Top Law Schools

These are my final two choices. Thanks in advance for sharing your opinion and any relevant information.

After graduation I'd tentatively like to do biglaw in DC or Chicago for a few years to pay off debt and gain experience before heading back to the mountain region (probably Denver) for biglaw, midlaw, or PI/government work.

Duke would cost at least $20,000 more overall for the LLM summer start. I'm not sure I really want to practice international law, nor am I convinced that going to UVA and not getting Duke's LLM would close off those opportunities should I choose to pursue them. Any thoughts?

Other relevant factors: I'd like to minimize debt as much as possible (fortunately, I have no undergrad debt). After visiting both schools, I liked them both quite a bit with a slight preference for UVA's environment. I can see myself being happy at both places.

Both place around 4-5% in Chicago, so that's probably a wash, but UVA might have a slight edge over Duke for DC biglaw, as far as number of firms doing OCI there. There isn't a clear choice here, so you should decide based on personal preference.

That's a really tough call. The chief difference between the two is probably class size, clerkship placement, and location. Charlottesville and Durham are both relatively small, but rather different. Class size can be a factor for networking and job opportunities, though. I'd LEAN towards UVA but you really should probably go to ASWs at both and just see which one seems to be the best fit.

I am not an alum of either. So, I think I'm objective and I'd say UVA for sure. Very plugged into DC and NY and deep reach into top law firms. Duke is sort of a newcomer to the t15 law schools and works hard to stay there, still a very a good school.

jackster2 wrote:I am not an alum of either. So, I think I'm objective and I'd say UVA for sure. Very plugged into DC and NY and deep reach into top law firms. Duke is sort of a newcomer to the t15 law schools and works hard to stay there, still a very a good school.

I dont even know what this means...I thought there was a t14 and those t14 have always been the t14....including duke lol....anyways i voted UVA but I'm biased

enzo66 wrote:These are my final two choices. Thanks in advance for sharing your opinion and any relevant information.

After graduation I'd tentatively like to do biglaw in DC or Chicago for a few years to pay off debt and gain experience before heading back to the mountain region (probably Denver) for biglaw, midlaw, or PI/government work.

Duke would cost at least $20,000 more overall for the LLM summer start. I'm not sure I really want to practice international law, nor am I convinced that going to UVA and not getting Duke's LLM would close off those opportunities should I choose to pursue them. Any thoughts?

Other relevant factors: I'd like to minimize debt as much as possible (fortunately, I have no undergrad debt). After visiting both schools, I liked them both quite a bit with a slight preference for UVA's environment. I can see myself being happy at both places.

I had this exact same choice to make (well, minus that much $, but both schools offered comparable packages). I ended up deciding on UVA based on going to ASWs at both schools. I think the one thing that really turned me off from Duke was one statement made about the LLM in int'l law being a signal of interest in international law and kinda sounding like it really doesn't help that much. That and I wasn't 100% that I wanted to pigeon hole myself in international law at Duke where I could still go to UVA and choose to specialize my class selection in international law and get the same effect. And I *think* (don't quote me on this) that UVA ranks higher than Duke when it comes to international law anyway.

jackster2 wrote:I am not an alum of either. So, I think I'm objective

jackster2 wrote:Fuck Duke

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... start=3400

lol

dk8 wrote:

jackster2 wrote:I am not an alum of either. So, I think I'm objective

jackster2 wrote:Fuck Duke

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... start=3400

lol

roflz

dk8 wrote:

jackster2 wrote:I am not an alum of either. So, I think I'm objective

jackster2 wrote:Fuck Duke

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... start=3400

lol

lulz at troll watching. Nice work.

I'm busted. Damn.
Actually I like Duke, but I'm finding their admissions dicking around game irritating. and to explain prior post. If you go back 15-20 years Duke was ranked more like 20 and has slowly made it to the t14 or whatever. UVA has been a t10 for something like 100 years, really. In fact back in the early 80's it was no. 3 in US news if my memory is correct.

I'm busted. Damn.
Actually I like Duke, but I'm finding their admissions dicking around game irritating. and to explain prior post. If you go back 15-20 years Duke was ranked more like 20 and has slowly made it to the t14 or whatever. UVA has been a t10 for something like 100 years, really. In fact back in the early 80's it was no. 3 in US news if my memory is correct.

jackster2 wrote:I'm busted. Damn.
Actually I like Duke, but I'm finding their admissions dicking around game irritating. and to explain prior post. If you go back 15-20 years Duke was ranked more like 20 and has slowly made it to the t14 or whatever. UVA has been a t10 for something like 100 years, really. In fact back in the early 80's it was no. 3 in US news if my memory is correct.

i have no clue if that's correct but it's not relevant to this dude's decision. duke is firmly entrenched in the t14 and isn't going anywhere.

dk8 wrote:

jackster2 wrote:I'm busted. Damn.
Actually I like Duke, but I'm finding their admissions dicking around game irritating. and to explain prior post. If you go back 15-20 years Duke was ranked more like 20 and has slowly made it to the t14 or whatever. UVA has been a t10 for something like 100 years, really. In fact back in the early 80's it was no. 3 in US news if my memory is correct.

i have no clue if that's correct but it's not relevant to this dude's decision. duke is firmly entrenched in the t14 and isn't going anywhere.

And Duke's admissions office doesn't really dick around that much. They turn around relatively fast on applications and don't play ED chicken with their RD pool and then just rampantly YP everybody over median like UVA has this cycle.

(saying this as a Duke admit who is still waiting on UVA)

dk8 wrote:

jackster2 wrote:I'm busted. Damn.
Actually I like Duke, but I'm finding their admissions dicking around game irritating. and to explain prior post. If you go back 15-20 years Duke was ranked more like 20 and has slowly made it to the t14 or whatever. UVA has been a t10 for something like 100 years, really. In fact back in the early 80's it was no. 3 in US news if my memory is correct.

i have no clue if that's correct but it's not relevant to this dude's decision. duke is firmly entrenched in the t14 and isn't going anywhere.

It's relevant because if you look at senior partners in firms and federal judges they're memories go back that far and UVA alumni have placed in those positions for decades not a few years giving UVA deeper reach

jackster2 wrote:

dk8 wrote:

jackster2 wrote:I'm busted. Damn.
Actually I like Duke, but I'm finding their admissions dicking around game irritating. and to explain prior post. If you go back 15-20 years Duke was ranked more like 20 and has slowly made it to the t14 or whatever. UVA has been a t10 for something like 100 years, really. In fact back in the early 80's it was no. 3 in US news if my memory is correct.

i have no clue if that's correct but it's not relevant to this dude's decision. duke is firmly entrenched in the t14 and isn't going anywhere.

It's relevant because if you look at senior partners in firms and federal judges they're memories go back that far and UVA alumni have placed in those positions for decades not a few years giving UVA deeper reach

instead of speculating how far their memories go back and how that affects their hiring decisions, you could just look at actual hiring data from recent years.

dk8 wrote:

jackster2 wrote:

dk8 wrote:

jackster2 wrote:I'm busted. Damn.
Actually I like Duke, but I'm finding their admissions dicking around game irritating. and to explain prior post. If you go back 15-20 years Duke was ranked more like 20 and has slowly made it to the t14 or whatever. UVA has been a t10 for something like 100 years, really. In fact back in the early 80's it was no. 3 in US news if my memory is correct.

i have no clue if that's correct but it's not relevant to this dude's decision. duke is firmly entrenched in the t14 and isn't going anywhere.

It's relevant because if you look at senior partners in firms and federal judges they're memories go back that far and UVA alumni have placed in those positions for decades not a few years giving UVA deeper reach

instead of speculating how far their memories go back and how that affects their hiring decisions, you could just look at actual hiring data from recent years.

use concrete data? never...

Jesus Christ. Bite me you wanker

jackster2 wrote:Jesus Christ. Bite me you wanker

easy man just having a discussion. for what it's worth, i actually lol'ed when i read your comment in the duke thread. thanks man

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jackster2 wrote:I'm busted. Damn.
Actually I like Duke, but I'm finding their admissions dicking around game irritating. and to explain prior post. If you go back 15-20 years Duke was ranked more like 20 and has slowly made it to the t14 or whatever. UVA has been a t10 for something like 100 years, really. In fact back in the early 80's it was no. 3 in US news if my memory is correct.

The US News rankings started in 1987. The best UVa's been ranked is 7th and that was in 1995 and 1999. They are so close in ranking it doesn't matter IMO. Go to UVa and be happy and profit. That's what I plan on doing.

Also, Rockchalk...that bit in wikipedia is not true. http://www.prelawhandbook.com/law_schoo ... _1987_1999 Cornell and Northwestern weren't in top 14 for the first rankings in 1987

jackster2 wrote:I'm busted. Damn.
Actually I like Duke, but I'm finding their admissions dicking around game irritating. and to explain prior post. If you go back 15-20 years Duke was ranked more like 20 and has slowly made it to the t14 or whatever.

This is completely false. Since the "rankings" came about in 1987, Duke has never been ranked lower than 12. They've been ranked as high as 7th at some point between 1987 and 2009 (22 years, btw). Click Here Before Further Self-Embarassment

jackster2 wrote: UVA has been a t10 for something like 100 years, really. In fact back in the early 80's it was no. 3 in US news if my memory is correct.

I'm pretty sure U.S. News has only been ranking schools since 1987. Since they've been ranking the schools, HYS and C have always been 1-4, so I don't see how UVA could ever have been 3rd.

For the OP: You really need to visit both and decide which you like better. Neither one is going to "beat" the other for you. If you love them both, take the cheapest option, which, for you, is UVA.

insidethetwenty wrote:

For the OP: You really need to visit both and decide which you like better. Neither one is going to "beat" the other for you. If you love them both, take the cheapest option, which, for you, is UVA.

TITCR

jackster2 wrote:I am not an alum of either. So, I think I'm objective and I'd say UVA for sure. Very plugged into DC and NY and deep reach into top law firms. Duke is sort of a newcomer to the t15 law schools and works hard to stay there, still a very a good school.

Duke was consistently 8-10 in the 1990s until Penn displaced them in the 2000s.

To OP- it seems like because you want to go to DC, where UVA does very well, you should go there. It's awesome that you say you'd be happy at both places though. However, the DC/Chicago desire and wanting to minimize debt combined with the fact that you don't even know how much the LLM will help you make UVA seem like the right choice. Good luck.

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