Top Law Schools

I am a dual Canadian/US citizen, and will be graduating this year from McGill. I have the LSAT score and the grades to be competitive at Ivy League universities, and I'm wondering: is the legal debt worth it? Ultimately, I want to work in US biglaw. If I go to a Canadian school, like McGill or U of T, I can graduate debt-free, but I don't think I'll have a huge chance of making it to biglaw in the States.
Alternatively, with schools like Columbia, NYU, Harvard, etc., I know it's much easier (well, relatively speaking). Is the 250k in debt worth it, or should I stick with the Canadian schools and try to figure out how to get over to the US further down the road?

wayhome wrote:I am a dual Canadian/US citizen, and will be graduating this year from McGill. I have the LSAT score and the grades to be competitive at Ivy League universities, and I'm wondering: is the legal debt worth it? Ultimately, I want to work in US biglaw. If I go to a Canadian school, like McGill or U of T, I can graduate debt-free, but I don't think I'll have a huge chance of making it to biglaw in the States.
Alternatively, with schools like Columbia, NYU, Harvard, etc., I know it's much easier (well, relatively speaking). Is the 250k in debt worth it, or should I stick with the Canadian schools and try to figure out how to get over to the US further down the road?

(Disclaimer: 0L here with no background in making the move to practice in the US)

Seems to me that if you want to practice law in the US, you should probably target US law schools.

You will have a hard time finding anyone around here who will tell you that it is worth taking on that much debt to go to law school, except for the occasional HYS apologist who would shoot their own mother to go to one of those schools.

Reasonable minds can and do disagree about how much debt is appropriate for which schools, but there is general consensus that it is not worth going to any school other than a T-14 or strong regional, and that the price tag should be proportionate to your chances of getting a biglaw/fedclerk position. The specifics are up for debate.

$250k is an enormous sum of money, especially for something that comes with no guarantees or refunds, limits a lot of your other options, etc.

It's all funny money that nobody outside of Big Law expects to repay anyway (IBR and 10-20 forgiveness, depending on whether you're a public interest or private attorney, takes care of that issue). That said, 250k in debt or 100k in debt, doesn't matter. You'll never repay those loans unless you get Big Law.

The schools you are talking about give you a fantastic shot at Big Law, and I personally know many people from my school who are very happy with their decision to take on debt and who are now in Big Law firms. If you know that you want Big Law and understand what that means, I say take the shot. Going to any one of the schools you mentioned virtually guarantees decent employment even if you happen to miss the Big Law opportunity (unlikely if you end up at Harvard, just a little more likely at Columbia and NYU caliber schools).

Edit: If all else fails and you go entirely belly-up, you're Canadian...go back to Canada and forget that Uncle Sam ever loaned you the funny money.

No, it is not worth taking out $250,000 worth of loans. This is especially true if you can attend the University of Toronto & graduate debt free.

Harvard offers need based financial aid & Columbia offers scholarships. Among the top 14 US law schools, Harvard, Yale & Stanford & Georgetown offer need based financial aid. The others, along with Georgetown, offer scholarships to many students.
It would be helpful if you shared your LSAT score & your undergraduate GPA. The reason is that many posters can advise you on how much scholarship money might be offered by T-14 (exclusive of Harvard, Yale & Stanford) law schools. In short, if you have an LSAT score of 170 or higher & a GPA of 3.6 or higher, you should receive some substantial scholarship offers.

CanadianWolf wrote:No, it is not worth taking out $250,000 worth of loans. This is especially true if you can attend the University of Toronto & graduate debt free.

Yeah I agree with this. I dont know a ton about the placement power of canadian law schools, but I know utoronto law has a good rep and us biglaw certainly recruits there (not sure of the extent tho). Graduating from there with zero debt seems like a pretty damn good outcome.

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