what is up with the "T14 or DON'T GO" sentiment?? Forum

[sparty99]

Cash is king. I would always take the money and run. If you have work experience and you perform at the T30 - top 33%, opportunities will open.

$200,000 in debt is a lot of money. Unless the school is Harvard or Yale, I wouldn't even entertain the idea of paying full price.

[ilovetonyromo]

[moneybagsphd]

Transphobic and sexist. A disappointing post.

Agreed. It was a disgusting post. If it was racist, the mods would have bounced on it. Kind of sad.

/commentary on Errzii's post.

[Veyron]

I attend a T6 school. However, I have worked with great attorneys/met partners of firms that attended T4 schools. I would think that for the majority of law students, those that are really just looking for a strong return on investment and have no real idea/ are not emotionally invested in any particular type of legal work (90%), the risk/return odds are against you outside of the T14, unless you have a great scholarship or a job lined up.

To put it in perspective, I and four of my friends who are a little above median received more than 20 offers. Our buddies at a T1 school, which used to place 15-20% in big law have stated that their entire class only have nine people working big law jobs all together.

Another reality is that getting a degree from a T14 school is in reality a different degree. It allows you access to jobs that most T1, and roughly all T2,3,4 degrees will not get you. Aside from regionally dominant institutions within their region (eg. USC, UCLA, Wyoming, Boulder, Georgetown, Texas Tech), and large ideological network schools within their network (Notre Dame, BYU, SMU, Cal), your T1-4 degree may appear to practitioners like a University of Phoenix degree appears to the HR people at Goldman Sachs. Notice, I am not stating that the educational quality is worse, or the student body is less intelligent, it is just a market reality (ie. I got smoked on an assignment at a job this summer by a tier 4 student).

Any guy that doesn't know that Georgetown and Berk are T-14s obviously did not attend a "T6." People, don't feed the obvious troll.

[fakehunter]

As a 0L trying to decide where to go, what would you TLSers have me do? Right now my main choice is between UCLA with 60k and a T14, likely at sticker (so far, I've been accepted at Michigan.) I want to live in LA and will not be incurring much debt. In my situation, is not going to T14 an appropriate choice?

[09042014]

As a 0L trying to decide where to go, what would you TLSers have me do? Right now my main choice is between UCLA with 60k and a T14, likely at sticker (so far, I've been accepted at Michigan.) I want to live in LA and will not be incurring much debt. In my situation, is not going to T14 an appropriate choice?

UCLA with little debt (are your parents covering the rest?) vs. Michigan with medium debt for LA, and UCLA wins.

UCLA is more or less a lower T14 for the LA market.

[Blessedassurance]

Soo if you are URM, have 3 years of decent legal experience prior to law school, and attend say Uchicago, is it naïve to think you have a good shot at Biglaw even if you're not top 50% of your class?

Go to Chicago. You'll be fine. Pretend you're going somewhere else if you have to, so they give you more money. It's a really fine institution and the likes of Tapei and other counter-productive, pro-chicago trolls are doing it a disservice with the constant rigor-this-rigor-that-Harvard-diluted-faculty crap.

[nsbane]

0L here. I was just accepted to a T6 school. I'm thinking I won't be getting any money. I'm pretty familiar with what being a lawyer means; I worked as a paralegal for two years. In my situation, would you be comfortable paying sticker?

[Veyron]

0L here. I was just accepted to a T6 school. I'm thinking I won't be getting any money. I'm pretty familiar with what being a lawyer means; I worked as a paralegal for two years. In my situation, would you be comfortable paying sticker?

Not unless you want to do public interest. Even if you want to do biglaw (and you will probably get biglaw or something that pays similarly), the average associate lasts what 3-4 years? So you'll probably spend all of your time in biglaw paying off loans and not enjoying big moneys.

[johansantana21]

0L here. I was just accepted to a T6 school. I'm thinking I won't be getting any money. I'm pretty familiar with what being a lawyer means; I worked as a paralegal for two years. In my situation, would you be comfortable paying sticker?

Not unless you want to do public interest. Even if you want to do biglaw (and you will probably get biglaw or something that pays similarly), the average associate lasts what 3-4 years? So you'll probably spend all of your time in biglaw paying off loans and not enjoying big moneys.

Always curious if 3-4 year attrition rate is mostly due to people not wanting to do biglaw anymore or because they can't lateral after being kicked out.

[keg411]

0L here. I was just accepted to a T6 school. I'm thinking I won't be getting any money. I'm pretty familiar with what being a lawyer means; I worked as a paralegal for two years. In my situation, would you be comfortable paying sticker?

Not unless you want to do public interest. Even if you want to do biglaw (and you will probably get biglaw or something that pays similarly), the average associate lasts what 3-4 years? So you'll probably spend all of your time in biglaw paying off loans and not enjoying big moneys.

Always curious if 3-4 year attrition rate is mostly due to people not wanting to do biglaw anymore or because they can't lateral after being kicked out.

At least in NYC a lot of attrition is location-related. The second-most is that people hate BigLaw and want to do something else (gov't, boutiques, in-house, etc.). I'd guess the people that are actively kicked out without having time to line up another legal job is extremely rare.

(My information is from knowing a bunch of BigLaw junior associates; this also excludes the year of mass layoffs and Latham-ing)

[omninode]

0L here. I was just accepted to a T6 school. I'm thinking I won't be getting any money. I'm pretty familiar with what being a lawyer means; I worked as a paralegal for two years. In my situation, would you be comfortable paying sticker?

Not unless you want to do public interest. Even if you want to do biglaw (and you will probably get biglaw or something that pays similarly), the average associate lasts what 3-4 years? So you'll probably spend all of your time in biglaw paying off loans and not enjoying big moneys.

Always curious if 3-4 year attrition rate is mostly due to people not wanting to do biglaw anymore or because they can't lateral after being kicked out.

At least in NYC a lot of attrition is location-related. The second-most is that people hate BigLaw and want to do something else (gov't, boutiques, in-house, etc.). I'd guess the people that are actively kicked out without having time to line up another legal job is extremely rare.

(My information is from knowing a bunch of BigLaw junior associates; this also excludes the year of mass layoffs and Latham-ing)

What does this mean?

[johansantana21]

0L here. I was just accepted to a T6 school. I'm thinking I won't be getting any money. I'm pretty familiar with what being a lawyer means; I worked as a paralegal for two years. In my situation, would you be comfortable paying sticker?

Not unless you want to do public interest. Even if you want to do biglaw (and you will probably get biglaw or something that pays similarly), the average associate lasts what 3-4 years? So you'll probably spend all of your time in biglaw paying off loans and not enjoying big moneys.

Always curious if 3-4 year attrition rate is mostly due to people not wanting to do biglaw anymore or because they can't lateral after being kicked out.

At least in NYC a lot of attrition is location-related. The second-most is that people hate BigLaw and want to do something else (gov't, boutiques, in-house, etc.). I'd guess the people that are actively kicked out without having time to line up another legal job is extremely rare.

(My information is from knowing a bunch of BigLaw junior associates; this also excludes the year of mass layoffs and Latham-ing)

How common is biglaw to biglaw lateral though?

Is biglaw to biglaw lateral easier than biglaw to in house, etc?

[keg411]

Location-related = leave NYC, go to somewhere else (i.e. Boston, Arizona, California, etc.; usually this is done for family reasons; a lot of people once they get out of the early 20's and want to start families tend to go back "home").

I'm pretty sure a decent amount is BigLaw to other BigLaw, but not necessarily V100 BigLaw. I met a decent number of these types of laterals on the interview circuit this fall... these tend to be a mix of associates that didn't want to stay at their firm for whatever reason (tended to be V10's who lateraled to V50-ish firms) or associates that followed partners who were "poached".

But again, this all depends on if the person actually likes BigLaw and wants to stay in it. A lot of people just don't like it for a ton of reasons. And keep in mind, all of this information is second hand.

[BruceWayne]

How common is biglaw to biglaw lateral though?

Is biglaw to biglaw lateral easier than biglaw to in house, etc?

It's pretty common in non NYC markets. Although its the most talked about market on here, people need to realize that NYC is a really bad market in a lot of ways. It does offer unmatched corporate transactional work, but when it comes to QOL (worst hours out of all the markets) , long term career prospects (highest attrition rates--not only because of personal choice but because of very high up or out attrition) , and pay (when considering cost of living may be the worst market except for San Francisco) it may actually be the worst market.

[johansantana21]

How common is biglaw to biglaw lateral though?

Is biglaw to biglaw lateral easier than biglaw to in house, etc?

It's pretty common in non NYC markets. Although its the most talked about market on here, people need to realize that NYC is a really bad market in a lot of ways. It does offer unmatched corporate transactional work, but when it comes to QOL (worst hours out of all the markets) , long term career prospects (highest attrition rates--not only because of personal choice but because of very high up or out attrition) , and pay (when considering cost of living may be the worst market except for San Francisco) it may actually be the worst market.

You mean it's harder to lateral in NYC than other markets?

How much harder?

[Veyron]

0L here. I was just accepted to a T6 school. I'm thinking I won't be getting any money. I'm pretty familiar with what being a lawyer means; I worked as a paralegal for two years. In my situation, would you be comfortable paying sticker?

Not unless you want to do public interest. Even if you want to do biglaw (and you will probably get biglaw or something that pays similarly), the average associate lasts what 3-4 years? So you'll probably spend all of your time in biglaw paying off loans and not enjoying big moneys.

Always curious if 3-4 year attrition rate is mostly due to people not wanting to do biglaw anymore or because they can't lateral after being kicked out.

Both, but why does it matter? You think that lots of the people who just couldn't take it anymore didn't start with the intention of sticking it out?

[johansantana21]

0L here. I was just accepted to a T6 school. I'm thinking I won't be getting any money. I'm pretty familiar with what being a lawyer means; I worked as a paralegal for two years. In my situation, would you be comfortable paying sticker?

Not unless you want to do public interest. Even if you want to do biglaw (and you will probably get biglaw or something that pays similarly), the average associate lasts what 3-4 years? So you'll probably spend all of your time in biglaw paying off loans and not enjoying big moneys.

Always curious if 3-4 year attrition rate is mostly due to people not wanting to do biglaw anymore or because they can't lateral after being kicked out.

Both, but why does it matter? You think that lots of the people who just couldn't take it anymore didn't start with the intention of sticking it out?

I actually do know of a few people who only went into biglaw to pay off loans and didn't want to stay longer because they didn't want to be pigeonholed into biglaw.

[sunynp]

So now the advice is don't go to T6 unless you get money or want public interest? I am not sure how I feel about that. It is getting pretty extreme.

[180asBreath]

So now the advice is don't go to T6 unless you get money or want public interest? I am not sure how I feel about that. It is getting pretty extreme.

I agree.

[bk1]

So now the advice is don't go to T6 unless you get money or want public interest? I am not sure how I feel about that. It is getting pretty extreme.

There is no general TLS consensus on what is and is not worth it. I know that prominent posters on here range from saying T3 to T6 to T13 to T14 are the only acceptable decisions at sticker. I mean there's the general idea that schools outside the T14 are pretty much all bad bets at sticker, but the finer gradations start to come into play whether the line should be drawn at 3/6/13/14 or that no law school is worth sticker.

Personally I think it's not so simple as that. For some people they can easily just take a large scholarship at a lesser school to minimize risk, others (splitters) don't have that option. I think it's likely sensible to go lower T14 on scholarship over little to no money at the T6. The other issue is that if you have specific goals that aren't biglaw (e.g. A3 clerkships, teaching, prestigious PI, etc) then the calculus gets shifted towards T3 or bust. Going back to the choices aspect, for splitters they can't always just go to a lower ranked school in their area even if they could get money at a strong regional in a different area (e.g. a splitter who wants CA could get money at WUSTL/UMinn/IUB/etc but none of those schools are getting them back to CA).

As a splitter myself I don't know what the "best" decision is. I looked at 6 figures worth of debt from a lower T14 as basically a coinflip's chance of paying it off in a reasonable amount of time. I felt and still feel okay with that decision. Was it the most financially sound decision in the world? Heck, was it even the most financially sound law school option available to me? Hell no, but I was comfortable with it and it lined up more with what I wanted to do. In all honesty I was likely being greedy (not necessarily in regards to money) because I wanted more opportunities both career-wise and location-wise than my other options, T20's with large scholarships, were going to give me. Hopefully it pays off for me but there is an equally likely chance that it won't. If it doesn't, I'll survive but it will require large sacrifices.

[Veyron]

So now the advice is don't go to T6 unless you get money or want public interest? I am not sure how I feel about that. It is getting pretty extreme.

I agree.

Sorry reality bites. I tend to find that the further people get into this whole law school thing, the more they realize just how big a deal debt is.

[180asBreath]

So now the advice is don't go to T6 unless you get money or want public interest? I am not sure how I feel about that. It is getting pretty extreme.

I agree.

Sorry reality bites. I tend to find that the further people get into this whole law school thing, the more they realize just how big a deal debt is.

Nah, opinions bite. It's okay to say that people looking to do T6 at sticker should be acutely aware of how much debt that is, and what hours/jobs they'll have to work to pay it off, but this is by no means a hard and steadfast rule that people should respect. There are hundreds of students who did sticker at T6 and are glad that they did it; there is no reason that a 0L couldn't feel the same way.

I don't think that is true for T14, let alone T6.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Whether you go to Harvard or NYU or Berkeley or Georgetown, $200,000 debt is $200,000 debt.

At some point, it doesn't "make more sense" to go $200,000 in debt for a Harvard degree than for an NYU degree, or for an NYU degree than for a Berkeley degree, and so on, in that it doesn't "make sense" to go $200,000 in debt, period.

You can get a biglaw job, even say a V5 job, out of a school like this, and still it might not be worth the debt. There's nothing magic about the higher-ranked degree that makes it "worth sticker" outside of job prospects, and those job prospects are only so good.

[flcath]

So now the advice is don't go to T6 unless you get money or want public interest? I am not sure how I feel about that. It is getting pretty extreme.

I agree.

Sorry reality bites. I tend to find that the further people get into this whole law school thing, the more they realize just how big a deal debt is.

Eh. With opportunity costs close to zero for the type of people we're talking about (kid who gets big $$$ at T30 or sticker at T10-14 = likely to be unemployed if he weren't in LS), and the protections of IBR, going to law school isn't a terrible idea.

Whenever I have IRL conversations about this, someone will always start talking about how he "could've gotten a $60,000/yr. job straight out of undergrad," and usually no one is rude enough to tell him that he's a moron for thinking that. Kids who actually could land a $60K/yr. job out of UG (ChemE's, other engineers with good creds or from top schools, certain very high-end HYP'ers, etc.) would likely not be stupid enough to go to LS.