Pace Law School vs. New York Law School Forum

[Wiolany]

Hey guys, I'm a bit torn about my decision and you guys seem like a very smart and knowledgeable lot.

I received my first two acceptance letters last night. I was admitted to Pace Law School and New York Law School. I received a full tuition scholarship from Pace and $25,000 a year and free books every semester from New York Law.

My line of thinking is that nothing beats a full scholarship unless it's a T1 school or T2 with a lot of money. I am still waiting on Fordham, St. John's, CUNY Law and Brooklyn.

I have to respond to both schools by June 16th, but I would love to decide sooner and hopefully let another student have the scholarship money that I turn down.

Right now I am leaning towards Pace. I live and work in Westchester County, New York. I plan on practicing in Westchester and Pace has very close connections to the Courts in White Plains, NY. Pace is roughly 15-20 minutes from where I live with no tolls. Traveling to Manhattan, Bronx and Queens for the other schools would put a dent in my finances and study time. I am also employed as a paralegal (my firm actually pushed me to take the final step in my decision to apply to law school) and I have a hunch they are grooming me for an associate position. I have no undergraduate debt (had a full scholarship for that as well) and graduating law school with little to no debt sounds enticing.

What would you guys recommend?

[nothingtosee]

It would be nice if you could get something more concrete from your current job - only 40% of pace graduates become lawyers http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/pace/2013/

Since NYLS only places 44% in legal jobs, I think it should be off the table.

[BigZuck]

T1/T2 are meaningless distinctions

I think if you can lock down a guaranteed job in writing from your current employer then Pace would be just fine. I wouldn't want to have to actually rely on their job placement though and probably wouldn't attend without a guaranteed job waiting for me.

NYLS is a bad school and doesn't make sense here for the reasons you mentioned
http://abovethelaw.com/2012/03/breaking ... dismissed/

[Wiolany]

Thank you guys for your fast replies, definitely clears it up for me a bit with regard to NYLS.

I'm going to wait for the answers from Fordham, Brooklyn and St. John's to see if they offer me anything.

Pace's job placement is a bit worrying. You guys are right about the guarantee from my employers and I will talk to them about this before I make my decision. I did some research on the school (spoke with a few attorneys, alumni, the school, etc.) and Pace seems to have close ties to the Courts here and IBM, Mastercard and Pepsi which all have their main corporate hubs just outside White Plains. I don't plan on going into biglaw in Manhattan because if you don't get into a T1 around here then that ship has sailed. In addition, I'm fluent in a now somewhat desirable Eastern European language and plan on studying immigration law which could hopefully boost my employment prospects a bit.

The general consensus I'm getting from professionals I've talked to is that no one really cares about your alma mater when you're practicing outside of NYC. BS encouragement or truth?

[BigZuck]

Thank you guys for your fast replies, definitely clears it up for me a bit with regard to NYLS.

I'm going to wait for the answers from Fordham, Brooklyn and St. John's to see if they offer me anything.

Pace's job placement is a bit worrying. You guys are right about the guarantee from my employers and I will talk to them about this before I make my decision. I did some research on the school (spoke with a few attorneys, alumni, the school, etc.) and Pace seems to have close ties to the Courts here and IBM, Mastercard and Pepsi which all have their main corporate hubs just outside White Plains. I don't plan on going into biglaw in Manhattan because if you don't get into a T1 around here then that ship has sailed. In addition, I'm fluent in a now somewhat desirable Eastern European language and plan on studying immigration law which could hopefully boost my employment prospects a bit.

The general consensus I'm getting from professionals I've talked to is that no one really cares about your alma mater when you're practicing outside of NYC. BS encouragement or truth?

Not sure what you mean with the last question. Are you saying would a South Dakota firm care whether you went to Pace vs Florida International vs ASU? Probably not. But any way you slice it they probably aren't going to hire you regardless.

This might be an overgeneralization, but: Small firms tend to care most about locals who go to local schools and then either locals who go to non-local schools or non-locals who go to local schools (thus, in effect, making them more like a local but this depends on how parochial the area it is). They almost never care about non-locals who go to non-local schools.

Typically speaking the only schools that have much cache outside the region they are located are the top 14 or so schools (and even then most of them have more cache the closer you are to the region they are located).

[NYSStateOfMind]

In Westchester/Rockland, the majority of practicing attorneys and judges went to either Cardozo, pace or fordham. If you go to any of these schools you will have to network and impress people when you meet them, because, unless you end up at the top of your class and can get a good job right out of law school, no one will make a distinction between the schools, anecdotally.