CUNY law school Forum

[PattyCake]

Patty- I am curious why you keep talking about grades. Why would those matter for someone with modest PI goals?

Do you mean why does getting good grades matter? Because I don't think anyone would ever claim you can work a CUNY degree to any advantage at all if you don't get great grades. Not even good, probably, but great.

[03152016]

I'm considering CUNY, even though my grades/LSAT can get me in a higher ranked school.
I'm choosing CUNY because of their criminal law clinic. I'm 41, I retire from the NYPD next year, my home is paid, I live in Queens, and I intend to go solo right out of law school.
Aside from criminal law I might also do divorces. These are the only 2 areas of law that I want to practice.

I actually don't mind this school that much, at least not as much as most other people ITT. New York is such a huge city, seems like the kind of place (maybe the only city in this country) that could use a school like this. It seems like an ok place for someone like Jaydee here. Although, I admit that is probably a small minority of people who attend, most (perhaps including these types) aren't that realistic about their goals, and I might have just been sold by marketing tactics. I dunno.

is the low tuition why cuny doesn't bother you?

if someone got a half ride to duquesne and posted in choosing, what would your advice to them be?
i think every person on this board would be lining up to say "don't go"
the tls servers would crash under the weight
yet a half ride to duquesne is less than in-state at cuny
and duquesne has a higher employment score than cuny and far lower underemployment

i think we've been giving cuny a pass because of the "low tuition"

btw speaking of how "cheap" cuny is
86% of cuny students debt-finance
and $74,503 is the average debt load
non-resident debt-financed coa at repayment (GOD HELP YOU) is $170k

[03152016]

I'm considering CUNY, even though my grades/LSAT can get me in a higher ranked school.
I'm choosing CUNY because of their criminal law clinic. I'm 41, I retire from the NYPD next year, my home is paid, I live in Queens, and I intend to go solo right out of law school.
Aside from criminal law I might also do divorces. These are the only 2 areas of law that I want to practice.

someone earlier itt likened to cuny to a pathway to a "hobby"
that's a great description actually

sounds like you have a clear vision for what you want to do, which is great
but what many people don't know is – it's actually not that easy to hang a shingle straight out of law school
sure, lots of people do it and are successful, but don't forget about survivor bias; the failure rate for solos is high

most people graduate law school with little practical knowledge about the law
they're woefully unprepared to take cases, even if they've done a couple of clinics
the recommended course of action is to gain experience before hanging a shingle
and, of course, it's very hard to gain that experience from cuny, because most students who graduate from cuny don't find full-time work as lawyers

apart from not having practical law knowledge, law school does next to nothing to teach you the business side of running a firm
there's marketing and client acquisition, accounting, networking, and more
all while you're trying to learn how to be a lawyer
again, much better to gain experience first
and again, you're not likely to have an opportunity to gain this experience jobless with a cuny degree

opening up your own law firm also requires investment, as i'm sure you've considered
rent, furniture, seo and adsense, westlaw, cle, bar expenses, insurance, quickbooks, cards, all on top of student loans (if you'll have them)
many solos work part-time in other jobs to make ends meet
and still fail

before you go down this road, you owe it to yourself to do a little due diligence
after all, it's three years of your life we're talking about

Like many lawyers, the author of I Just Want to Practice Law decided to start his own firm after he failed to land a job. According to his launch post, he had about $3,500 on hand when he started, so he decided to work at home, spending just a few hundred bucks on the essentials.

His budget left him about three months to start making money:

The point is, I don’t have money for anything right now … It really is bare bones. It is a weird feeling walking into the courthouse wearing my only suit, and knowing I am in poverty but having to pretend I am not.

As it turned out, he took down his shingle on day 103. Billing at $60 per hour (this is less than contract lawyers from India charge, FYI), he totaled up just over $5,600 in billables, but collected only about $400 of that. He took a job as a prosecutor.

And therein lies the danger of solo practice or hanging out a shingle. There is no entrepreneurial common sense. For many new businesses outside law, the plan is to either tap an existing client base or demand that is not being met (e.g. a new entrant into a market that is underserved, such as manufacturing low-cost, reliable electric vehicles), or the business is set up with the goal of generating demand for something new (e.g. the latest fad in the restaurant world.) But for new entrants into the practice of law who believe they can make their own jobs, there is no base of clients that can be tapped. The law market is tapped out. There are already dozens of similar (even identical) businesses in the marketplace, and there’s nothing new you can offer. You’re not able to set a trend or alter people’s tastes and desires. Literally all you’re doing is adding one more person providing same-old legal services to the entire legal services marketplace, where it’s already saturated and there’s just no room for anyone else.

But the truth soon sets in. Like the Wizard of Oz, the curtain has long since been pulled back on the charade of solo shitlaw by consumer-friendly websites like Legalzoom. The public know full well what a worthless “product” most shitlawyers peddle, and the jig is now up. It sure don’t take 7 years of schoolin’ to cut n’ paste some janitor’s Last Will & Testament together or grovel before some lowlife traffic court judge for a point reduction. Anyone who can read can now pretty much solve their own legal problems by downloading a few boilerplate forms, doing some quick Googling, and pulling the old cut n’ paste. They surely couldn’t be any more incompetent than the typical recent law grad, unless of course their case involved a “fertile octagenarian” or other bar exam trivia. Opening a solo shitlaw office in 2010 is like opening a typewriter repair store in 1993- your product is already obsolete. And no, we don’t want to hear about your uncle/neighbor/dad’s college roommate who made millions in the 1980s on whiplash cases. That horse has long since limped off to the glue factory. Maybe Grandpa Kettle made a living shoeing horses, but that doesn’t mean my spiffy new blacksmith shop on the NJ Turnpike will become a going concern. Times have changed.

The saddest, most astounding aspect is the shockingly absurd leap from the silent telephone to the belief that had he “revised” his web marketing earlier, his solo practice might not have failed, as it “started to generate lots of leads.”
Leads? You mean people calling and emailing for free advice, to find out how soon you can jump on their case pro bono, to inquire about whether you could do their murder case for $1,000? Kid, it’s easy to get leads. Any idiot can get people with no money, bad attitudes and lousy cases to call. That’s what they do after the first ten lawyers whose name they got through personal referrals sent them away.

http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot ... ctice.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20100117021 ... ut-to-dry/
http://abovethelaw.com/2012/08/the-prac ... o-version/
http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/ ... eens/2013/

[03152016]

Patty- I am curious why you keep talking about grades. Why would those matter for someone with modest PI goals?

Do you mean why does getting good grades matter? Because I don't think anyone would ever claim you can work a CUNY degree to any advantage at all if you don't get great grades. Not even good, probably, but great.

just a general reminder to everyone that everyone thinks they're going to do well in law school
but only 10% are in the top 10% (substitute whatever number you'd like)

patty proooooobably has a higher likelihood of doing well than most of her classmates
but, of course, ls grades are a crapshoot

otoh, students who are generally in line with the class profile numbers-wise shouldn't expect to outperform their peers
judge a school on their median outcomes

[03152016]

You should not view it as a means to employment and a career. That's most likely not going to happen. You may luck out and get a 300/week job or volunteer work. However, you should really view CUNY as a means to pursue a hobby, like a more prestigious version of knitting class.

this is one of the best descriptions of cuny i've ever read
extremely accurate
tyft

Me? I won't be practicing until I'm 46-47; this is my change of plans. If things don't work out I can parlay my prior career into a director of security gig at some fancy hotel (they pay $80-100K, and I've been offered these type of jobs in the past couple of months).
Always have a back-up.

if you seriously have that option, in no way shape or form should you go to law school
i mean, you really shouldn't expect to make that kind of money out of cuny

[Jaydee]

I'm considering CUNY, even though my grades/LSAT can get me in a higher ranked school.
I'm choosing CUNY because of their criminal law clinic. I'm 41, I retire from the NYPD next year, my home is paid, I live in Queens, and I intend to go solo right out of law school.
Aside from criminal law I might also do divorces. These are the only 2 areas of law that I want to practice.

I actually don't mind this school that much, at least not as much as most other people ITT. New York is such a huge city, seems like the kind of place (maybe the only city in this country) that could use a school like this. It seems like an ok place for someone like Jaydee here. Although, I admit that is probably a small minority of people who attend, most (perhaps including these types) aren't that realistic about their goals, and I might have just been sold by marketing tactics. I dunno.

is the low tuition why cuny doesn't bother you?

if someone got a half ride to duquesne and posted in choosing, what would your advice to them be?
i think every person on this board would be lining up to say "don't go"
the tls servers would crash under the weight
yet a half ride to duquesne is less than in-state at cuny
and duquesne has a higher employment score than cuny and far lower underemployment

i think we've been giving cuny a pass because of the "low tuition"

btw speaking of how "cheap" cuny is
86% of cuny students debt-finance
and $74,503 is the average debt load
non-resident debt-financed coa at repayment (GOD HELP YOU) is $170k

CUNY doesn't bother me because I'm going solo right after. I have friends who are attorneys willing to help me out, initially. I also like the clinics at CUNY. Plus, I live in the area and my contacts are in that area. I belong to one of the ethnic groups in the Queens area; I speak the language well. All the other attorneys from my ethnic group are almost all immigration attorneys--hardly anyone does criminal law.

If you're not ready--and financially able--to go solo right out of CUNY and you don't have an apparent pipleline of clients, I would seriously reconsider CUNY.

[BigZuck]

I'm considering CUNY, even though my grades/LSAT can get me in a higher ranked school.
I'm choosing CUNY because of their criminal law clinic. I'm 41, I retire from the NYPD next year, my home is paid, I live in Queens, and I intend to go solo right out of law school.
Aside from criminal law I might also do divorces. These are the only 2 areas of law that I want to practice.

I actually don't mind this school that much, at least not as much as most other people ITT. New York is such a huge city, seems like the kind of place (maybe the only city in this country) that could use a school like this. It seems like an ok place for someone like Jaydee here. Although, I admit that is probably a small minority of people who attend, most (perhaps including these types) aren't that realistic about their goals, and I might have just been sold by marketing tactics. I dunno.

is the low tuition why cuny doesn't bother you?

if someone got a half ride to duquesne and posted in choosing, what would your advice to them be?
i think every person on this board would be lining up to say "don't go"
the tls servers would crash under the weight
yet a half ride to duquesne is less than in-state at cuny
and duquesne has a higher employment score than cuny and far lower underemployment

i think we've been giving cuny a pass because of the "low tuition"

btw speaking of how "cheap" cuny is
86% of cuny students debt-finance
and $74,503 is the average debt load
non-resident debt-financed coa at repayment (GOD HELP YOU) is $170k

Naw, I think non-discounted resident tuition is too much. But if you would somehow get out with like 50K debt and you know what you're getting into that might not be so bad. Was actually more thinking about potential institutional support, but as you said there's no info about LRAP, etc. So I guess I'm kind of agnostic on this one.

But...now apparently you need good grades to get employed? Screw that. I've never heard of that when it comes to modest PI jobs. If people at this school have to show dedication to the cause AND get good grades on top of that then forget it. I'm convinced, it really is a dump.

[AReasonableMan]

Good grades don't matter as much as people sprout for these schools. CUNY and the CT school someone mentioned are so disrespected that you're cut off from great PI jobs and big law. If you know what you're doing, you can control your ability to do well in law school - just approach from day one thinking -

What can I possibly use from this shitty reading assignment that can be useful on a bizarre fact pattern with a socially inept comprehension of pop culture characters and human behavior.

Law school is mostly useless for practice (saying this as someone who did well). It's a test for how smart you are from employers' perspectives. But at schools with a dumpster reputation, the presumption is always that you're not that smart. You need really good evidence to the contrary. Being top ten percent is not good enough evidence.

The best in PI thing is a joke. What is PI? Is it a DA job, working for the Feds? Is it anything in the public interest? Does volunteering count? Post grad internships? Is their desire PI training or because they acknowledge their grads won't get good jobs.

Whatever PI job you get from CUNY an NYU, Columbia and Cornell grad is going to get them over you if they want it and once gave their seat to an old woman on a train. It's like saying that moving to a 3rd world country is the best way to lose weight because there are more thin people pro rata there than there are in Texas.

The unauthorized practice of law statutes are broad - if you see a bus driver run a red, and say they broke the law, you've violated it. In fact, I just violated it by applying this law to my joke. More students do PI from here than elsewhere is a useless data point. It's like if a school said more go into private practice than anywhere else but they're all solos living in section 8.

[AReasonableMan]

I didn't mean to ramble. My point is - don't invest your future in bumper stickers. Evaluate the facts you're given. If a school brands itself as a PI school then evaluate what PI means under their definition, and whether more than 1 percent post-2008 has an outcome you would be happy with.

Lawyers like being respected. Everyone likes clinics. Coworkers respect each other. Evaluate it based on what happens afterwards, not during.

[Jaydee]

Depending on what type of law you want to practice it really doesn't matter what law school you go to. I've been around enough lawyers to know this. Law is a business. If you can bring in clients then you're not starving. If you're going solo or small law to practice crim law, family law, immigration, then how you dress, speak, project yourself, etc is more important than where you got your JD.
If you want to practice corporate law, work in biglaw, Fed, well regarded non-profits, etc then it matters where you go.

[AReasonableMan]

Thank you for your service as a police officer, but you are wrong. Are you not reading other peoples' posts? Of course it matters! What are you offering that others aren't? Stab your wife? Buy a criminal defense get a divorce half off? Why are you better than the lawyer they got for free?

If it's a big case for someone important they're not going to you. You'll only get deadbeats. How will you collect even 5 percent of your billables? You're not giving the public enough credit. Most are going to research someone on martindale or go through a friend. The ones that charm, if you have it, will seduce are going to be the biggest deadbeats in the world. Yes, law is a business but the idea that education somehow becomes irrelevant is a big jump. You're basically saying how well you can manipulate the public is what's pertinent, and I think you're assuming it's dumb enough to be manipulated by any door to dare salesman with good after shave and smooth talking.

Again , bumper stickers. Where you go doesn't matter is bullshit. People from 1980 are useless for you. You should consider the security job and pursue this as a hobby. Law can be your yacht, but don't invest the family home in it. You are sticking your fingers in your ears to avoid the truth. Think about your family.

[Jaydee]

Thank you for your service as a police officer, but you are wrong. Are you not reading other peoples' posts? Of course it matters! What are you offering that others aren't? Stab your wife? Buy a criminal defense get a divorce half off? Why are you better than the lawyer they got for free?

If it's a big case for someone important they're not going to you. You'll only get deadbeats. How will you collect even 5 percent of your billables?

Again , bumper stickers. Where you go doesn't matter is bullshit. People from 1980 are useless for you. You should consider the security job and pursue this as a hobby. Law can be your yacht, but don't invest the family home in it. You are sticking your fingers in your ears to avoid the truth. Think about your family.

I have many friends who do criminal defense. The most succesfull ones are the charismatic, personable ones who went to crappy law schools. I haven't started LS yet and I'm already getting offers from some of my friends to join their practice. These are people who I have known professionally and socially for over 20-years. It doesn't hurt that I belong to one of the ethnic groups in the area and speak the language fluently.
With regard to criminal defense, the paying clients are generally middle-class folks who get locked up for DWI, domestic violence, etc. These people do not know the difference between Brooklyn Law and CUNY law. If you think they do, then you are giving them too much credit.
Again, I do not intend to work for anyone (other than my friend's practice, initially, to get experience). I have friends with 3rd world LLBs who were allowed to sit for the NYS bar and they are doing well! They're doing better than another friend with a Fordham JD. Why is this? simple: the guy with the foreign LLB has a personality and can relate to his clients, i.e. he speaks their language.
I am a skeptical person, by nature. I am by no means the first person going down this route.

[PattyCake]

Thank you for your service as a police officer, but you are wrong. Are you not reading other peoples' posts? Of course it matters! What are you offering that others aren't? Stab your wife? Buy a criminal defense get a divorce half off? Why are you better than the lawyer they got for free?

If it's a big case for someone important they're not going to you. You'll only get deadbeats. How will you collect even 5 percent of your billables?

Again , bumper stickers. Where you go doesn't matter is bullshit. People from 1980 are useless for you. You should consider the security job and pursue this as a hobby. Law can be your yacht, but don't invest the family home in it. You are sticking your fingers in your ears to avoid the truth. Think about your family.

I have many friends who do criminal defense. The most succesfull ones are the charismatic, personable ones who went to crappy law schools. I haven't started LS yet and I'm already getting offers from some of my friends to join their practice. These are people who I have known professionally and socially for over 20-years. It doesn't hurt that I belong to one of the ethnic groups in the area and speak the language fluently.
With regard to criminal defense, the paying clients are generally middle-class folks who get locked up for DWI, domestic violence, etc. These people do not know the difference between Brooklyn Law and CUNY law. If you think they do, they you are giving them too much credit.
Again, I do not intend to work for anyone (other than my friend's practice, initially, to get experience). I have friends with 3rd world LLB's who were allowed to sit for the NYS bar and they are doing well! They're doing better than another friend with a Fordham JD. Why is this? simple: the guy with the foreign LLB has a personality.

They're in solo practice? The people I know who've done solo practice felt more like bill collectors. I would agree that those things matter a lot if you work for someone else though - after you get your first job every job after it is going to be based on your performance and the connections you made through it.

[Jaydee]

Thank you for your service as a police officer, but you are wrong. Are you not reading other peoples' posts? Of course it matters! What are you offering that others aren't? Stab your wife? Buy a criminal defense get a divorce half off? Why are you better than the lawyer they got for free?

If it's a big case for someone important they're not going to you. You'll only get deadbeats. How will you collect even 5 percent of your billables?

Again , bumper stickers. Where you go doesn't matter is bullshit. People from 1980 are useless for you. You should consider the security job and pursue this as a hobby. Law can be your yacht, but don't invest the family home in it. You are sticking your fingers in your ears to avoid the truth. Think about your family.

I have many friends who do criminal defense. The most succesfull ones are the charismatic, personable ones who went to crappy law schools. I haven't started LS yet and I'm already getting offers from some of my friends to join their practice. These are people who I have known professionally and socially for over 20-years. It doesn't hurt that I belong to one of the ethnic groups in the area and speak the language fluently.
With regard to criminal defense, the paying clients are generally middle-class folks who get locked up for DWI, domestic violence, etc. These people do not know the difference between Brooklyn Law and CUNY law. If you think they do, they you are giving them too much credit.
Again, I do not intend to work for anyone (other than my friend's practice, initially, to get experience). I have friends with 3rd world LLB's who were allowed to sit for the NYS bar and they are doing well! They're doing better than another friend with a Fordham JD. Why is this? simple: the guy with the foreign LLB has a personality.

They're in solo practice? The people I know who've done solo practice felt more like bill collectors. I would agree that those things matter a lot if you work for someone else though - after you get your first job every job after it is going to be based on your performance and the connections you made through it.

Yup, solo practice. They get paid upfront, so collecting is not an issue. Their published rate is $225/hour, but they discount it and charge $125. Overhead is minimal--approximately $1200/month for a small shared office, internet, etc... With liberal time-off they make about 80-90K a year. I know I can make this money w/o going to LS, but, I don't want to haul my ass into Manhattan every day to make it. I live in Queens/western Nassau area and I would like to work near from home. There are no jobs paying 80K in Nassau other than law and those law jobs are all boring as F corporate-type jobs (banking, business, etc) That does not interest one bit.

[AReasonableMan]

My point wasn't that the difference between Brooklyn or CUNY is a tangible one for your goals. It was that the middle class person in jail for a DWI is going to want someone with a proven track record, not the best charlatan. They're going to hire someone with a track record of winning similar cases. Whether you go to Harvard or CUNY they're not going to retain you. The business of law is different than the business of a photographer or of a pizza store. You're selling your pedigree and career.

[PattyCake]

My point wasn't that the difference between Brooklyn or CUNY is a tangible one for your goals. It was that the middle class person in jail for a DWI is going to want someone with a proven track record, not the best charlatan. They're going to hire someone with a track record of winning similar cases. Whether you go to Harvard or CUNY they're not going to retain you. The business of law is different than the business of a photographer or of a pizza store. You're selling your pedigree and career.

I think he said he has a firm job lined up before he goes solo.