BeachandRun23 wrote:Thanks for the post. That helped explain alot. So in retrospect, you dont think UT is that much worse than other low T14's/VANDY and UCLA, youre just saying that its tough everywhere. Correct?
No problem. I didn't mean to come off like I was bashing UT. I love UT, and I think it is one of the best values on the LS market. I was bashing the entire industry. I believe that the entire legal education industry has been complicit in a massive fraud on potential law students. They have been cooking the books by reporting employment statistics that are based on insufficient (or misleading) data. Perhaps some schools have been more honest than others, but the faulty stats have tainted them all in my opinion. This didn't get a lot of attention when the legal field was booming, but now that the economy has crashed, the deception has become painfully obvious.
I heard these allegations prior to law school, but I didn't believe them. Who was I going to believe? A respected law school? Or a cheap ass scam blogger website? I believed the law school. But guess what? The law schools want something from you. They have a reason to be dishonest. The scam bloggers don't want a damn thing from you. They have less incentive to deceive. I received some great advice from a guy on JDU: "Never believe someone who is trying to impress you." Well, the law schools are trying to impress you.
So I went to law school all starry eyed. I rocked my classes first year, and I figured I was on my way to a V50 job. Then OCI came around, and it rocked my world. I'm on Law Review; I am a member of a very selective legal writing board; I'm in the top 10% of my class; and I went to the semi-finals of moot court. I'm golden right? Wrong. I nearly struck out at OCI. I got no V100 offers. I can't really complain because I ended up getting an offer at a litigation boutique that pays above market salary, but I was really sweating for a couple months.
I honestly don't know what our placement stats are. I based my figure on my experience and those of my friends. It seems like everyone on Law Review got biglaw if they wanted it. I also know people who missed law review and still got biglaw, but they were just outside the top 10% or they had killer personalities (i.e., interviewing skills).
I think our placement stats are comparable to the lower T14 and UCLA. For some reason, Vandy consistently places better than its ranking suggests (possibly because they have a much smaller class than UT). I sometimes regret that I didn't apply to Vandy. Other than that, I'm quite happy at UT. However, I think the legal education industry is in serious need of some oversight, and I would be skeptical of any job placement statistics.
Good luck. This field is brutal, and OCI breaks a lot of people. I just went through OCI last semester, so I'm probably a bit jaded. One last comment and I'll get off my soap box: Most UT students are shooting for biglaw in Texas. That's another reason why I suggested that top third wasn't high enough. It's a little tougher to get jobs in New York. Our economy in Texas is doing well, and Texas firms recruit heavily from UT. It's going to take a little more work to get noticed by firms' New York offices.