American vs. Catholic vs. Baltimore Forum

[eljefe1]

American (part-time) - No scholarship offer (from reading other posts one is not likely to come) - tuition about $35,000
Catholic (part-time) - $12,500 per year as long as I stay in "good academic standing" - tuition = about $22,000
Baltimore (part-time) - In-state tuition + $5,000 a year as long as I stay in "good academic standing" - tuition = about $14,000

I have worked in government service for 10 years (7 as a paralegal in the MD judiciary & the past 3 as a paralegal for two Federal Judges). My goal is to continue my career in government service - either as an attorney with a Federal agency (EEOP - DOL -JAG - CFPB) or in the MD/DC judiciary as a BIA/GAL/Victims Advocate. I'm also interested in a career in ADR in the field of Employment or Family Law. I have 3 children currently in school and have no plans to uproot my family to another area, so I am limited to the schools in the DC/MD area. I will take out loans to pay for tuition but will continue to work full-time during school and plan to pay down my loans as much as I can during the year.

Still waiting to hear from GULC, GW and Univ. of MD

Any insight into the communte from D.C. to Baltimore at 4:00pm would be extremely helpful as well. (Is my time worth more than the money I'd save commuting???).

LSAT - 158
GPA - 3.1

**I know I should retake; however, I've already taken 3 times (same score every time) + I'm getting old and would like to finish law school before I turn 40.**

How about giving the kids a fair shot at life ?

[worldtraveler]

You can be a victim's advocate without law school.

I don't think this is a good plan. There is no way you can take care of 3 kids, work full time, and take school seriously unless you don't need sleep.

[haus]

How about giving the kids a fair shot at life ?

You can be a victim's advocate without law school.

I don't think this is a good plan. There is no way you can take care of 3 kids, work full time, and take school seriously unless you don't need sleep.

Plenty of people raise children despite have very demanding jobs and complicated lives. Its rather presumptuous to make judgments about other people parenting based on the description in this thread.

[CrystalLee]

I don't think this is a good plan. There is no way you can take care of 3 kids, work full time, and take school seriously unless you don't need sleep.

Thank you for your opinion but I'll have to respectfully disagree. While it will definitely be hard, I can certainly do it. I have never not had kids during my post-high school education so having kids while in school is normal for me. Plus I have an amazing support system. My husband works part-time at night and is home with the kids during the day, my oldest is 10 + years older than her little brother and sister and is willing to help out when needed, my parents and my sisters live really close and will be helping out, plus the Judges I work for are amazing and incredibly supportive. I'll have to agree I share your concern for my lack of sleep but I'm thinking this will be similar to working full-time and waking up every 2 to 3 hours to take care of a newborn, or staying up all night trying to console a colicky baby or teething toddler. Which again was difficult but doable and done everyday by millions of working mothers.

Also, just wanted to mention that I've personally worked with a Judge and a few attorney's who worked full-time, went to law school, and raised their children (one was a single mother and one of them had an abusive, alcoholic husband), so there absolutely is a way that a person can take care of 3 kids, work full-time and take law school seriously.

[CrystalLee]

Congrats and good luck.

Good Choice I think You Have Made. Wish u Best of Luck I do.

Thank you!

[Young Marino]

I don't think this is a good plan. There is no way you can take care of 3 kids, work full time, and take school seriously unless you don't need sleep.

Thank you for your opinion but I'll have to respectfully disagree. While it will definitely be hard, I can certainly do it. I have never not had kids during my post-high school education so having kids while in school is normal for me. Plus I have an amazing support system. My husband works part-time at night and is home with the kids during the day, my oldest is 10 + years older than her little brother and sister and is willing to help out when needed, my parents and my sisters live really close and will be helping out, plus the Judges I work for are amazing and incredibly supportive. I'll have to agree I share your concern for my lack of sleep but I'm thinking this will be similar to working full-time and waking up every 2 to 3 hours to take care of a newborn, or staying up all night trying to console a colicky baby or teething toddler. Which again was difficult but doable and done everyday by millions of working mothers.

Also, just wanted to mention that I've personally worked with a Judge and a few attorney's who worked full-time, went to law school, and raised their children (one was a single mother and one of them had an abusive, alcoholic husband), so there absolutely is a way that a person can take care of 3 kids, work full-time and take law school seriously.

OP, I think U of Baltimore is the right call here. The typical TLS rhetoric is "retake, retake, retake" but I think the attorneys and judges you work with who actually know the market in your area are better to draw advice from than a bunch of random internet prestige whores. I'm assuming your colleagues are supporting your decision to attend law school with your current options? Put what they say over what anyone says on this forum. Good luck!

[MistakenGenius]

Post removed.

[timbs4339]

I don't think this is a good plan. There is no way you can take care of 3 kids, work full time, and take school seriously unless you don't need sleep.

Thank you for your opinion but I'll have to respectfully disagree. While it will definitely be hard, I can certainly do it. I have never not had kids during my post-high school education so having kids while in school is normal for me. Plus I have an amazing support system. My husband works part-time at night and is home with the kids during the day, my oldest is 10 + years older than her little brother and sister and is willing to help out when needed, my parents and my sisters live really close and will be helping out, plus the Judges I work for are amazing and incredibly supportive. I'll have to agree I share your concern for my lack of sleep but I'm thinking this will be similar to working full-time and waking up every 2 to 3 hours to take care of a newborn, or staying up all night trying to console a colicky baby or teething toddler. Which again was difficult but doable and done everyday by millions of working mothers.

Also, just wanted to mention that I've personally worked with a Judge and a few attorney's who worked full-time, went to law school, and raised their children (one was a single mother and one of them had an abusive, alcoholic husband), so there absolutely is a way that a person can take care of 3 kids, work full-time and take law school seriously.

OP, I think U of Baltimore is the right call here. The typical TLS rhetoric is "retake, retake, retake" but I think the attorneys and judges you work with who actually know the market in your area are better to draw advice from than a bunch of random internet prestige whores. I'm assuming your colleagues are supporting your decision to attend law school with your current options? Put what they say over what anyone says on this forum. Good luck!

Instead you're going to draw advice from a self-selected group of Baby Boomers who graduated when tuition was like $500. Smart.

[InTheHouse]

For what it's worth, low-prestige federal agencies (basically anyone other than DOJ, SEC, DOS, and CIA) literally could not care less whether you go to American or Catholic. In fact, the majority of honors hiring programs don't let hiring officials see your school name.

Out of curiosity, where are you getting this from?

[timbs4339]

For what it's worth, low-prestige federal agencies (basically anyone other than DOJ, SEC, DOS, and CIA) literally could not care less whether you go to American or Catholic. In fact, the majority of honors hiring programs don't let hiring officials see your school name.

Out of curiosity, where are you getting this from?

Wherever he heard it, it's absolutely not true for the FDIC, IRS, OCC or CFPB. Had interviews or friends had interviews and the interviewers had the resume just like any big law firm.

[twenty]

.

[InTheHouse]

For what it's worth, low-prestige federal agencies (basically anyone other than DOJ, SEC, DOS, and CIA) literally could not care less whether you go to American or Catholic. In fact, the majority of honors hiring programs don't let hiring officials see your school name.

Out of curiosity, where are you getting this from?

Wherever he heard it, it's absolutely not true for the FDIC, IRS, OCC or CFPB. Had interviews or friends had interviews and the interviewers had the resume just like any big law firm.

Or DoJ. but it sounded like a dumb enough idea that I wouldn't put it past some agencies.

[txig]

I go to AU on a PT. I can say if you want gov't work, AU is the place to go. They have so many alumni in all different types of agencies. I've applied for several summer positions with different federal government agencies and almost all of them had AU grades interviewing me. With that being said, AU is expensive and law firm placement is not particularly big with a lot of the students.

Caveat: I am in the process of transferring because I want big law.

If you have any questions feel free to PM me.

[InTheHouse]

edit> actually, don't quote this, I may need to take it down at some point.

edit2> took some stuff out, sorry if that makes it harder to read.

1) I'll ask again - where are you getting this from? And most honors hiring programs do this?

2) I don't get what the big whup is about quoting this stuff. Its not personal information.

[timbs4339]

To hiring officer poster- several of the agencies (OCC, IRS, FDIC) had OCI programs at my law school, which was elite, and it gave me the impression that all honors program hiring was done according to the DOJ model. That is, you went on a screener, the interviewer selected several candidates to invite to DC for a full panel interview and there were several rounds of panel interviews for fit. At least according to the people I know working there, the composition of the entry-level class strongly suggests that black box, "prestige" factors are very important in entry-level hiring.

I'm not too familiar with lateral hiring though anecdotes of biglaw associates applying to work for DOJ, your description sounds right to the extent they value prestige, grades, and clerkships. Do the other agencies solicit resumes in response to specific job postings, does the computer scan all submitted resumes for applicable jobs, or some combination of both?

[A. Nony Mouse]

In the OPM model - I get that the interviewer can exclude, but where is it stated that where you went to school isn't provided to anyone? Also, is there no discretion at all for an interviewer to bump the 76th person on points up into the hiring slots based in doing especially well in the interview? And for instance, DHS honors holds second-round interviews - where would they fit?

In the new model - if the hiring official gets transcripts, wouldn't that tell you where a candidate went to school?

(I agree overall that school pedigree isn't that much of a thing, am just curious.)

[InTheHouse]

I'm not too familiar with lateral hiring though anecdotes of biglaw associates applying to work for DOJ, your description sounds right to the extent they value prestige, grades, and clerkships. Do the other agencies solicit resumes in response to specific job postings, does the computer scan all submitted resumes for applicable jobs, or some combination of both?

This computer ranking thing just seems a little fantastic. "If they have, say, 75 slots, they're supposed to take the people with the top 75 points." You have to interview the first X number of people a computer spits out? That's putting way too much trust in a computer program.

[twenty]

.

[InTheHouse]

This computer ranking thing just seems a little fantastic. "If they have, say, 75 slots, they're supposed to take the people with the top 75 points." You have to interview the first X number of people a computer spits out? That's putting way too much trust in a computer program.

Welcome to the massive clusterfuck that is USAJOBS.

It sounds like your agency and a couple of others rely solely on the KSA screening/ranking (which every agency does). The part that I thought was nuts is that a majority agencies hire their honors attorneys by just going to the first X on the list to fill X spots. Its possible my network doesn't include a wide enough variety of agency attorneys, but everyone who is now involved with hiring says that all qualifying resumes get dumped into a database. After that, the good old black box takes over (for lateral and honors hiring).

[twenty]

.

[InTheHouse]

I know DOJ does straight-up black box for both lateral and honors, as do a handful of independent agencies (federal reserve board, FERC, civilian Navy, and probably a couple others I'm not thinking of ATM) but the whole purpose of going through USAJOBS is to take advantage of the computerized ranking system/hopefully lower the number of complaints against the agency for unfair hiring practices.

For instance, spots like this one:

https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/370224500

...are going to be entirely up to a computer in deciding who is the most qualified applicant. You can see in the "HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED" section the wording "Those applicants who meet the qualifications will be referred on a certificate for consideration:" followed by five KSAs. The only way the top-ranked person isn't going to get the job is if they completely screw up the interview.

This one, on the other hand:

https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/370396600

...is obviously way more black-box, as evidenced by the two-step assessment process with writing samples, interview assessment measures, etc.

And you're saying the majority of honors hiring proceeds like in the first case?