Top Law Schools

Besides Penn, Temple, Villanova, Rutgers-Camden, Widener, and Drexel, are there any law schools outside the T14 which have good placement in Philadelphia? In other words, if I plan on working in Philadelphia, would schools in the ballpark of BU, GW, or Wash U have good transferability to the Delaware Valley? Looking further down the totem pole, how about American, GMU, UMD, Dickinson, or Pitt?

Philly job market is fucked. You're gonna have to know someone or be tippy top of your class, probably.

If you can get into BU, GWU, or WUSTL, then you should have a nearly free ride @ Temple or Nova. If you're set on Philly, it makes sense to take the money and attend a Philly school.

Case2L wrote:If you can get into BU, GWU, or WUSTL, then you should have a nearly free ride @ Temple or Nova. If you're set on Philly, it makes sense to take the money and attend a Philly school.

And, just to help you with your decision: Temple > Nova.

Case2L wrote:If you can get into BU, GWU, or WUSTL, then you should have a nearly free ride @ Temple or Nova. If you're set on Philly, it makes sense to take the money and attend a Philly school.

As a reward for attending a state school on scholarship, money is no object for law school. That being said, Would schools like BU, GW, or Wash U actually place any better in Philly?

HeavenWood wrote:

Case2L wrote:If you can get into BU, GWU, or WUSTL, then you should have a nearly free ride @ Temple or Nova. If you're set on Philly, it makes sense to take the money and attend a Philly school.

As a reward for attending a state school on scholarship, money is no object for law school. That being said, Would schools like BU, GW, or Wash U actually place any better in Philly?

What kind of work do you want to do? There is some possibility that they might place marginally better in Philly BigLaw outfits. Other than that, I don't think there is an advantage (although I am certainly not an expert).

Are you looking to work for Dilworth Paxson, Pepper hamilton, Blank Rome, Morgan Lewis, etc?

HeavenWood wrote:

Case2L wrote:If you can get into BU, GWU, or WUSTL, then you should have a nearly free ride @ Temple or Nova. If you're set on Philly, it makes sense to take the money and attend a Philly school.

As a reward for attending a state school on scholarship, money is no object for law school. That being said, Would schools like BU, GW, or Wash U actually place any better in Philly?

From everything I've read and heard, no. Philly is a really insular market, and Temple and Nova have awesome alumni networks in the city.

If you only care about the prestige, get over yourself.

HeavenWood wrote:

Case2L wrote:If you can get into BU, GWU, or WUSTL, then you should have a nearly free ride @ Temple or Nova. If you're set on Philly, it makes sense to take the money and attend a Philly school.

As a reward for attending a state school on scholarship, money is no object for law school. That being said, Would schools like BU, GW, or Wash U actually place any better in Philly?

Why not go to Temple for next to nothing, take the money that you would have received to attend a non T-14 at sticker and buy yourself something nice?

Why waste money for the sake of wasting money?

manbearwig wrote:From everything I've read and heard, no. Philly is a really insular market, and Temple and Nova have awesome alumni networks in the city.

This. Frankly, outside of the hardest to get biglaw jobs and ACLU staff attorney positions, Temple is better than Penn in terms of placement within the city from what I can tell.

OGR3 wrote:

HeavenWood wrote:

Case2L wrote:If you can get into BU, GWU, or WUSTL, then you should have a nearly free ride @ Temple or Nova. If you're set on Philly, it makes sense to take the money and attend a Philly school.

As a reward for attending a state school on scholarship, money is no object for law school. That being said, Would schools like BU, GW, or Wash U actually place any better in Philly?

Why not go to Temple for next to nothing, take the money that you would have received to attend a non T-14 at sticker and buy yourself something nice?

Why waste money for the sake of wasting money?

Seriously. Or you could easily afford an awesome apartment in a great area in Philly with that money.

.

HeavenWood wrote:I'm not looking to waste money for the sake of wasting money, but if there were a tangible advantage in attending a higher-ranked (but non-local) school, I don't see why I wouldn't take it. That being said, thanks for all your input. Given that many Penn grads look elsewhere, it seems Temple is effectively the top dog in the city?

Yup. : D

(For what it's worth, I turned down schools like BU and W&M to go to Temple because I want to stay in the city.)

HeavenWood wrote:Given that many Penn grads look elsewhere, it seems Temple is effectively the top dog in the city?

Temple is top dog. Tons of Philly employers don't like or trust Penn grads - they have a rep for being high maintenance and unwilling to do grunt work.

johnnyutah wrote:

HeavenWood wrote:Given that many Penn grads look elsewhere, it seems Temple is effectively the top dog in the city?

Temple is top dog. Tons of Philly employers don't like or trust Penn grads - they have a rep for being high maintenance and unwilling to do grunt work.

I don't know where your getting your info from but you're wrong. I can't imagine why you would think Temple would out place Penn in Philadelphia. I'm from Philly and go to GW. The bigger numbers from Temple is self selection. All of the firms do OCI at Penn's campus. I'm doing decently well at GW and got interviews at every Philly firm I applied to and got a callback at one so far. I would not say GW outplaces the Philly schools but Penn definitely would if the graduates would choose to.

.

KamaalTheAbstract wrote:

johnnyutah wrote:

HeavenWood wrote:Given that many Penn grads look elsewhere, it seems Temple is effectively the top dog in the city?

Temple is top dog. Tons of Philly employers don't like or trust Penn grads - they have a rep for being high maintenance and unwilling to do grunt work.

I don't know where your getting your info from but you're wrong. I can't imagine why you would think Temple would out place Penn in Philadelphia. I'm from Philly and go to GW. The bigger numbers from Temple is self selection. All of the firms do OCI at Penn's campus. I'm doing decently well at GW and got interviews at every Philly firm I applied to and got a callback at one so far. I would not say GW outplaces the Philly schools but Penn definitely would if the graduates would choose to.

The big, selective firms do Penn OCI and prefer Penn grads, but outside of that, Temple really does seem to place better.

You have to understand that the way that the Philadelphia legal community feels about Penn. Penn students have a reputation for using Philadelphia firms and organizations to get valuable experience through internships, externships, clinics and summer positions, and then almost universally cutting and running for New York or DC after graduation. This has bred resentment among other attorneys in town, who are often extremely reluctant to think of Penn kids as part of the Philadelphia legal community. I know some Penn students who were openly told that they were unwelcome at an employment search workshop hosted by the Jewish lawyer association in Philly for exactly this reason.

Now contrast this with Temple. Temple grads mostly stay in Philly and the suburbs, so every attorney and their fucking brother in Philadelphia went to Temple. Huge numbers of Temple students were also born and raised in the Philly area, so they often have family or personal connections to help them out with getting a job (which is way more important than your GPA or what law school you went to).

When you consider all of these things along with the rep that Penn students have among some Philadelphia employers, I think it absolutely makes sense to choose Temple over Penn if you are sure you want to stay in Philadelphia, unless you are the BigLaw or bust type.

Kafka wrote:^ Johnnyutah actually goes to Penn, so I think he knows from first-hand experience what the fuck he is talking about bro.

Haha you need to settle down.

.

If nepotism is on your side then just save as much money as possible and/or do your best not to piss off your father and lose that guaranteed job.

HeavenWood wrote:My father ... told me numerous times that even if I went to Widener, he could guarantee me a great job upon graduation.

I think I would prefer the unemployment.

2ofspades wrote:

HeavenWood wrote:My father ... told me numerous times that even if I went to Widener, he could guarantee me a great job upon graduation.

I think I would prefer the unemployment.

Then I hope for your sake you're one of the myriad unemployed t-14 grads in a few years.

A good school too, might just I am here soon. But how about Harvard Law School? I think this is most popular Law School if I'm not mistaken. But anyways, I will this school someday.

bankcruptcypenn wrote:A good school too, might just I am here soon. But how about Harvard Law School? I think this is most popular Law School if I'm not mistaken. But anyways, I will this school someday.

bk187 wrote:If nepotism is on your side then just save as much money as possible and/or do your best not to piss off your father and lose that guaranteed job.

Seriously. If you don't have to worry about employment, then the decision of where to go to school and the questions you have don't matter. I would NOT say that schools like BU/GW/etc. are better for jobs in Philly than the Philly schools but if you have pretty much a guaranteed 100k starting salary anyway, then just do what he wants. Nepotism is awesome and don't screw up an opportunity that 99.999% of law students would kill for.