Top Law Schools

I've gotten into both, I like both, and they'd each only cost me around 15k/yearly + COL. What should I do?

I'm from the midwest and wouldn't mind staying in the midwest. I'm not entirely sure what I really want to do with myself...



They seem like incredibly similar schools. I have friends in both places telling me that their respective school is best. The most vocal of these is from Indiana (Though he goes to BC Law) who says that Lilly has pledged to make IU-B a top law school.

What do you think? Why do you think what you think?

= rank and =cost and =location. There is not much we can add. Go and see both campuses. Whichever one makes you feel comfortable is probably best.

Conventional wisdom = UIUC>IU. This is mostly because of the better biglaw placement in Chicago. Otherwise, Illinois is slightly better at national placement. I guess I'd give Illinois the 60/40 advantage over IU.

I'll be making this decision, too, it seems. I'll be visiting and hope that those visits make up my mind, but if they don't....I have no idea how I will choose.

If it's any help, I chose IU over Illinois because I liked the campus better and IU gave me more money than Illinois. It was definitely a hard decision, though.

Indiana does have a beautiful campus. I like how a bunch of bars are within the vicinity. A one-minute walk from the law school will get you Kilroy's:D

Cover ID wrote:I've gotten into both, I like both, and they'd each only cost me around 15k/yearly + COL. What should I do?

I'm from the midwest and wouldn't mind staying in the midwest. I'm not entirely sure what I really want to do with myself...



They seem like incredibly similar schools. I have friends in both places telling me that their respective school is best. The most vocal of these is from Indiana (Though he goes to BC Law) who says that Lilly has pledged to make IU-B a top law school.

What do you think? Why do you think what you think?

R u kidding me?
IU is a TT in terms of Big law placement. It`s even worse than CHICAGO KENT!

Bloomington's acclaimed attorney Ken Nunn was a Hoosier law school graduate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTuP83UiW6w

His law office is huge, and sometimes, you see him in front of the more expensive eateris (i.e. Truffles on the East side of Bloomington) with a micro-phone head set talking to clients.

Ahhh...it's tied. TLS seems and undecided as I am!

baboon309 wrote:

Cover ID wrote:I've gotten into both, I like both, and they'd each only cost me around 15k/yearly + COL. What should I do?

I'm from the midwest and wouldn't mind staying in the midwest. I'm not entirely sure what I really want to do with myself...



They seem like incredibly similar schools. I have friends in both places telling me that their respective school is best. The most vocal of these is from Indiana (Though he goes to BC Law) who says that Lilly has pledged to make IU-B a top law school.

What do you think? Why do you think what you think?

R u kidding me?
IU is a TT in terms of Big law placement. It`s even worse than CHICAGO KENT!

Exactly. Loyola-Chi also sends a higher percentage of its grads to biglaw than IU. I think Loyola sends around 15% while Chicago-Kent sends something around 13%. Not sure how much Indiana sends, but it's sad that a T25 can't even match up to TTs in an oversaturated market like Chicago...

Illinois no question. If the same price, then this is a no-brainer.

fenderjsm88 wrote:

baboon309 wrote:

Cover ID wrote:I've gotten into both, I like both, and they'd each only cost me around 15k/yearly + COL. What should I do?

I'm from the midwest and wouldn't mind staying in the midwest. I'm not entirely sure what I really want to do with myself...



They seem like incredibly similar schools. I have friends in both places telling me that their respective school is best. The most vocal of these is from Indiana (Though he goes to BC Law) who says that Lilly has pledged to make IU-B a top law school.

What do you think? Why do you think what you think?

R u kidding me?
IU is a TT in terms of Big law placement. It`s even worse than CHICAGO KENT!

Exactly. Loyola-Chi also sends a higher percentage of its grads to biglaw than IU. I think Loyola sends around 15% while Chicago-Kent sends something around 13%. Not sure how much Indiana sends, but it's sad that a T25 can't even match up to TTs in an oversaturated market like Chicago...

Indiana wasn't a T25 when that year's 1Ls went in - they were around #40.

fenderjsm88 wrote:

baboon309 wrote:

Cover ID wrote:I've gotten into both, I like both, and they'd each only cost me around 15k/yearly + COL. What should I do?

I'm from the midwest and wouldn't mind staying in the midwest. I'm not entirely sure what I really want to do with myself...



They seem like incredibly similar schools. I have friends in both places telling me that their respective school is best. The most vocal of these is from Indiana (Though he goes to BC Law) who says that Lilly has pledged to make IU-B a top law school.

What do you think? Why do you think what you think?

R u kidding me?
IU is a TT in terms of Big law placement. It`s even worse than CHICAGO KENT!

Exactly. Loyola-Chi also sends a higher percentage of its grads to biglaw than IU. I think Loyola sends around 15% while Chicago-Kent sends something around 13%. Not sure how much Indiana sends, but it's sad that a T25 can't even match up to TTs in an oversaturated market like Chicago...

The numbers are a bit misleading in that Indiana casts a larger geographic net than either of those schools do, and much of that geography doesn't really have NY/Chicago style "BigLaw", though the pay is often very similar.

For Loyola Chicago, its largely Chicago or bust. Indiana has decent placement in Chicago, and like St. Louis, Louisville, Indianapolis, Grand Rapids, Detroit, etc... Even more to the point, the top 10% at Loyola are almost certainly staying in Chicago. The top 10% at Indiana might stay in Indiana or drift or one of the coasts. So even if placement prospects are equal, Indiana would have fewer in Chicago than Loyola. This isn't even mentioning that a median student at Indiana probably has more regional portability than a median student at Loyola.

I'm sure all that applies to Illinois as well, though the regions don't exactly overlap. Indiana places better in Michigan and Kentucky than Illinois, but Illinois places better in Missouri. So yeah, it depends on which region you prefer. Most people would prefer Chicago, so most people would prefer Illinois. That's pretty much it.

In your case, since you seem indifferent about being in Chicago versus another Midwest city, it should come down to whichever campus you like better when you visit and cost of living.

The numbers are a bit misleading in that Indiana casts a larger geographic net than either of those schools do, and much of that geography doesn't really have NY/Chicago style "BigLaw", though the pay is often very similar.

Can anyone back up this claim?

baboon309 wrote:The numbers are a bit misleading in that Indiana casts a larger geographic net than either of those schools do, and much of that geography doesn't really have NY/Chicago style "BigLaw", though the pay is often very similar.

Can anyone back up this claim?

+1

All of the anecdotes I've heard on this site and others suggest that the mid-sized firms in these smaller markets do not have "similar pay" to BigLaw. But maybe these anecdotes are all BS. Stats please!

But but but... Ken Nunn is an IU (Maruer) Law graduate!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTuP83UiW6w

You could serious work for him after graduating. It's just that easy.

EdmundBurke23 wrote:But but but... Ken Nunn is an IU (Maruer) Law graduate!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTuP83UiW6w

You could serious work for him after graduating. It's just that easy.

Dude, you posted that earlier in this thread. Let it go.

this isn't even close go to IL, IN is really the most overrated school on USNWR like other poster said LUC and Chicago kent could out place it

unless you want to practice in IN then go to indiana

Halibut6 wrote:

fenderjsm88 wrote:

baboon309 wrote:

Cover ID wrote:I've gotten into both, I like both, and they'd each only cost me around 15k/yearly + COL. What should I do?

I'm from the midwest and wouldn't mind staying in the midwest. I'm not entirely sure what I really want to do with myself...



They seem like incredibly similar schools. I have friends in both places telling me that their respective school is best. The most vocal of these is from Indiana (Though he goes to BC Law) who says that Lilly has pledged to make IU-B a top law school.

What do you think? Why do you think what you think?

R u kidding me?
IU is a TT in terms of Big law placement. It`s even worse than CHICAGO KENT!

Exactly. Loyola-Chi also sends a higher percentage of its grads to biglaw than IU. I think Loyola sends around 15% while Chicago-Kent sends something around 13%. Not sure how much Indiana sends, but it's sad that a T25 can't even match up to TTs in an oversaturated market like Chicago...

Indiana wasn't a T25 when that year's 1Ls went in - they were around #40.

So wut. What are you trying to say there?

CHicago kent was like 70-80 or something back then. Big laws aren't gonna hire more IU grads because it`s a T25. I suspect that they'd hire more even if IU is a T -14 lol

It matters because you're comparing apples to oranges. If for some reason, say, the U of Cincinnati moves up from #52 to #30 in two years. The people who were recruited to go there at their lower ranking aren't going to reap the benefits of being a T30 school as much as a school that was in the T30 all along.

What I am saying is that theoretically they should gain a little in terms of job prospects, but I wouldn't have expected them to have as big of a jump as their USNWR rank did.

Halibut6 wrote:It matters because you're comparing apples to oranges. If for some reason, say, the U of Cincinnati moves up from #52 to #30 in two years. The people who were recruited to go there at their lower ranking aren't going to reap the benefits of being a T30 school as much as a school that was in the T30 all along.

What I am saying is that theoretically they should gain a little in terms of job prospects, but I wouldn't have expected them to have as big of a jump as their USNWR rank did.

We'll have to see how the jobs market reacts to IU's bump in USNWR rankings. Maybe employers won't even pay much attention to IU's rankings.

What if the school's rank is just a short-lived fluke? Take a look at their LSAT scores; IU's scores are comparable to the schools that occupy the slums of the T1. This can be interpretted (in a shallow kind of way) as IU's student body being composed of lower quality students; this will probably lead to IU losing its rankings within the next five years.

This mirrors IU's Kelley School of Business ranking scenario. They were they "odd-ball" in b-school rankings, because their GPAs and SAT scores were about 150 (old SATs) points lower than that of NYU/Penn/Chicago/Texas/and the rest of the top ten b schools. Their rankings sky-rocketed during the nineties, climbed up to #10 around 2006, and now they've dropped down to #22. I see the exact same thing happening to Maurer in the future. I mean, they didn't even hit 10% for the percentage of graduates hired by NLJ 250 this year. That's pathetic.

SOCRATiC wrote:What if the school's rank is just a short-lived fluke? Take a look at their LSAT scores; IU's scores are comparable to the schools that occupy the slums of the T1. This can be interpretted (in a shallow kind of way) as IU's student body being composed of lower quality students; this will probably lead to IU losing its rankings within the next five years.

Again, this is referring to past data. This year's incoming class is what should really determine whether or not IU deserves the ranking. While I agree that it won't be in the top 23 in selectivity this year, it will definitely be closer to the #30 mark than the "slums of the T1."

Clearly Illinois is your best bet. Take a trip to Champaign.

Halibut6 wrote:It matters because you're comparing apples to oranges. If for some reason, say, the U of Cincinnati moves up from #52 to #30 in two years. The people who were recruited to go there at their lower ranking aren't going to reap the benefits of being a T30 school as much as a school that was in the T30 all along.

What I am saying is that theoretically they should gain a little in terms of job prospects, but I wouldn't have expected them to have as big of a jump as their USNWR rank did.

I'm not sure about that. Isn't placement a big part of the US News rankings? If so, then students who enter a school when it's ranked #40 and graduate when it's ranked #23 should reap the job prospect benefits of a T25 school.

Your point does make sense in that the recently graduated students (who entered the school when it was ranked in the 40s) may be lower quality students who are less competitive in the job market compared to graduates from other schools. In this case, students admitted to Indiana this cycle should be better off in the job market than past/current IU grads.