UGA Law or UF Law? Forum

[T_Easy]

I'm a GA resident who has been accepted to UGA (no scholarship), and who's application is under review at UF.

Assuming I get accepted to UF (no scholarship), I have a little dilemma. I want to live and practice in Florida. I know that UF would provide me the best opportunity to do that. However, I'm really reluctant to pay 33K for out-of-state tuition, and I've heard its gotten increasingly difficult to gain residency in Florida. I've been accepted to UGA, which is higher ranked than UF, and since I'm a resident I obviously qualify for their great 14K in-state tuition.

I've looked at UGA class of 2008's employment statistics, and only 2 graduates got hired in Florida. For the class of 2007, 10. These numbers are not promising, plus their salaries numbers were unimpressive.

Three choices:

1.Give up on your plans to live in Florida, attend UGA, and go for their great placement in Atlanta and D.C.

2.Go to UGA, and still try to live and practice in Florida

3.Go to UF

What would you do?

[Grizz]

I would go to UGA to take advantage of the low tuition...then try to get a job in florida..and if you can't.. then you can work in Atlanta.... I'd rather have that then going to florida, not getting a job in florida, and being far in debt and unemployed...

+1

You can get a job in FL I'm sure if you have very good UGA grades. This would definitely help you break into the FL market. I suspect that the reason the numbers of people from UGA getting jobs in FL are so low is because most UGA people want to stay in GA (strong ATL market being a big reason).

Debt is real. This is 42K vs 99K. Massive difference.

[beesknees]

.

[TTH]

UGA

Seriously, UGA may be the best value in law school. It's ridiculously low cost of attendance + good placement into Atlanta = win. Plus, you could still have a shot at Florida markets.

Georgia Georgia Georgia.

I'm out of state, but I may still pick Georgia over an identically ranked public school in my state because of the advantages UGA offers.

[Grizz]

I'm out of state, but I may still pick Georgia over an identically ranked public school in my state because of the advantages UGA offers.

I'm probably going with UGA over UF, so I know exactly what you mean.

[Kchuck]

Do you happen to be a dapper, young, white male?

If so I will be more than happy to switch identities with you. I'm a Florida resident in the exact opposite position as you, I'd rather go to UGA but the instate tuition at UF (or FSU) is almost too good to pass up. If I were you, I'd go UGA. It's a much better school at a much better price.

[GatorStudent]

That being said, it is fairly easy to gain residency here (I'm from FL). I believe all you need is to get a Florida's drivers license + register to vote in Florida. Some of my friends did this in undergrad.

That's not necessarily true anymore. They changed the standard to a "clear and convincing standard." Nobody knows how much harder it will be to get residency here now, since the statute just came into effect in July 2009.

[chadwick218]

UGA for the reasons discussed above. Also, the lack of placement of UGA grads into FL firms in recent years may actually have a lot more to do with self-selection.

[UF Gators]

That being said, it is fairly easy to gain residency here (I'm from FL). I believe all you need is to get a Florida's drivers license + register to vote in Florida. Some of my friends did this in undergrad.

That's not necessarily true anymore. They changed the standard to a "clear and convincing standard." Nobody knows how much harder it will be to get residency here now, since the statute just came into effect in July 2009.

Yeah, I have a FL license, vehicle and voter registration with FL and I still don't qualify for instate tuition. I would be able to qualify after my first year though.

[ggocat]

I've looked at UGA class of 2008's employment statistics, and only 2 graduates got hired in Florida. For the class of 2007, 10. These numbers are not promising, plus their salaries numbers were unimpressive.

Three choices:

1.Give up on your plans to live in Florida, attend UGA, and go for their great placement in Atlanta and D.C.

2.Go to UGA, and still try to live and practice in Florida

3.Go to UF

What would you do?

#2. The number of students working in Florida probably has more to do with self selection than your individual ability to get a job in Florida.

Your chances of getting a good job in Florida increase if you already have connections to the state (i.e., does your resume demonstrate a compelling interest in Florida?).

[T_Easy]

I've looked at UGA class of 2008's employment statistics, and only 2 graduates got hired in Florida. For the class of 2007, 10. These numbers are not promising, plus their salaries numbers were unimpressive.

Three choices:

1.Give up on your plans to live in Florida, attend UGA, and go for their great placement in Atlanta and D.C.

2.Go to UGA, and still try to live and practice in Florida

3.Go to UF

What would you do?

#2. The number of students working in Florida probably has more to do with self selection than your individual ability to get a job in Florida.

Your chances of getting a good job in Florida increase if you already have connections to the state (i.e., does your resume demonstrate a compelling interest in Florida?).

Thanks for the replies guys.

Nothing on my resume demonstrates a compelling interest in Florida, and I have no connections there.

[T_Easy]

Do you happen to be a dapper, young, white male?

If so I will be more than happy to switch identities with you. I'm a Florida resident in the exact opposite position as you, I'd rather go to UGA but the instate tuition at UF (or FSU) is almost too good to pass up. If I were you, I'd go UGA. It's a much better school at a much better price.

I'm definitely dapper, definitely young (22), but definitely not white. (AA)

[JMBrown32]

If you really want to work in Florida after graduation, you may want to consider applying to UMiami. While it's not ranked nearly as high as UF/UGA, it seems to place very well in south Florida, and if your numbers are good enough to get you into UF, UM will probably give you a decent amount of $$$.

[Chelios]

If you really want to work in Florida after graduation, you may want to consider applying to UMiami. While it's not ranked nearly as high as UF/UGA, it seems to place very well in south Florida, and if your numbers are good enough to get you into UF, UM will probably give you a decent amount of $$$.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm in at Florida, and also in at Miami with $69,000 in scholarship $$. I'm from FL, and could very well end up here. What do you know about Miami's placement prospects vs. UF's?

[JMBrown32]

If you really want to work in Florida after graduation, you may want to consider applying to UMiami. While it's not ranked nearly as high as UF/UGA, it seems to place very well in south Florida, and if your numbers are good enough to get you into UF, UM will probably give you a decent amount of $$$.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm in at Florida, and also in at Miami with $69,000 in scholarship $$. I'm from FL, and could very well end up here. What do you know about Miami's placement prospects vs. UF's?

From what I understand, Miami places extremely well in the larger South Florida law firms. I know it's several years old, but this chart seems to confirm that fact: http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/20080414 ... trends.pdf

That said, once you get to Tampa or maybe north of Tampa, UF seems to more or less dominate much of the state. As you probably know from living in Florida, UF has a very good reputation throughout the state and their relatively large class size (which was cut recently, but that's not really relevant right now), means they have a very strong alumni network. If your ok with south Florida, Miami is a good bet, if you'd like some more mobility within the state, you should probably go with UF.

Sorry OP, we can get back on topic now lol...

[Grizz]

If you really want to work in Florida after graduation, you may want to consider applying to UMiami. While it's not ranked nearly as high as UF/UGA, it seems to place very well in south Florida, and if your numbers are good enough to get you into UF, UM will probably give you a decent amount of $$$.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm in at Florida, and also in at Miami with $69,000 in scholarship $$. I'm from FL, and could very well end up here. What do you know about Miami's placement prospects vs. UF's?

From what I understand, Miami places extremely well in the larger South Florida law firms. I know it's several years old, but this chart seems to confirm that fact: http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/20080414 ... trends.pdf

That said, once you get to Tampa or maybe north of Tampa, UF seems to more or less dominate much of the state. As you probably know from living in Florida, UF has a very good reputation throughout the state and their relatively large class size (which was cut recently, but that's not really relevant right now), means they have a very strong alumni network. If your ok with south Florida, Miami is a good bet, if you'd like some more mobility within the state, you should probably go with UF.

Sorry OP, we can get back on topic now lol...

TITCR. If you're not set on S. Florida, UF is probably a better choice.

[Grizz]

I don't think $42k vs $99k is really a fair comparison. Even if the Florida residency standards have gotten more stringent recently, you still would almost certainly qualify for in-state for 2L and 3L. Especially if you work in FL your 1L summer, which you would presumably do if you want to end up there.

So it's probably more like $42k versus $61k. Not to say that $19k isn't a lot, but it's not double and then some.

My bad. For some reason I assumed OP wanted to keep GA residency, which doesn't actually make sense. If you get summer work, and show that you wish to maintain permanent residence in FL after graduation (get a FL license, register to vote here, register your car here) you could probably get residency.

I'd still go with UGA though. Your access to other markets greatly improves if this whole FL thing doesn't work out for you.

[T_Easy]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I think I'm going to stick with UGA. Hopefully in 2013 job prospects will be better, and I can get a good MidLaw or BigLaw job in the Sunshine State.