Top Law Schools

Danteshek wrote:Not having a sense of entitlement (unlike so many on this board) is important for your future success.

+1

If you work hard and do well, you will be fine

Isn't this statement a bit tautological? If you do well, you will do well.

Not having a sense of entitlement (unlike so many on this board) is important for your future success

I understand that a "sense of entitlement" isn't a popular thing, but I fail to see what one's feelings of entitlement have to do with worldly success except to the extent that those feelings result in inadequate work or become so obvious that they are off-putting. In the real world, arrogance/entitlement does not necessarily result in either. Being that we don't live in a world of perfect justice, merely deserving to succeed does not necessarily result in success (and vice verse).

Another point: While I'm sure there are plenty of self-important people with a sense of entitlement in the legal profession, I think there is a strong tendency for people to label anyone they are envious of with these attributes.

Danteshek wrote:If you work hard and do well, you will be fine. Not having a sense of entitlement (unlike so many on this board) is important for your future success.

Yeah, you can work hard at digging a ditch for 5 cents an hour but, uhh...why....would you want to?

MTal wrote:

Danteshek wrote:If you work hard and do well, you will be fine. Not having a sense of entitlement (unlike so many on this board) is important for your future success.

Yeah, you can work hard at digging a ditch for 5 cents an hour but, uhh...why....would you want to?

I say the same thing about selling investments...and I have a UG in finance.

brigun wrote:

MTal wrote:

Danteshek wrote:If you work hard and do well, you will be fine. Not having a sense of entitlement (unlike so many on this board) is important for your future success.

Yeah, you can work hard at digging a ditch for 5 cents an hour but, uhh...why....would you want to?

I say the same thing about selling investments...and I have a UG in finance.

Selling investments will get you substantially more than the median starting salary of all attorneys in my state, without the life-crushing non-dischargeable debt to boot. Chew on that for a while.

MTal wrote:

brigun wrote:

MTal wrote:

Danteshek wrote:If you work hard and do well, you will be fine. Not having a sense of entitlement (unlike so many on this board) is important for your future success.

Yeah, you can work hard at digging a ditch for 5 cents an hour but, uhh...why....would you want to?

I say the same thing about selling investments...and I have a UG in finance.

Selling investments will get you substantially more than the median starting salary of all attorneys in my state, without the life-crushing non-dischargeable debt to boot. Chew on that for a while.

Hey, whatever helps you to sleep at night, bro. At least you're not bitter...

brigun wrote: Hey, whatever helps you to sleep at night, bro.

Yeah it definitely helps me sleep at night knowing that my financial future is secure, and that paying off my crushing 6 figure non-dischargeable debt isn't contingent upon me correctly citing Hamer vs. Sidway in a convoluted fact pattern on a 3 hour exam.

MTal wrote:

brigun wrote: Hey, whatever helps you to sleep at night, bro.

Yeah it definitely helps me sleep at night knowing that my financial future is secure, and that paying off my crushing 6 figure non-dischargeable debt isn't contingent upon me correctly citing Hamer vs. Sidway in a convoluted fact pattern on a 3 hour exam.

And not everyone has that luxury, in fact, much of the country does not.

If you are lucky enough to be in the top percentage, why not try to do the same as far as attitude goes?

Before coming to law school, I worked two years at Western Asset Management (major fixed income manager) and one year at Wachovia/Evergreen. This is addition to internships at a broker dealer (Roosevelt & Cross) and a private equity firm (Celerity Partners). Most of the time, the work is totally mindless. Financial institutions tend to attract some of the least interesting and least intellectually curious individuals I've come into contact with. Mtal is a good example of the type of individual I am talking about.

Danteshek wrote: Financial institutions tend to attract some of the least interesting and least intellectually curious individuals I've come into contact with.

Wait till you start work at a law firm.

MTal wrote:

Danteshek wrote: Financial institutions tend to attract some of the least interesting and least intellectually curious individuals I've come into contact with.

Wait till you start work at a law firm.

I currently work in a non profit law firm one day a week. It's been a great experience. There is lots of interesting substantive work and client contact. By and large, the lawyers I know (I have dozens of high school classmates already in practice in Southern California) are far more intellectually agile than the financial professionals in my network.

nealric wrote:

If you work hard and do well, you will be fine

Isn't this statement a bit tautological? If you do well, you will do well.

Not having a sense of entitlement (unlike so many on this board) is important for your future success

I understand that a "sense of entitlement" isn't a popular thing, but I fail to see what one's feelings of entitlement have to do with worldly success except to the extent that those feelings result in inadequate work or become so obvious that they are off-putting. In the real world, arrogance/entitlement does not necessarily result in either. Being that we don't live in a world of perfect justice, merely deserving to succeed does not necessarily result in success (and vice verse).

Another point: While I'm sure there are plenty of self-important people with a sense of entitlement in the legal profession, I think there is a strong tendency for people to label anyone they are envious of with these attributes.

I am guessing that you were/are a philosophy major. Am I right? ... Just curious.

Danteshek wrote:If you work hard and do well, you will be fine. Not having a sense of entitlement (unlike so many on this board) is important for your future success.

The competition is a little more intense at T3 schools. If you're a gamer, this is a good thing. You should want your classmates pushing you to be the best you can be. This, I think, is the fundamental difference. Like Avis, we try harder. We know it's not good enough to be as good as the next guy. We have to be much better. This environment carries over to the workplace. We are sometimes ridiculed. However, those words and thoughts always come from a place of insecurity and fear. At some point, T1 law students have to face a world where hiding behind a piece of paper will not yield the hoped for result. And that is terrifying.

Danteshek wrote:

Danteshek wrote:If you work hard and do well, you will be fine. Not having a sense of entitlement (unlike so many on this board) is important for your future success.

The competition is a little more intense at T3 schools. If you're a gamer, this is a good thing. You should want your classmates pushing you to be the best you can be. This, I think, is the fundamental difference. Like Avis, we try harder. We know it's not good enough to be as good as the next guy. We have to be much better. This environment carries over to the workplace. We are sometimes ridiculed. However, those words and thoughts always come from a place of insecurity and fear. At some point, T1 law students have to face a world where hiding behind a piece of paper will not yield the hoped for result. And that is terrifying.

Your back is going to start bruising if you keep patting it so hard.

Danteshek wrote:

Danteshek wrote:If you work hard and do well, you will be fine. Not having a sense of entitlement (unlike so many on this board) is important for your future success.

The competition is a little more intense at T3 schools. If you're a gamer, this is a good thing. You should want your classmates pushing you to be the best you can be. This, I think, is the fundamental difference. Like Avis, we try harder. We know it's not good enough to be as good as the next guy. We have to be much better. This environment carries over to the workplace. We are sometimes ridiculed. However, those words and thoughts always come from a place of insecurity and fear. At some point, T1 law students have to face a world where hiding behind a piece of paper will not yield the hoped for result. And that is terrifying.

wait, im a gamer, but i dont see how more competition is a good thing for me. totally kills my WoW-playing hours and mass effect 2 reruns.

and did you just quote yourself?

MTal wrote:

Danteshek wrote: Financial institutions tend to attract some of the least interesting and least intellectually curious individuals I've come into contact with.

Wait till you start work at a law firm.

brigun wrote: Hey, whatever helps you to sleep at night, bro. At least you're not bitter...

hahahaha i have to say MTal, your reputation certainly precedes you -- even a poster w/ just 20 under his belt knows about you!

citrus2010 wrote:Along with my TTT education I bring a business background and am entirely confident in my abilities to join the legal side of the venture capital field. A JD is a huge door, whether it's a Harvard JD or a Barry JD. I side with those who respect the person, not the school because everyone here knows there's Harvard grads that didn't earn an ounce of their "clout."

You sound a lot like I sounded last year. I go to a TLS TTT (a school in the T40-60), and I was convinced last summer that taking a year off is a waste of time, and it'd end up costing me more money (it would in a loss equal to whatever I'm making the year before I retire, roughly). Anyway, I decided to push the "launch" button, as it were, and take a chance at the school I'm currently attending, instead of doing the rational and smart thing--petitioning for a chance to retake the LSAT and scoring significantly higher. I wish I had done that instead.

I was naive and dumb; I figured that, as an engineer, I'm automatically going to get the highest grade in the class. I mean come on, it's law...this is like liberal arts shit, right? People with liberal arts degrees go to law school because fast food places don't want to hear irrelevant rants about Kant. I could easily take these people out without flinching.

Well, I was wrong. What I didn't factor into my equation was that these people ARE smart, they ARE good at what they do, and most importantly, they WILL work. If you can get above a 150 on the LSAT, guess what... you're smart. Law school doesn't filter out the smart people from the dumb people...it essentially erects a giant wall in front of you and tells you to climb over it. A certain amount of students will figure that digging under it is a novel and smart approach--they will wait till the last minute only to be screwed when they realize the wall extends underground--those are the students who don't return next year. The majority will wait until about a month before the deadline to start climbing...they will be tired, beaten up, and completely wrecked, but they will get over that wall. They are the median students. The remaining students, the top ones, they will have started training for this feat the first moment they can. They will read books about how others have climbed over the wall, they will talk to people who have done it in the past, and they will be ready. By the time the deadline comes, they will have made it over the wall without any problem. They are the superstars.

So why did I make this analogy? Because law school isn't about what you know, it's about how hard you're willing to work. Just because you have the ability to work your ass off doesn't mean that you have the motivation. You CAN do absolutely anything--there is no task that's 'impossible.' Can a Cooley graduate become a partner at Wachtell? I mean, a better bet would be 14 black at the roulette table, but I won't rule it out. There are, however, a lot of zeros between the decimal point and the digit in his percent chance of reaching this goal, but it's nevertheless possible. I can say with utmost certainty that the only way something like that would become a reality is if that person worked harder than anyone has ever worked for anything, ever. That's the truth.

Your goals aren't too different from mine, but you really need a dose of reality before anything else. Getting a VC job is one of the hardest things to do, and unless you have the commitment to do it, I can promise you it won't happen. Take a year off and REALLY work at taking the LSAT--if you want the path of least resistance, taking a year off to study your ASS off for this exam is worth every second. You would be paying to go to school, anyway--just extend it from a 3 year program to a 4 year program. Your first year is getting a 170+ on the LSAT. You don't want to be the Cooley grad trying to become a partner at Wachtell.

Great Satchmo wrote:There is a purely economic and probabilistic way to look at schools, which seems to be largely what happens here. People look at the ranking of the school, they look at the cost, and then they look at the probability of graduating students placements and their income. The only "soft" consideration seems to be how many people you can convince that you're awesome because you went to school X.

There is a lesser considered way to look at law school, which still includes an economic evaluation (i.e. school will cost X, and then I can assume a range/median of $X-X/X, what are my monthly student loan payments) but also assumes you actually WANT to practice law (I know, crazy, right).

If you can afford the debt, and you truly want to practice the law - if you can find a school that should afford you some opportunities, and you are realistic...there is no problem whatsoever.

There is just abounding elitism coupled with money and prestige hungry people here.

Myself? I went to state school, probably not known outside my state, for a BA in psychology. That should have landed me no jobs...but I've now been in full time research positions at both Stanford and UCSF. Some of it was luck, but a lot of it was seeking out opportunities, hard work, and going above and beyond. Don't tell me there weren't a bunch of Stanford and Berkeley students searching for the same jobs - I saw their resumes.

Do what makes you happy, keep reality in mind, and let the superficial, disingenuous people play their own games.

Thank you for renewing my faith in this forum. I find myself not even wanting to post alot of times because theses boards seem to be filled with the 0L experts. People not even out of undergrad that have the world figured out. It comes down to living your life the way you choose to live it. If a T3 is ok with you then go for it. You cant live your life on some BS projections or anyone elses misguided opinion. Do whats right for you and your situation. Jobs come and go. Hell, put up a shingle and start your own place. I'm sure someone will jump all over me for this but if we all listened to people saying what we can't do us African-Americans would be in ALOT worse shape than we are.

DoubleChecks wrote:

MTal wrote:

Danteshek wrote: Financial institutions tend to attract some of the least interesting and least intellectually curious individuals I've come into contact with.

Wait till you start work at a law firm.

brigun wrote: Hey, whatever helps you to sleep at night, bro. At least you're not bitter...

hahahaha i have to say MTal, your reputation certainly precedes you -- even a poster w/ just 20 under his belt knows about you!

You don't have to lurk very long to figure him out.

Just curious as to how (in my situation at least) attending a school ranked 50 to 100 and paying 39,000 to 42,000 in tuition alone is a better choice than attending a tier 3 school where I have to pay 35,000 total in a city that has a good legal market with several prestigious law firms. I am not interested in working in New York or California and feel that coming out of law school with minimal debt in a good legal market is a good situation.

I am guessing that you were/are a philosophy major. Am I right? ... Just curious.

I was a philosophy major. I guess using the term "tautology" was a dead giveaway.

Just curious as to how (in my situation at least) attending a school ranked 50 to 100 and paying 39,000 to 42,000 in tuition alone is a better choice than attending a tier 3 school where I have to pay 35,000 total in a city that has a good legal market with several prestigious law firms.

I think the key is individual circumstances. I also think there is no magic divide between 50-100 ranked schools and T3/T4s. There are T2s that IMO are close to financial suicide for most, and there are T4s that are sound investments for most.

nealric wrote:I was a philosophy major. I guess using the term "tautology" was a dead giveaway.

Being that we don't live in a world of perfect justice, merely deserving to succeed does not necessarily result in success (and vice verse).

I underlined the things that tipped me off ... all phrases from the analytic tradition (I know that it is an overly broad characterization, but you know what I mean).

Just curious as to how (in my situation at least) attending a school ranked 50 to 100 and paying 39,000 to 42,000 in tuition alone is a better choice than attending a tier 3 school where I have to pay 35,000 total in a city that has a good legal market with several prestigious law firms.

Several prestigious law firms you will only see from the outside if you go to a T3 w/out connections