Top Law Schools

Does anybody have inside knowledge on the legal market in San Antonio? It has one regional school (St. Mary's) that isn't highly regarded, and I was thinking of looking for summer positions there in the future. Is the landscape dominated by UT students? Thanks for any insight.

This....does not bode well for me.

I spoke to the CSO lady [I'm at UT] asking how we tended to do in the San Antonio market and she indicated that while St. Mary's kids do well there, it's at least in part because the UT folk don't really consider it as much as they do Dallas, Austin, and Houston and the San Antonio firms would like to see UT grads.

Admittedly, I have no idea how much that helps you. Depending on where you're coming from, you might stand a good shot or the Texas insularity might bite you in the ass, who knows?

Any information helps at this point. It's like the Bermuda triangle of Texas; people don't seem to have a clue how to map it. I'm wondering if I could go to a top 20 out of state and still have a shot at that market. Thanks for the post!

Top 20 schools, in my humble opinion, have strong national reputations. If you attend a top-20 school, you'll be able to compete for employment in San Antonio. If you have family connections, for example, you'll make a great case for wanting to move to TX. BTW, I practice in TX but went to school outside of TX.

The mystery to me is why you would want to live and work in Guadalajara del Norte anyway.

It depends on what type of law you are going into. There will be jobs in corporate law, health law, and there will be legal jobs in homeland security since San Antonio is the second largest military city next to D.C. As far as a big law firm, SA has Jackson Walker. St. Mary's is a great school to go to if you want to work in SA. I am from SA, and I know several attorney's here; they all told me to stay in Texas. But I was not going to get into a top 20 school... a top 20 school could get you a job anywhere in TX as long as you pass the bar. Also, there are a lot of prominent attorneys in SA that went to St. Mary's, and there is definitely a "Good Ol' Boy" network

I realize that this is a super old thread, but I am very interested in ending up in San Antonio and so I thought I'd share some info I found with anyone else in the same boat. I looked at the internetz and found the following:

Fullbright and Jaworski. 54 lawyers in SA listed on their website
St. Mary's - 15
UT - 13
SMU - 5
Baylor/UH - 4
South Texas College of Law - 3
BYU/Texas Tech/UPenn/LSU/UVA/Notre Dame/UWisconsin/Toledo/Case Western/Harvard - 1

Jackson Walker. 44 lawyers in SA listed on their website
St. Mary's - 15
UT - 13
Baylor - 3
UH/UTennessee - 2
UC Davis/UVA/South Texas/Creighton/Tulane/Denver/OU/USC/Vandy

Daico wrote:I spoke to the CSO lady [I'm at UT] asking how we tended to do in the San Antonio market and she indicated that while St. Mary's kids do well there, it's at least in part because the UT folk don't really consider it as much as they do Dallas, Austin, and Houston and the San Antonio firms would like to see UT grads.

Admittedly, I have no idea how much that helps you. Depending on where you're coming from, you might stand a good shot or the Texas insularity might bite you in the ass, who knows?

This is good to know. I am from TX, but not SA, and I am probably going to have to choose between UT with no debt or a T14 with $100K +. I would love to work in SA. I'm trying to get my sister to move there, so I have family connections, but if this fails, will I have trouble getting a job there?

Burgstaller04 wrote:I realize that this is a super old thread, but I am very interested in ending up in San Antonio and so I thought I'd share some info I found with anyone else in the same boat. I looked at the internetz and found the following:

Fullbright and Jaworski. 54 lawyers in SA listed on their website
St. Mary's - 15
UT - 13
SMU - 5
Baylor/UH - 4
South Texas College of Law - 3
BYU/Texas Tech/UPenn/LSU/UVA/Notre Dame/UWisconsin/Toledo/Case Western/Harvard - 1

Jackson Walker. 44 lawyers in SA listed on their website
St. Mary's - 15
UT - 13
Baylor - 3
UH/UTennessee - 2
UC Davis/UVA/South Texas/Creighton/Tulane/Denver/OU/USC/Vandy

Are these two firms the most highly regarded in SA?

irenic wrote:

Burgstaller04 wrote:I realize that this is a super old thread, but I am very interested in ending up in San Antonio and so I thought I'd share some info I found with anyone else in the same boat. I looked at the internetz and found the following:

Fullbright and Jaworski. 54 lawyers in SA listed on their website
St. Mary's - 15
UT - 13
SMU - 5
Baylor/UH - 4
South Texas College of Law - 3
BYU/Texas Tech/UPenn/LSU/UVA/Notre Dame/UWisconsin/Toledo/Case Western/Harvard - 1

Jackson Walker. 44 lawyers in SA listed on their website
St. Mary's - 15
UT - 13
Baylor - 3
UH/UTennessee - 2
UC Davis/UVA/South Texas/Creighton/Tulane/Denver/OU/USC/Vandy - 1

Are these two firms the most highly regarded in SA?

I don't know if they're the best, but they are, at least, close to the top. With a couple minutes of quick searching, these two had the most associates. It's very possible there could be a couple with more that I didn't find

Burgstaller04 wrote:

irenic wrote:

Burgstaller04 wrote:I realize that this is a super old thread, but I am very interested in ending up in San Antonio and so I thought I'd share some info I found with anyone else in the same boat. I looked at the internetz and found the following:

Fullbright and Jaworski. 54 lawyers in SA listed on their website
St. Mary's - 15
UT - 13
SMU - 5
Baylor/UH - 4
South Texas College of Law - 3
BYU/Texas Tech/UPenn/LSU/UVA/Notre Dame/UWisconsin/Toledo/Case Western/Harvard - 1

Jackson Walker. 44 lawyers in SA listed on their website
St. Mary's - 15
UT - 13
Baylor - 3
UH/UTennessee - 2
UC Davis/UVA/South Texas/Creighton/Tulane/Denver/OU/USC/Vandy - 1

Are these two firms the most highly regarded in SA?

I don't know if they're the best, but they are, at least, close to the top. With a couple minutes of quick searching, these two had the most associates. It's very possible there could be a couple with more that I didn't find

Did a quick search on NALP and saw that there are a few big texas firms with offices in SA (which include the two you pointed out earlier):
BRACEWELL & GIULIANI
Cox Smith Matthews Incorporated
FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI L.L.P.
HAYNES AND BOONE, LLP
Jackson Walker L.L.P.

F&J is one of the big 3 of the bigtex firms.
Haynes and Boone is also a pretty well known firm texas firm, as is Bracewell & Giuliani.

Burgstaller04 wrote:

irenic wrote:

Burgstaller04 wrote:I realize that this is a super old thread, but I am very interested in ending up in San Antonio and so I thought I'd share some info I found with anyone else in the same boat. I looked at the internetz and found the following:

Fullbright and Jaworski. 54 lawyers in SA listed on their website
St. Mary's - 15
UT - 13
SMU - 5
Baylor/UH - 4
South Texas College of Law - 3
BYU/Texas Tech/UPenn/LSU/UVA/Notre Dame/UWisconsin/Toledo/Case Western/Harvard - 1

Jackson Walker. 44 lawyers in SA listed on their website
St. Mary's - 15
UT - 13
Baylor - 3
UH/UTennessee - 2
UC Davis/UVA/South Texas/Creighton/Tulane/Denver/OU/USC/Vandy - 1

Are these two firms the most highly regarded in SA?

I don't know if they're the best, but they are, at least, close to the top. With a couple minutes of quick searching, these two had the most associates. It's very possible there could be a couple with more that I didn't find

This is something that I find difficulty understanding. If these are top firms, and they have each of more St. Mary's graduates than any other school in the San Antonio location, then why is it so bad to attend a T4 school such as St. Mary's? Beyond UT, the rest of the schools in Texas seems to be very regional.

irenic wrote:
This is something that I find difficulty understanding. If these are top firms, and they have each of more St. Mary's graduates than any other school in the San Antonio location, then why is it so bad to attend a T4 school such as St. Mary's? Beyond UT, the rest of the schools in Texas seems to be very regional.

If you absolutely know you want to work in the area, T-4 schools might not be a bad idea. The other big issue to consider is the financial one. Even though St. Mary's is relatively cheap, paying sticker seems like it could be a very risky proposition, when you consider these firms are likely hiring students at the top of the class from St. Mary's. Finishing below median at a T14 with a large debt-load is frightening right now ITE. Finishing below median (or maybe anything outside the top 10% or 20%) at a school like St. Mary's with a significant amount of debt just seems disastrous.