Top Law Schools

Almost all of the posts on JD Underground have something to do with LS being a bad choice. They all seem to have very negative interpretations about everything. Are a lot of these folks from TTT or what? I have a feeling that there would be a decent number of T14s in that bunch... but maybe not? It's just very depressing to see how many people are nagging about poor career prospects after law school.

Will the legal market shrink like crazy by the time we graduate (as those from JD Underground suggest)? Are TLS members just a bunch of naive 0Ls that really don't know what they're getting themselves into? I hope not... haha.

as always, there are 3 sides to the story:

bitter doom and gloom JDUs
sunshine squad TLSers
the truth

Most of the people who post their are unhappy with their choice of law as a career. Most of them are also either unemployed or unhappy in their current employment. Most of them also probably only went to law school to make money.

I do agree that the truth is somewhere in between. Not all T14-ers will be happy; not all TTT-ers will be miserable.

Yeah, you should never listen to people who actually went through law school and worked as lawyers if you, um....want to...go to law school.

It's even worse than JDU says.

There are how many thousands of lawyers in the world and maybe 15 or so regular posters on jdunderground.

But as a general rule, internet message boards are absolutely the worst place to go to get an accurate view of anything. The legal profession included.

MTal wrote:Yeah, you should never listen to people who actually went through law school and worked as lawyers if you, um....want to...go to law school.

Or to people that couldn't hack it in law school, dropped out, but still post on a message board fully devoted to law school admissions.

OP, I think there are miserable people in every profession (and some of those people will have legit reasons). However, there are also happy people in every profession, and they have better things to do than bitch and moan online to one another.

...Misery loves company and all that. Some of the things they discuss (especially in terms of T2 and lower job prospects) are worth keeping in mind...but move on from there.

Pearalegal wrote:

MTal wrote:Yeah, you should never listen to people who actually went through law school and worked as lawyers if you, um....want to...go to law school.

Or to people that couldn't hack it in law school, dropped out, but still post on a message board fully devoted to law school admissions.

OP, I think there are miserable people in every profession (and some of those people will have legit reasons). However, there are also happy people in every profession, and they have better things to do than bitch and moan online to one another.

...Misery loves company and all that. Some of the things they discuss (especially in terms of T2 and lower job prospects) are worth keeping in mind...but move on from there.

oh dear, i was thinking it but i didnt say it

MTal wrote:Yeah, you should never listen to people who actually went through law school and worked as lawyers if you, um....want to...go to law school.

lol MTal is our regular JDU liaison!

Pretty much. I started spouting some of the JDU-negativity (i.e. "you are shit and have no chance at working more than doc review if you don't go to a T14") to my attorney dad and he called me "delusional" and got really really really offended .

I don't doubt for a minute, however, that the economy is scary as hell for new law school grads and 2L's below median, especially at non-Top 20's. I went to the NY Forum and I had an Assistant Dean of Admissions (who knew nothing about me or my numbers; all I told him was that I had a job) tell me not to go to law school because it was that.bad (midwest T50; will let you guess which one). But I do think, of those who currently work in the profession, many are happy and many are not and that JDU is a sample of those who are miserable. Some of what they say is completely true, but some also has to be taken with a grain of salt.

keg411 wrote:Pretty much. I started spouting some of the JDU-negativity (i.e. "you are shit and have no chance at working more than doc review if you don't go to a T14") to my attorney dad and he called me "delusional" and got really really really offended .

I don't doubt for a minute, however, that the economy is scary as hell for new law school grads and 2L's below median, especially at non-Top 20's. I went to the NY Forum and I had an Assistant Dean of Admissions (who knew nothing about me or my numbers; all I told him was that I had a job) tell me not to go to law school because it was that.bad (midwest T50; will let you guess which one). But I do think, of those who currently work in the profession, many are happy and many are not and that JDU is a sample of those who are miserable. Some of what they say is completely true, but some also has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Wait, you called your dad shit?

The rest of this was fine. I've also heard some strange stories from the NY Forum, and I was there for a few hours, representing my school.

I'm shocked that a dean, employed to drive up application numbers, would tell you not to apply. I won't guess around at which school it was, but that's pretty damning.

keg411 wrote: Some of what they say is completely true, but some also has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Yeah, exactly.

This might be over generalizing, but I have a hard time taking a lot of what the posters over there say seriously, but it seems like most of them have personality types that would be unsuccessful and unhappy no matter where they are in life (and revel in others' unhappiness).

Man, those guys whine A LOT.

Law is sort of unique in that there's no formal preparation involved. You basically need a pulse, a GPA and an LSAT score. I would say its a lot harder for people to gauge whether they're a good fit for law school before getting in. When you combine that with the fact that a lot of people go to law school simply because they don't know what to do with a B.A. degree, you you have a recipe for major buyer's remorse. And in a dollop of a shrinking legal market and top it off with ridiculously dishonest employment numbers put out but by some schools and you have a big, steaming pile of dodo.

OperaSoprano wrote:

keg411 wrote:Pretty much. I started spouting some of the JDU-negativity (i.e. "you are shit and have no chance at working more than doc review if you don't go to a T14") to my attorney dad and he called me "delusional" and got really really really offended .

I don't doubt for a minute, however, that the economy is scary as hell for new law school grads and 2L's below median, especially at non-Top 20's. I went to the NY Forum and I had an Assistant Dean of Admissions (who knew nothing about me or my numbers; all I told him was that I had a job) tell me not to go to law school because it was that.bad (midwest T50; will let you guess which one). But I do think, of those who currently work in the profession, many are happy and many are not and that JDU is a sample of those who are miserable. Some of what they say is completely true, but some also has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Wait, you called your dad shit?

The rest of this was fine. I've also heard some strange stories from the NY Forum, and I was there for a few hours, representing my school.

I'm shocked that a dean, employed to drive up application numbers, would tell you not to apply. I won't guess around at which school it was, but that's pretty damning.

I actually called St. John's "shit" (and he didn't go there, though a relative did). But I'm a little older than most of the posters here and have a good relationship with my parents and we all yell a lot. But he got offended at the idea that you are only worth something in the legal profession if you go to a top school. I also promised I would go through and apply this year while still doing the re-take thing. Had to alter my school list, which was somewhat painful, but I'll be okay (and no, St. John's is NOT on it).

And yes, that was really really damning. It was towards the end of the day on Saturday and the guy was obviously exhausted (and said as much) so that was probably part of it. Both schools that I got the most negative employment vibes were from the midwest. The southerners all seemed happy; but maybe that's part of being a southerner.

Considering the fact that the job market is even worse than how the JDU posters describe it, are there any chances that law firms will "restructure" their current employment model?

I know there are articles addressing this issue and what not, but I just want to hear some well-supported opinions. I couldn't imagine a world where the whole billable hours thing disappearing any time soon...

I also have another idea about employment - although I understand that this is highly speculative and potentially symptomatic of TLS/0L optimism, I could see how prospects for biglaw jobs could remain the same as it was several years ago. Well, maybe not the "same," but similar.. This is dependent on the assumption that the turnover rate at biglaw firms stay the same, and that economic activity revert back to pre-recession levels.

I like sites like JDU. They help weed out people w/ delusions about the legal profession or what law school is. It's kindda nice to have something out there being the bad cop so you don't have to.

Even if only 5% of CCN kids who wanted biglaw end up w/ no biglaw offers (the actual % will be much higher), that's still 100+ CCN kids who got had top percentile LSATs, decent GPAs, worked their asses off 1L year, got median-ish grades... only to end up w/ a JD, 200k of debt, and a job they never wanted. No one thinks that's going to be them, but the #s don't lie.

google "law school scam"

You know how every recession panic post gets dumped into a megathread? I think it would be a good idea to do the same for bitching about JDU threads. It's pretty much the same conversation every time.

M51 wrote:I like sites like JDU. They help weed out people w/ delusions about the legal profession or what law school is. It's kindda nice to have something out there being the bad cop so you don't have to.

Even if only 5% of CCN kids who wanted biglaw end up w/ no biglaw offers (the actual % will be much higher), that's still 100+ CCN kids who got had top percentile LSATs, decent GPAs, worked their asses off 1L year, got median-ish grades... only to end up w/ a JD, 200k of debt, and a job they never wanted. No one thinks that's going to be them, but the #s don't lie.

Math fail.

MTal wrote:Yeah, you should never listen to people who actually went through law school and worked as lawyers if you, um....want to...go to law school.

I tend to dismiss the statements of racists, misogynists, psychopaths (findcj) and anti-Semites so *poof'* goes the credibility of JDU.

rayiner wrote:

M51 wrote:I like sites like JDU. They help weed out people w/ delusions about the legal profession or what law school is. It's kindda nice to have something out there being the bad cop so you don't have to.

Even if only 5% of CCN kids who wanted biglaw end up w/ no biglaw offers (the actual % will be much higher), that's still 100+ CCN kids who got had top percentile LSATs, decent GPAs, worked their asses off 1L year, got median-ish grades... only to end up w/ a JD, 200k of debt, and a job they never wanted. No one thinks that's going to be them, but the #s don't lie.

Math fail.

It's common knowledge that each incoming class at CCN is... 3000+ students.