Top Law Schools

XxSpyKEx wrote: That reporting number is so low that it makes the statistic almost completely useless. Does that mean the 40% that didn’t report couldn’t find any type of paying legal employment? Does it mean that 40% of their class is now sucking cock for crack while living under a dumpster and fighting off sallie mae with a butter knife to avoid getting the dumpster foreclosed on? I really can’t tell by that number, so I think it would be best to assume an affirmative answer to my last question.

He's Tyrone! Drugs, alcohol, and T14 law school ruined his life.
/end chappelle reference

Anonymous User wrote:

I fully concur. I was a pharmacy tech. in the Navy and my wife's currently a Pharmacist. Becoming a Pharmacist is twice the difficulty of becoming a Lawyer. The science courses are killer and akin to medical school courses. Most lawyers couldn't hack pharmacy school but 90% of pharmacy school students can breeze through law school.

BTW: I'm in IT and will be attending law school next year. I majored in Computer Science and don't believe most law students could hack its rigors. No pun intended.

Comments like these are naive. Come back and let us know which is harder AFTER you graduate law school and pass the bar.

I'm with the Anonymous poster on this one. Don't talk smack with your mouth full of Funions and Mountain Dew.

Also, I think it really does have to do with what your interested in. To some people, science interests them all the way from early courses in molecular biology to something more advanced like O chem. To some that is much more interesting than learning about legal positivism, don't know the stats but everyone seems to use the LSAT as superior gauge for law school aptitude, I don't remember the numbers, but I would bet that an Chem major doesn't score particularly higher and possibly scores lower than many of the more difficult majors prevalent at liberal arts schools such as philosophy or economics.

jason8821 wrote:

SBimmer wrote:Most lawyers couldn't hack pharmacy school but 90% of pharmacy school students can breeze through law school.

BTW: I'm in IT and will be attending law school next year. I majored in Computer Science and don't believe most law students could hack its rigors. No pun intended.

Well I am not in IT, nor am I in law school yet. but I hope you are right in saying law school is easier, I plan to spend a dozen hours/day dedicating myself to it when I get there, so I certainly hope that will be rewarded, and if it truly is easier than all of the schooling for all of these other careers, it seems I would be. Thanks for the responses.

dumb 0ls!

Two brief points:

1) Law school isn't hard because the subject matter is difficult to grasp on its face, it's hard because of the competition between extremely intelligent and motivated students combined with the total lack of guidance you are given

2) Mr. dozen-hours-a-day: just a few more I know probably about 6 people who went into law school with your attitude. 1 did extraordinarily well, 1 did alright, and 4 got owned by law school and are trying to figure out what went wrong and what they're going to do. Law school doesn't take 12 hours a day, and if you think it does or worse yet try to give it 12 hours a day, there's a good chance it'll kick you in the ass.

disco_barred wrote:

jason8821 wrote:

SBimmer wrote:Most lawyers couldn't hack pharmacy school but 90% of pharmacy school students can breeze through law school.

BTW: I'm in IT and will be attending law school next year. I majored in Computer Science and don't believe most law students could hack its rigors. No pun intended.

Well I am not in IT, nor am I in law school yet. but I hope you are right in saying law school is easier, I plan to spend a dozen hours/day dedicating myself to it when I get there, so I certainly hope that will be rewarded, and if it truly is easier than all of the schooling for all of these other careers, it seems I would be. Thanks for the responses.

dumb 0ls!

Two brief points:

1) Law school isn't hard because the subject matter is difficult to grasp on its face, it's hard because of the competition between extremely intelligent and motivated students combined with the total lack of guidance you are given

2) Mr. dozen-hours-a-day: just a few more I know probably about 6 people who went into law school with your attitude. 1 did extraordinarily well, 1 did alright, and 4 got owned by law school and are trying to figure out what went wrong and what they're going to do. Law school doesn't take 12 hours a day, and if you think it does or worse yet try to give it 12 hours a day, there's a good chance it'll kick you in the ass.

I suppose I should have articulated on that. I didn't mean 12 hours/day to studying. I met in classes, and hopefully work study, or some other part time job in the legal/public interest field. Probably more like 4-5 hours studying.

Just wanted to add that I really appreciate how USD reports employment data:

http://www.sandiego.edu/law/careers/stu ... t_data.php


Not only do they report the percentage of people in small firms, medium firms, etc. but they give the exact number of graduates getting those positions. I wish more schools reported data like this - makes it a lot more clear what you can expect.

ViIIager wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

I fully concur. I was a pharmacy tech. in the Navy and my wife's currently a Pharmacist. Becoming a Pharmacist is twice the difficulty of becoming a Lawyer. The science courses are killer and akin to medical school courses. Most lawyers couldn't hack pharmacy school but 90% of pharmacy school students can breeze through law school.

BTW: I'm in IT and will be attending law school next year. I majored in Computer Science and don't believe most law students could hack its rigors. No pun intended.

Comments like these are naive. Come back and let us know which is harder AFTER you graduate law school and pass the bar.

I'm with the Anonymous poster on this one. Don't talk smack with your mouth full of Funions and Mountain Dew.

I don't like Funions nor Mountain Dew. Your point is well taken, but from the consensus I get from many posters, many TLSers aren't going law school for the love of law but rather a HIGH salaried job. And so, if you're studying something you love you'll likely do well. That's why pharmacist, engineers, etc. succeed and persevere through the rigors or their chosen academic endeavors. Conversely, one is doomed to failed if they choose a profession solely on the possibility of a HIGH salaried job.

My two cents.

are you kidding me? people go to pharmacy because you make 100k sitting on your ass half the day. it is THE "easy but pays well" job of the 00's.

you could be right about engineers. they tend to be nerdy dudes who like science. the white engineers anyway. lots of the asian ones are just being pushed by their parents.

art majors love what they do, but you don't see most of them able to even support themselves.

underdawg wrote:are you kidding me? people go to pharmacy because you make 100k sitting on your ass half the day. it is THE "easy but pays well" job of the 00's.

you could be right about engineers. they tend to be nerdy dudes who like science. the white engineers anyway. lots of the asian ones are just being pushed by their parents.

art majors love what they do, but you don't see most of them able to even support themselves.

You obviously haven't visited your local pharmacy lately.

I know with most high paying jobs you can't just "do what your told" anymore, you have to be creative, and go above and beyond. At one point in time, it probably was enough to have a law degree, a phd etc but times have changed. Anyways I am wondering how this effects pharmacists. It is not my intention to sound rude, and I admit that I am uninformed, but it seems like the one job where after you get your degree, you can sort of go on cruise control. There is no publish or perish, there is no rush to make partner, or to move up the rankings from resident to doctor etc.

Am I wrong here?

Also I was thinking about the people who said Computer/IT is harder than law. Well I have been on this site long enough to notice that people in that particular field analysts, engineers etc. come on here quite often with low lsat scores, and peopel say "Stay in It/software, you'll make good money" every time. there are plenty of people in the sciences that come on here with low lsat scores. Being able to remember terminology, solve complex math problems does not necessarily translate to a good rc or logical reasoning score. They test a different set of skills, so I think it all depends on your set of skills. I am better with math, so certain things come easier on the lsat such as more formal logic where as reading is much more difficult.

SBimmer wrote:

underdawg wrote:are you kidding me? people go to pharmacy because you make 100k sitting on your ass half the day. it is THE "easy but pays well" job of the 00's.

you could be right about engineers. they tend to be nerdy dudes who like science. the white engineers anyway. lots of the asian ones are just being pushed by their parents.

art majors love what they do, but you don't see most of them able to even support themselves.

You obviously haven't visited your local pharmacy lately.

I think it depends. My classmate, a retail pharmacist, could not wait to get out of the field, due to the 12 hour shifts spent standing up, dealing with nasty customers, during which he was forbidden to eat or drink at all (IE: no lunch breaks.) Compensation was excellent, but apparently not worth it.

I work at a boutique in SF that pays low six figures to new attorneys with specialized tax knowledge. We also interview (and periodically hire) from some low-ranked schools, including a tier 4. I'm sure we're an outlier in many respects.

bebesu wrote:Just wanted to add that I really appreciate how USD reports employment data:

http://www.sandiego.edu/law/careers/stu ... t_data.php


Not only do they report the percentage of people in small firms, medium firms, etc. but they give the exact number of graduates getting those positions. I wish more schools reported data like this - makes it a lot more clear what you can expect.

An even more detailed version of this is what you typically see on MBA websites. I think the reason law schools don't do this is because 1) they can get away with it because law students don't demand the extra information prior to attending law school like MBA students do (e.g. the average MBA student has work experience and going to take a huge loss (in terms of lost compensation, possibly quitting their current jobs, etc) to put off their lives for 2 years to get an MBA, whereas the average JD can either go to law school or go start working for $30K year or less with their lib arts degree or go to law school -- so the MBA student will do a lot more to ensure he is making the right decision), and 2) law schools don't want you to know that much information because it makes their school look worse than their peer institutions (e.g. Hofstra and Pace might both do equally shitty in terms of placement, but if Hofstra lists a $160K median salary and makes their career statistics look really good, whereas Pace is honest, students will likely go to Hofstra). I think the only way to solve this is problem with law school's "fudging" their numbers is if the ABA would stick its foot down and regulate it like they should be doing.

OperaSoprano wrote:

SBimmer wrote:

underdawg wrote:are you kidding me? people go to pharmacy because you make 100k sitting on your ass half the day. it is THE "easy but pays well" job of the 00's.

you could be right about engineers. they tend to be nerdy dudes who like science. the white engineers anyway. lots of the asian ones are just being pushed by their parents.

art majors love what they do, but you don't see most of them able to even support themselves.

You obviously haven't visited your local pharmacy lately.

I think it depends. My classmate, a retail pharmacist, could not wait to get out of the field, due to the 12 hour shifts spent standing up, dealing with nasty customers, during which he was forbidden to eat or drink at all (IE: no lunch breaks.) Compensation was excellent, but apparently not worth it.

I don't know how retail pharmacists do it. Anything over 8 hours shifts are pretty unheard of typically (at least at the larger retail pharmacies), but I couldn't imagine spending 6 years going to through the hellish type schooling that pharmacists do to ultimately stand around like a chump and ensure that the pill in the bottle matches the picture on the screen. Customers that shop at places like Walgreens or CVS are typically old and rude as well.

At the same time I think it would be the ultimate stoner job. I mean $52 /hour to stand around and make sure the pharm tech's are doing their jobs, never working a minute over 40 hours a week and if you do getting time and half -- so $78 /hour (and that's just starting pay!). I think I could live with that.

XxSpyKEx wrote: I don't know how retail pharmacists do it. Anything over 8 hours shifts are pretty unheard of typically (at least at the larger retail pharmacies), but I couldn't imagine spending 6 years going to through the hellish type schooling that pharmacists do to ultimately stand around like a chump and ensure that the pill in the bottle matches the picture on the screen. Customers that shop at places like Walgreens or CVS are typically old and rude as well.

At the same time I think it would be the ultimate stoner job. I mean $52 /hour to stand around and make sure the pharm tech's are doing their jobs, never working a minute over 40 hours a week and if you do getting time and half -- so $78 /hour (and that's just starting pay!). I think I could live with that.

I put pharmacy school up there with PA school. They both pay well, are portable, and are in demand. The downside is that they both crush your ego; PAs are underlings to MDs and pharmacists are drones serving rude customers. If you have a competitive personality, like most of us here do, I think those jobs would drive you crazy.

I think it depends. My classmate, a retail pharmacist, could not wait to get out of the field, due to the 12 hour shifts spent standing up, dealing with nasty customers, during which he was forbidden to eat or drink at all (IE: no lunch breaks.) Compensation was excellent, but apparently not worth it.

Why would they forbid pharmacists from eating/drinking? Were they trying to get them to screw up?

nealric wrote:

I think it depends. My classmate, a retail pharmacist, could not wait to get out of the field, due to the 12 hour shifts spent standing up, dealing with nasty customers, during which he was forbidden to eat or drink at all (IE: no lunch breaks.) Compensation was excellent, but apparently not worth it.

Why would they forbid pharmacists from eating/drinking? Were they trying to get them to screw up?

You can't eat and drink while in the pharmacy for obvious reasons. 12 hour shifts and/or no lunch break is pretty unheard of though (in retail pharmacy). At Walgreens the pharmacists are unionized..

ok wtf, mind-numbingly boring job + standing up + hard hours.....

wtf would you want to be a pharmacist then?

i was speaking of the expectations of all my friends who went into pharmacy, anyway. and i went to a UG that had a top pharmacy program, so were they all just deluded?

but if it's 40 hrs/wk, i guess i see the allure...so then it's like a cashier job where you make $100k

UFMatt wrote:

XxSpyKEx wrote: I don't know how retail pharmacists do it. Anything over 8 hours shifts are pretty unheard of typically (at least at the larger retail pharmacies), but I couldn't imagine spending 6 years going to through the hellish type schooling that pharmacists do to ultimately stand around like a chump and ensure that the pill in the bottle matches the picture on the screen. Customers that shop at places like Walgreens or CVS are typically old and rude as well.

At the same time I think it would be the ultimate stoner job. I mean $52 /hour to stand around and make sure the pharm tech's are doing their jobs, never working a minute over 40 hours a week and if you do getting time and half -- so $78 /hour (and that's just starting pay!). I think I could live with that.

I put pharmacy school up there with PA school. They both pay well, are portable, and are in demand. The downside is that they both crush your ego; PAs are underlings to MDs and pharmacists are drones serving rude customers. If you have a competitive personality, like most of us here do, I think those jobs would drive you crazy.

Yeah, because lawyers never get yelled at by assholes clients.

Every job kinda sucks in some way. Some people hate being pharmacists and run to law school. Some lawyers hate being lawyers and run to IT. Etc, etc.

But, no question, bang-for-buck pharmacists make a killing. If that's what you're into.

I wanted to make a post specifically in response to some of the comments about pharmacists in this thread. To preface, my brother is a pharmacist, my sister in law is a pharmacist, my cousin is a pharmacist, my weekly bowling group has 2 pharmacists in it, 2 of my closest friends are pharmacy technicians, and i myself have been a registered pharmacy tech for over 4 years. Needless to say, i know countless pharmacists, have spent countless hours speaking to pharmacists on a personal level, and have spent countless hours witnessing the job from most angles.

To be absolutely truthful, those of you who can't imagine how anyone can do the "mindless" job of a pharmacist really do not know what you are talking about. It is NOT just about verifying the technicians' duties. Believe it or not, people actually get into the profession to help others. Most (not all) of the pharmacists i work with do take great pride in their responsibilities in consulting patients. Why do you think that pharmacists are consistently rated as one of the most trusted professions, even more so than doctors? It's because patients know that they can simply walk into a pharmacy, tell their situation to the pharmacist, and instantly get an expert opinion from someone with more drug training than even doctors, without waiting in line for 2 hours for a checkup and paying a 200 dollar deductible to a doctor. THAT is where the job satisfaction comes in.

I'll tell you a true story that happened to me a few years back. One of my regular customers that had been coming to my pharmacy for years came in one day and had to get one of her cholesterol medication refilled. It was a medication without a generic, and without insurance would have ran her close to 200 dollars for 1 months supply, whereas if it was covered the copay would of been around 20 dollars. When we tried to refill the prescription, it came back rejected by the insurance because apparently she was trying to refill it 2 weeks early. I went to talk to her and could tell that she was extremely upset. She was always really energetic and cheerful when she came in each month but this time something was clearly different. After talking to her, i found out that her mother had passed away and she had to go out of the country to arrange for the funeral. She was going to be gone for over a month, hence why she needed to fill her prescription early. She wasnt rich, so tacking on 200 bucks onto her traveling expenses along with the added emotional trauma of recently loosing her mother would of been the perfect kick in the ass to an already craptastic week. My pharmacist, being in the business long enough knew that some insurances had a "vacation" exemption, where if people were going out of town for an extended period, an override could be requested from the insurance company. All that was required was that we called them and requested the exemption. It took a 10 minute phone call and we saved the woman a couple of hundred bucks and she was very appreciative of the extra effort we put in to help her in her time of need. About a month later, i came into work and my co worker told me she had stopped by and had dropped off some chocolates that she got overseas to thank me. Situations like these happen all the time. In a way, pharmacy is a profession in which you can provide immediate and tangible assistance to those in need. You have no idea how much influence you can have on someone's day as a pharmacist.

Your patients tend to be the elderly and while its true that some can be old grouchy hags, i find that many more of those at the twilight years of their lives are content, warm, and friendly. Most pharmacists know their patients by name and develop a personal connection with their patients that few other professions can match. Pharmacists know when you're sick, when you're healthy, or when a family member passes away and most that i work with do genuinely care. Every time we learn that a regular has passed away, its tough. My point is not to paint pharmacy out to be an idealistic profession where nothing can go wrong, but rather the job is what you make of it. There are people who only went that route for the stability and cash and only punch the time card and reap their phat paychecks at the end of the pay period. But just because many chose the profession for monetary reasons does not make the profession dull, mindless, or tedious.

As an aside, I'm not sure where this nonsense about not eating comes from. I have skipped many lunches when we were busy, but that was a personal choice, not a requirement. If i was hungry, i would go across the street, buy some quiznos, bring it back and eat it in the back of the store. If i did not have time, i would make a quick run to the front, grab some beef jerky and snack on it while i typed prescriptions. The same goes for the pharmacists. The high demand for pharmacists means that pharmacists are treated extremely well, lest they find a reason to jump to any of the plethora of other companies more than willing to snatch them away from a competitor. I find it hard to believe that any employer can forbid anyone working a 12 hour shift, let alone a pharmacist, from eating.

Lucidity wrote:I wanted to make a post specifically in response to some of the comments about pharmacists in this thread. To preface, my brother is a pharmacist, my sister in law is a pharmacist, my cousin is a pharmacist, my weekly bowling group has 2 pharmacists in it, 2 of my closest friends are pharmacy technicians, and i myself have been a registered pharmacy tech for over 4 years. Needless to say, i know countless pharmacists, have spent countless hours speaking to pharmacists on a personal level, and have spent countless hours witnessing the job from most angles.

To be absolutely truthful, those of you who can't imagine how anyone can do the "mindless" job of a pharmacist really do not know what you are talking about. It is NOT just about verifying the technicians' duties. Believe it or not, people actually get into the profession to help others. Most (not all) of the pharmacists i work with do take great pride in their responsibilities in consulting patients. Why do you think that pharmacists are consistently rated as one of the most trusted professions, even more so than doctors? It's because patients know that they can simply walk into a pharmacy, tell their situation to the pharmacist, and instantly get an expert opinion from someone with more drug training than even doctors, without waiting in line for 2 hours for a checkup and paying a 200 dollar deductible to a doctor. THAT is where the job satisfaction comes in.

I'll tell you a true story that happened to me a few years back. One of my regular customers that had been coming to my pharmacy for years came in one day and had to get one of her cholesterol medication refilled. It was a medication without a generic, and without insurance would have ran her close to 200 dollars for 1 months supply, whereas if it was covered the copay would of been around 20 dollars. When we tried to refill the prescription, it came back rejected by the insurance because apparently she was trying to refill it 2 weeks early. I went to talk to her and could tell that she was extremely upset. She was always really energetic and cheerful when she came in each month but this time something was clearly different. After talking to her, i found out that her mother had passed away and she had to go out of the country to arrange for the funeral. She was going to be gone for over a month, hence why she needed to fill her prescription early. She wasnt rich, so tacking on 200 bucks onto her traveling expenses along with the added emotional trauma of recently loosing her mother would of been the perfect kick in the ass to an already craptastic week. My pharmacist, being in the business long enough knew that some insurances had a "vacation" exemption, where if people were going out of town for an extended period, an override could be requested from the insurance company. All that was required was that we called them and requested the exemption. It took a 10 minute phone call and we saved the woman a couple of hundred bucks and she was very appreciative of the extra effort we put in to help her in her time of need. About a month later, i came into work and my co worker told me she had stopped by and had dropped off some chocolates that she got overseas to thank me. Situations like these happen all the time. In a way, pharmacy is a profession in which you can provide immediate and tangible assistance to those in need. You have no idea how much influence you can have on someone's day as a pharmacist.

Your patients tend to be the elderly and while its true that some can be old grouchy hags, i find that many more of those at the twilight years of their lives are content, warm, and friendly. Most pharmacists know their patients by name and develop a personal connection with their patients that few other professions can match. Pharmacists know when you're sick, when you're healthy, or when a family member passes away and most that i work with do genuinely care. Every time we learn that a regular has passed away, its tough. My point is not to paint pharmacy out to be an idealistic profession where nothing can go wrong, but rather the job is what you make of it. There are people who only went that route for the stability and cash and only punch the time card and reap their phat paychecks at the end of the pay period. But just because many chose the profession for monetary reasons does not make the profession dull, mindless, or tedious.

As an aside, I'm not sure where this nonsense about not eating comes from. I have skipped many lunches when we were busy, but that was a personal choice, not a requirement. If i was hungry, i would go across the street, buy some quiznos, bring it back and eat it in the back of the store. If i did not have time, i would make a quick run to the front, grab some beef jerky and snack on it while i typed prescriptions. The same goes for the pharmacists. The high demand for pharmacists means that pharmacists are treated extremely well, lest they find a reason to jump to any of the plethora of other companies more than willing to snatch them away from a competitor. I find it hard to believe that any employer can forbid anyone working a 12 hour shift, let alone a pharmacist, from eating.

too long; definitely did not read

i know lots of people going to pharmacy school, all of whom did it for big bux for easy work

^lol. i caught the gist of it and...dont waste your time.

also there's no way pharmacists eat freaking beef jerky on teh job. what a fraud

Actually, it was always me that bought the jerky, while the pharmacist and everyone else complained about the smell. But certainly nothing stopped them from eating or drinking on the job if they wanted to. One of my current pharmacist goes through 4 liters of doctor pepper in an 8 hour shift. No one gives him crap for having a 2 liter next to his computer while he verifies prescriptions. No company interested in profit maximizing wants to piss of their golden goose over such trivial maters.

And i do apologize for the length. Good practice for final exams, i suppose