mistake here. These are all regional schools. Yes, UNC and Notre Dame are bigger names, and both would give you some sort of shot at biglaw in DC or Philidelphia, but you're probably not finishing high enough in your class to get that kind of shot. But its just a really unlikely outcome. And even if you do are number 1 in your class at ND, you're still going to have to pick a region to bid on for OCI during your 1L summer. Why not, just pick that region now? What are you going to know in 16 months that you don't know today?

The better move is to figure out where you want to live and then go to the local school. That way you can gun for small law jobs from day 1 by looking for internships, externships, part-time work, etc.

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BigZuck

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Re: ND ($$) / UNC ($$) / WM ($$) / Temple (Full)

Post by BigZuck » Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:53 pm

america1211 wrote:
BigZuck wrote:If you mean what I think you mean by corporate law then you're going to have to retake the lsat and focus on the T14 schools, none of these schools place well into those types of jobs. If you have more modest career goals- small firm, local government, things like that- then Temple would be fine for Philadelphia.

I would drop the JD/MBA, it's not really going to provide value for you most likely. If you want to do business, do business. If you want to do law, do law.

By corporate I don't *necessarily* mean traditional BigLaw. It'd be nice but I'm not dead-set on it honestly. I'd be fine with a smaller or medium-sized firm so long as it enables me to pay back any debt I would incur.

I do like Temple (especially considering the very minimal debt), but feel as if it pretty much only places in Philadelphia. And while I think I would be happy working there, I don't necessarily want to pigeonhole myself into one market.

I feel as if ND and UNC offer a bit more national reach than Temple, although both (UNC more so) are mostly regional.

For instance, I feel as if I could probably get a job in Philadelphia or DC , etc out of ND or UNC- but don't think I could get a job in Chicago or Charlotte out of Temple. Does that make sense or am I wrong?
Why do you think they have more national reach? Because of US News Rankings? Or something else? ND is probably somewhat more national. I doubt UNC is really all that more national than Temple. I doubt you're going to get a job in Charlotte even if you attend UNC, or at least you would be way behind the 8 ball there. Randomly moving to random regional schools isn't a very good idea because you're likely going to lose out to the local kid. I don't think you should necessarily never attend a regional school that you don't have ties to but if you do, you need to have a real plan and reason for why you're going there.

But yeah, I don't think a Philly employer is going to be any more impressed by a UNC JD than a Charlotte employer will be impressed by a Temple JD.

If you want true degree portability again, you need to aim higher IMO. And even that can be pretty limited. Often T14 schools open up NYC big law (and maybe throw DC in there), and maybe jobs where you are from, and maybe jobs in the market the school primarily places in. But that's usually about it.

As for the big vs small/medium firm thing it's not big law at the top, and then people who can't get that get "mid law" and then people who miss out on that get small law. Also, mid law isn't usually much of a thing for freshly minted grads and it's often as hard to get as big law. I'm not sure what kind of salary you would be comfortable with but starting out it's often either 50ishk or 140ishK+ and very little in between.

There's certainly transactional work that exists in smaller firms. But I'm not sure that most of that would be considered what I understand corporate work to be.

It seems like maybe you want options- geographic flexibility, flexibility in the kinds of jobs you can get (just based on the jd/mba thing). I'm not sure law school really works like that for the vast majority of people and especially not with the options you listed here.

america1211

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Re: ND ($$) / UNC ($$) / WM ($$) / Temple (Full)

Post by america1211 » Wed Apr 08, 2015 12:08 am

BigZuck wrote:
america1211 wrote:
BigZuck wrote:If you mean what I think you mean by corporate law then you're going to have to retake the lsat and focus on the T14 schools, none of these schools place well into those types of jobs. If you have more modest career goals- small firm, local government, things like that- then Temple would be fine for Philadelphia.

I would drop the JD/MBA, it's not really going to provide value for you most likely. If you want to do business, do business. If you want to do law, do law.

By corporate I don't *necessarily* mean traditional BigLaw. It'd be nice but I'm not dead-set on it honestly. I'd be fine with a smaller or medium-sized firm so long as it enables me to pay back any debt I would incur.

I do like Temple (especially considering the very minimal debt), but feel as if it pretty much only places in Philadelphia. And while I think I would be happy working there, I don't necessarily want to pigeonhole myself into one market.

I feel as if ND and UNC offer a bit more national reach than Temple, although both (UNC more so) are mostly regional.

For instance, I feel as if I could probably get a job in Philadelphia or DC , etc out of ND or UNC- but don't think I could get a job in Chicago or Charlotte out of Temple. Does that make sense or am I wrong?
Why do you think they have more national reach? Because of US News Rankings? Or something else? ND is probably somewhat more national. I doubt UNC is really all that more national than Temple. I doubt you're going to get a job in Charlotte even if you attend UNC, or at least you would be way behind the 8 ball there. Randomly moving to random regional schools isn't a very good idea because you're likely going to lose out to the local kid. I don't think you should necessarily never attend a regional school that you don't have ties to but if you do, you need to have a real plan and reason for why you're going there.

But yeah, I don't think a Philly employer is going to be any more impressed by a UNC JD than a Charlotte employer will be impressed by a Temple JD.

If you want true degree portability again, you need to aim higher IMO. And even that can be pretty limited. Often T14 schools open up NYC big law (and maybe throw DC in there), and maybe jobs where you are from, and maybe jobs in the market the school primarily places in. But that's usually about it.

As for the big vs small/medium firm thing it's not big law at the top, and then people who can't get that get "mid law" and then people who miss out on that get small law. Also, mid law isn't usually much of a thing for freshly minted grads and it's often as hard to get as big law. I'm not sure what kind of salary you would be comfortable with but starting out it's often either 50ishk or 140ishK+ and very little in between.

There's certainly transactional work that exists in smaller firms. But I'm not sure that most of that would be considered what I understand corporate work to be.

It seems like maybe you want options- geographic flexibility, flexibility in the kinds of jobs you can get (just based on the jd/mba thing). I'm not sure law school really works like that for the vast majority of people and especially not with the options you listed here.
In terms of UNC specifically, I go there undergrad and do really like the NC area. I have established some ties in the state and would be happy working here, so it's not completely random.

I do think ND is a bit more national- certainly not as much so as the T14 etc, but definitely marginally better than UNC or Temple, which I think you tend to agree with.

I do value flexibility as you said, but I'm certainly not unrealistic to think that I will be able to necessarily pick and choose where and who I want to work for given my options. Simply stated, I'm flexible in terms of the regions I would be okay living in because I don't have one specific location I'm dead set on, nor do I want to assume that I would be able to necessarily get employment in that region straight out of law school given the realities of the situation.

I understand that re-taking and applying next cycle would probably give me the best chance at scoring a bit higher, gaining admission or money at a few T14s, etc.. but I'm not sure how financially viable it would be for me to take a year off without a true option of gainful employment (not that I couldn't find something to pay the rent for a year, but I haven't particularly pursued jobs given Law School plans). On top of all of that, say I study during the summer, retake and score a 167-168.... given that I would be applying to a number of schools I already was WLed or rejected at, does the 2nd time around with only a few points increase (hypothetical) truly improve my chances THAT much? Sincerely just asking because I'm not quite sure.

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Re: ND ($$) / UNC ($$) / WM ($$) / Temple (Full)

Post by Nomo » Wed Apr 08, 2015 3:23 pm

america1211 wrote:[qSimply stated, I'm flexible in terms of the regions I would be okay living in because I don't have one specific location I'm dead set on, nor do I want to assume that I would be able to necessarily get employment in that region straight out of law school given the realities of the situation.
I don't think you realize how hard it can be to move once you get started. Very few practice areas make it easy to move. Its very hard to give up your legal network and knowledge of local law and practices. Especially once you hit the point where your expected to start generating your own business (which happens pretty fast in small firms). I'm not saying its impossible. But its much easier to start out in the place where you want to end up.

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Re: ND ($$) / UNC ($$) / WM ($$) / Temple (Full)

Post by OhBoyOhBortles » Wed Apr 08, 2015 3:25 pm

Retake.

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