If you do not go to a "national" school... Forum

[PMan99]

I know this may be a tough question to answer, but is Boston considered a region that requires ties to crack? I'm not from there, but I love the city, and BU/BC are two of my top choices. Thanks.

Ties are a boost but going to BU/BC should be sufficient.

The key thing that people are missing is grades. It's not impossible to crack into a lot of markets without ties (talking more about DC/LA/SF/Chi than Jackson, MS or Little Rock, AR) but your grade requirements are going to be different and much higher than someone else who has ties.

Harvard's OCS likened ties to being something akin to changing an H to a P or a P to an H on your resume. In terms of a school with grades it'd be taking an A- and switching it to a B on your resume. Someone with ties gets that B switched to an A-. Would your GPA still be better than them (would your GPA even be sufficient for BIGLAW at all?) if that happened? Granted its a oversimplification, but with so many people applying for so few law firms dropping your GPA and boosting all of the natives would result in you going from very competitive to less competitive. It might mean 100 additional people have a higher GPA than you that didn't before.

[romothesavior]

Hell, I'd say Vandy's geographic reach is a lot better than some of the lower T14.

This is reeeeeally hard to say when you have no idea what self-selection looks like. How many people are trying and failing to get a market other than NY from Cornell?

A valid point. It's a hard thing to really measure. Seems like most people with T20 + respectable grades + ties to secondary markets had little trouble returning to where they were from, I guess that's what I'm saying. Hence the label "quasi national," which I would attribute to a lot of schools in that range. These schools are far from being true national powers like HYS, but they are not geographically limiting schools like the ones I was directing my OP at.

[rad lulz]

I know this may be a tough question to answer, but is Boston considered a region that requires ties to crack? I'm not from there, but I love the city, and BU/BC are two of my top choices. Thanks.

Ties are a boost but going to BU/BC should be sufficient.

The key thing that people are missing is grades. It's not impossible to crack into a lot of markets without ties (talking more about DC/LA/SF/Chi than Jackson, MS or Little Rock, AR) but your grade requirements are going to be different and much higher than someone else who has ties.

Harvard's OCS likened ties to being something akin to changing an H to a P or a P to an H on your resume. In terms of a school with grades it'd be taking an A- and switching it to a B on your resume. Someone with ties gets that B switched to an A-. Would your GPA still be better than them (would your GPA even be sufficient for BIGLAW at all?) if that happened? Granted its a oversimplification, but with so many people applying for so few law firms dropping your GPA and boosting all of the natives would result in you going from very competitive to less competitive. It might mean 100 additional people have a higher GPA than you that didn't before.

This is the true heart of the matter. Ties aren't a box you check. Where you can get a job comes down to 3 things

1) What regional ties you have and the strength of those ties
2) Brand name recognition of your school in a given market
3) The value that market places on ties

I might add previous work life experience to some extent (like having previous WE in energy and applying at Texas firms).

[romothesavior]

And to clarify, my defense of some T20s as "quasi-national" has no bearing on whether or not I would recommend them to people with no ties to the region absent a big scholarship. I wouldn't tell someone from say, Seattle, to choose WUSTL over Washington for the PNW.

[laxbrah420]

So basically, I need to get an internship with Delta

[keg411]

I'd much rather go to Vanderbilt with ties than any state school in GA, FL, AL, NC, etc. I'd want money at Vanderbilt, obviously, but ya. I'd probably rather be at UT than those state schools, too.

See the star. There are obviously exceptions (especially when we're talking about the Vandy/UT/UCLA-type schools). I'm talking about for the "average 0L" who makes threads like the one romo talked about in the OP.

[moonman157]

I know this may be a tough question to answer, but is Boston considered a region that requires ties to crack? I'm not from there, but I love the city, and BU/BC are two of my top choices. Thanks.

Look on the previous page.

Wow I totally missed that, my bad

[rad lulz]

I'd much rather go to Vanderbilt with ties than any state school in GA, FL, AL, NC, etc. I'd want money at Vanderbilt, obviously, but ya. I'd probably rather be at UT than those state schools, too.

See the star. There are obviously exceptions (especially when we're talking about the Vandy/UT/UCLA-type schools). I'm talking about for the "average 0L" who makes threads like the one romo talked about in the OP.

Yeah it's a pretty decent rule of thumb.

[rad lulz]

Just some more anecdotal evidence from a parochial market. Looks like the regional schools, T14 (plus UT, Vandy), and 2 outliers (Rutgers, IU).

--LinkRemoved--

[laxbrah420]

Just some more anecdotal evidence from a parochial market. Looks like the regional schools, T14 (plus UT, Vandy), and 2 outliers (Rutgers, IU).

--LinkRemoved--

I felt like trying to be creepy.
Cliff Chen went to Rutgers law. According to facebook, there is somebody in the Rutgers network with that name who is also in the Williamette University network. Apparently, that's in Salem, Oregon. So that one seeming outlier actually makes sense.

[de5igual]

OP's advice is super 100% credited. I want to tell every 0L to stay home and go to their local state school if they can't crack the T14. Law School definitely is not the time to decide you want to live elsewhere... it's just too risky, IMO.

I do think if you go to a national school (i.e. T14) and have top grades AND are an awesome interviewer, you can get a job in a region you've never been before (I know people who cracked Boston and SF and Chicago without ties), but I think those situations are rare (minus NYC of course; you don't need ties to NYC).

I think the "you don't need ties to NYC" common wisdom isn't the full story. NYC firms were skeptical as fuck about me. I think having strong ties to an area, then going to school in that area will make NYC firms look at your ties. So if you are from CA, and went to Boalt, NYC firms will ask about it.

I'll just say that I know more than a handful of people with zero NYC ties that got NYC BigLaw offers. It's certainly possible they were asked about it and just did a good job explaining.

But even I got asked "Why NYC" and I'm from about 20 minutes outside NYC. But I didn't feel like the question made me think they were skeptical; it was just a question. I even got asked "Why NJ" in an interview with an NJ firm that was literally down the street from my house .

It's not that you need ties to NY, it's that having super strong ties to somewhere else can be suspicious. If you're talking about fellow Mich students, pretty much all of them have already shown their willingness to uproot themselves for opportunity. DF, who has never lived outside of IL, has not shown that.

i agree. in almost every NYC interview, the interviewer made a comment in one way or another about how there was so much of my home market and texas, both for educational background and professional experiences. it made the whole "NYC is The Legal Center of the country, better and more sophisticated quality of deals" spiel much less believable.

[rad lulz]

Just some more anecdotal evidence from a parochial market. Looks like the regional schools, T14 (plus UT, Vandy), and 2 outliers (Rutgers, IU).

--LinkRemoved--

I felt like trying to be creepy.
Cliff Chen went to Rutgers law. According to facebook, there is somebody in the Rutgers network with that name who is also in the Williamette University network. Apparently, that's in Salem, Oregon. So that one seeming outlier actually makes sense.

I have no doubt that those people from out of state schools had ties.

[boosk]

Just some more anecdotal evidence from a parochial market. Looks like the regional schools, T14 (plus UT, Vandy), and 2 outliers (Rutgers, IU).

--LinkRemoved--

lotta "diversity" in there too... (just an observation)

[IAFG]

.

[beachbum]

Just some more anecdotal evidence from a parochial market. Looks like the regional schools, T14 (plus UT, Vandy), and 2 outliers (Rutgers, IU).

--LinkRemoved--

Oregon has its own legal recruiting association? Son of a bitch.

[AVBucks4239]

did you misread my first post? i said would you really pick uconn over georgia? right now, im leaning uga over uconn. id rather work in atl than nyc, but id rather work in stamford than macon.
is that a bad choice?

All we are trying to tell you is this:

If you go to UGA, at EVERY interview you do, you will get the following question: "So, being from Connecticut, what made you want to go to law school all the way in Georgia?" That will be followed with, "Well that's fantastic. So why do you want to pursue a career in Georgia?"

You're not only going to need a damn good answer to the first question (nice campus, atmosphere type bullshit don't cut it), you're then going to have to convince them why you will stay in THEIR market for the long run (they can't afford to make short term investments in this economy). Giving solid, convincing answers to those questions is way harder than it sounds, especially when people from Georgia who attend law school in Georgia are interviewing for Georgia jobs.

Side note: personal statement bullshit doesn't matter. Schools like having geographically diverse student bodies, so the fact that you got into Georgia with a personal statement about "Why Georgia" is completely irrelevant to your job prospects in Georgia.

Essentially, the message is simple: there are 25,000 jobs for every 45,000 graduates (roughly). With a job market that shitty, all we are saying is that you need to do as much as possible BEFORE law school to put yourself in the best situation possible. That means re-taking to get into better schools/more scholarship money, choosing the right school for the region you want to practice in, etc. Part of that includes going to a school where you have "ties," just giving you that extra inch of leverage against your peers.

Basically, you need to figure out how you're going to prostitute yourself to the Atlanta market now instead of at 2L OCI.

[09042014]

OP's advice is super 100% credited. I want to tell every 0L to stay home and go to their local state school if they can't crack the T14. Law School definitely is not the time to decide you want to live elsewhere... it's just too risky, IMO.

I do think if you go to a national school (i.e. T14) and have top grades AND are an awesome interviewer, you can get a job in a region you've never been before (I know people who cracked Boston and SF and Chicago without ties), but I think those situations are rare (minus NYC of course; you don't need ties to NYC).

I think the "you don't need ties to NYC" common wisdom isn't the full story. NYC firms were skeptical as fuck about me. I think having strong ties to an area, then going to school in that area will make NYC firms look at your ties. So if you are from CA, and went to Boalt, NYC firms will ask about it.

I'll just say that I know more than a handful of people with zero NYC ties that got NYC BigLaw offers. It's certainly possible they were asked about it and just did a good job explaining.

But even I got asked "Why NYC" and I'm from about 20 minutes outside NYC. But I didn't feel like the question made me think they were skeptical; it was just a question. I even got asked "Why NJ" in an interview with an NJ firm that was literally down the street from my house .

Well you can definitely get NYC not having any ties. But I think having strong ties to another big market elsewhere makes you suspect.

Anyone doing OCI and aiming for NYC better at least have an answer.

I generally found that good firms didn't give a shit, it was the shittier ones that cared. The v10 isn't worried you won't take their offer. Cadawalder is.

[Paul Campos]

did you misread my first post? i said would you really pick uconn over georgia? right now, im leaning uga over uconn. id rather work in atl than nyc, but id rather work in stamford than macon.
is that a bad choice?

Essentially, the message is simple: there are 25,000 jobs for every 45,000 graduates (roughly). With a job market that shitty, all we are saying is that you need to do as much as possible BEFORE law school to put yourself in the best situation possible. That means re-taking to get into better schools/more scholarship money, choosing the right school for the region you want to practice in, etc. Part of that includes going to a school where you have "ties," just giving you that extra inch of leverage against your peers.

Basically, you need to figure out how you're going to prostitute yourself to the Atlanta market now instead of at 2L OCI.

This.

[Gail]

lax:

as with everything on TLS, take advice with a grain of salt (mine included). being a law student seems like a race to see who can be the most anal-retentive human being on the planet. at either UGA or uconn you'll probably get a job. it might only pay 45k to 50k a year to start, but you'll probably get a job as long as you're not in the bottom third or fourth of your class.

fwiw, for every instance of someone telling you about his friend, or his friend's friend, or his friend's friend's brother's friend's cousin's friend having a hard time convincing employers that he wanted to stay in their market, you'll also get an example or two of someone going to a regional law school, doing well, and landing in the region without prior ties.

there aren't a lot of usual suspect type posters on here without a job or decent job prospects and more than a few of them go to schools where they have no ties. their friends or not.

if your question is, Uconn or UGA, you should go with the cheaper option. if equal and you don't have to be in Connecticut, I would choose UGA if your debt is going to be minimal because it's a better school and you'll have more employment options. you know that you'll have to create ties to the area and that will be harder for you than it will be for someone with their entire lives in Georgia, but it's entirely possible. Make connections with alumni, network, and get into contact with people that you can talk about in interviews. Befriend the locals and you'll become a local.

You're at a disadvantage from out of state, but it's so fucking marginal that I imagine normal people would be irritated to the point of digging their nails into your eye sockets

[Ludo!]

lax:

as with everything on TLS, take advice with a grain of salt (mine included). being a law student seems like a race to see who can be the most anal-retentive human being on the planet. at either UGA or uconn you'll probably get a job. it might only pay 45k to 50k a year to start, but you'll probably get a job as long as you're not in the bottom third or fourth of your class.

That's a pretty big "as long as" no?

[romothesavior]

I was somewhat with you until that last line. But no, it is not a marginal difference, and I could find you an army of law students, recent grads, CSO employees, and hiring folks who would disagree with you. It is a bigger hurdle in interviews, and requires better grades than the hometown students.

[gaud]

What would you guys consider a 'reasonable' amount of debt, that is, if I decide to attend my state school (ASU or UofA)?

I'm looking at somewhere around $50k in debt as my total COA at either. Reasonable?

[romothesavior]

What would you guys consider a 'reasonable' amount of debt, that is, if I decide to attend my state school (ASU or UofA)?

I'm looking at somewhere around $50k in debt as my total COA at either. Reasonable?

I think so, yes. But I know little about that market so take it FWIW.

[Gail]

lax:

as with everything on TLS, take advice with a grain of salt (mine included). being a law student seems like a race to see who can be the most anal-retentive human being on the planet. at either UGA or uconn you'll probably get a job. it might only pay 45k to 50k a year to start, but you'll probably get a job as long as you're not in the bottom third or fourth of your class.

That's a pretty big "as long as" no?

better chance of being median.

[gaud]

What would you guys consider a 'reasonable' amount of debt, that is, if I decide to attend my state school (ASU or UofA)?

I'm looking at somewhere around $50k in debt as my total COA at either. Reasonable?

I think so, yes. But I know little about that market so take it FWIW.

Fair enough. Thank you.