Where to go if you want to practice in Alaska? Forum

[NorCalBruin]

.

[dood]

...

[Chouchous]

UW

[NorCalBruin]

I've visited several times. I love the people and the culture. I love the endless summers and endless winters. I like the simple life and the sort of "out there" personality it takes to be there permanently. Hey, what can I say, the iditarod is one my favorite sporting events.

[merichard87]

My best advice is find the firm or company or whatever that you would want to work for there and figure out what schools they recruit from.

[RVP11]

Duke. But you'll probably want to practice in NY after 1L.

[20160810]

Berkeley if you can swing it maybe, otherwise UW seems like a decent bet. Honestly though, I think targeting Alaska sounds like a great way to land yourself without a job, even at a T14. Spend a little time on nalpirectory.com and you'll likely discover that there are less summer associate positions available in the ENTIRE STATE OF ALASKA than there are at ONE big firm office in LA or NYC. In any event, your ties to the state are going to matter a lot more than where you went to school, so just go to the best school you get into.

[NZA]

Hey Y'all,

I'm considering practicing in Alaska after law school. Alaska, however, doesn't have ANY law schools (really, not even one). Where would be the best place to go if that is truly my goal? Just go to the best place possible?

For what it's worth numbers are 3.8/167. Retaking in Dec.

Probably UW, like others have said. Duke does have an Alaska Law Review journal, I believe. So maybe that's an option?

But I can't imagine that you'll have an easy time of finding a job in the ol' AK unless you work in government. Or maybe if you have good connections in AK that can get you a job.

[Patriot1208]

Wait, so you have no ties whatsoever in Alaska? I think you may be screwed.

[20160810]

Wait, so you have no ties whatsoever in Alaska? I think you may be screwed.

This. Just go to the best school you get into, apply up there come post-1L summer, but figure you're probably boned regardless. They get a million kids like you applying to about 20 SA jobs up there.

[Lonagan]

Northeastern has stronger connections to Alaska than any school outside Washington or Oregon. I know it sounds weird, but it is true. I believe this is largely due to a Northeastern alum who currently sits on the AK Supreme Court and is very active in developing young attorneys. Realistically, just go to any top 100 school, or any school in the 9th circuit, and you will do fine. The logic of "best school you can get into" is not always useful in Alaska. I know numerous attorneys who do hiring in the state who have said they are biased against HYS type people because their heads are in the clouds. UW is held in higher regard than most any other outside school.

I don't know why Duke has the Alaska Law Review, but they do not have meaningful ties to the state beyond that.

My advice for OP:

If you have only visited the state you don't know what it is like to live there. The number of people who come and hate it after a year is not insignificant. Endless light in the summer is great. Winter is very very dark and anyone who says they like it is lying. Lots of people manage to avoid clinical SAD during the winter, but it gets very old.

To be blunt, you sound like someone for whom Alaska exists as some kind of romantic ideal. Lots of people come to the state with such an outlook. Sometimes they get eaten by brown bears they think are their friends, and sometimes they die in a bus in the woods because they thought they were going to go be Thoreau. Most just wind up disappointed. Anchorage and Fairbanks are not "out there."

The places that can be called "out there" with a large enough population to have any lawyers are not fun places to live. If you work in those places you will be doing government work, which means you will be cleaning up the mess that goes with alcoholism, domestic violence, and sexual assault rates several times that found pretty much anywhere else in the country. And if you confront that with the attitude that you will come in and change it, you will meet a very hostile group of locals who resent the notion that an outsider will come in and know how to fix such problems. A woman I know came up from the lower 48 to teach in one of the villages. One of her students killed her dog, skinned it, and nailed it to a tree in front of her house. Do you like hepatitis? You will love western Alaska.

While you won't have your dog nailed to a tree on the road system, we still don't really care very much for outsiders. You will have to spend a number of years there before you are anything more than a goddamned cheechako.

Most Iditarod mushers are assholes.

Alaska is an amazing place. It is my home and I will return after law school. However, the Pipeline days were a long time ago. It's an awful lot harder to just cast off for Alaska and land on your feet than it was in the '70s and '80s. There isn't oil money and cocaine falling out of everyone's pockets like there used to be.

Anyway, if you think I'm being an asshole I'm just trying to do you a favor. If you want to make a legit go of running away to Alaska go get your pilot's license and learn to land on really small bush strips.

[Pleasye]

NA woman I know came up from the lower 48 to teach in one of the villages. One of her students killed her dog, skinned it, and nailed it to a tree in front of her house. Do you like hepatitis? You will love western Alaska.

Wow. What the fuck?

[bdubs]

I spoke to a friend who just graduated from NYU and she said that a lot of serious students are gunning for clerkships in state court in Alaska as it is the only place left where you see cases of first impression on a semi-regular basis.

Do you want to practice criminal law or something? I doubt there is much corporate law actually being practiced in Alaska. Most of that stuff (Alaskan business) tends to run through Seattle.

[Lonagan]

I spoke to a friend who just graduated from NYU and she said that a lot of serious students are gunning for clerkships in state court in Alaska as it is the only place left where you see cases of first impression on a semi-regular basis.

Do you want to practice criminal law or something? I doubt there is much corporate law actually being practiced in Alaska. Most of that stuff (Alaskan business) tends to run through Seattle.

AK supreme court is prestigious for exactly the reason you stated.

[NZA]

NA woman I know came up from the lower 48 to teach in one of the villages. One of her students killed her dog, skinned it, and nailed it to a tree in front of her house. Do you like hepatitis? You will love western Alaska.

Wow. What the fuck?

I guess AK is not the place to fuck around.

[NorCalBruin]

Wow. Things got real.

Appreciate the advice everyone.

[Anonymous Loser]

Do you want to practice criminal law or something? I doubt there is much corporate law actually being practiced in Alaska. Most of that stuff (Alaskan business) tends to run through Seattle.

This is the real issue with practicing in Alaska: not much legal work stays in-state. I'd bet that a significant portion of the membership of the Alaska state bar is made up of Seattle lawyers.

[imbored25]

YHS

[beachbum]

...

With all due respect, Alaska sounds fucking awful.

[RVP11]

Wait, so you have no ties whatsoever in Alaska? I think you may be screwed.

This. Just go to the best school you get into, apply up there come post-1L summer, but figure you're probably boned regardless. They get a million kids like you applying to about 2 SA jobs up there.

FTFY bro.

[OGR3]

Northeastern has stronger connections to Alaska than any school outside Washington or Oregon. I know it sounds weird, but it is true. I believe this is largely due to a Northeastern alum who currently sits on the AK Supreme Court and is very active in developing young attorneys. Realistically, just go to any top 100 school, or any school in the 9th circuit, and you will do fine. The logic of "best school you can get into" is not always useful in Alaska. I know numerous attorneys who do hiring in the state who have said they are biased against HYS type people because their heads are in the clouds. UW is held in higher regard than most any other outside school.

I don't know why Duke has the Alaska Law Review, but they do not have meaningful ties to the state beyond that.

My advice for OP:

If you have only visited the state you don't know what it is like to live there. The number of people who come and hate it after a year is not insignificant. Endless light in the summer is great. Winter is very very dark and anyone who says they like it is lying. Lots of people manage to avoid clinical SAD during the winter, but it gets very old.

To be blunt, you sound like someone for whom Alaska exists as some kind of romantic ideal. Lots of people come to the state with such an outlook. Sometimes they get eaten by brown bears they think are their friends, and sometimes they die in a bus in the woods because they thought they were going to go be Thoreau. Most just wind up disappointed. Anchorage and Fairbanks are not "out there."

The places that can be called "out there" with a large enough population to have any lawyers are not fun places to live. If you work in those places you will be doing government work, which means you will be cleaning up the mess that goes with alcoholism, domestic violence, and sexual assault rates several times that found pretty much anywhere else in the country. And if you confront that with the attitude that you will come in and change it, you will meet a very hostile group of locals who resent the notion that an outsider will come in and know how to fix such problems. A woman I know came up from the lower 48 to teach in one of the villages. One of her students killed her dog, skinned it, and nailed it to a tree in front of her house. Do you like hepatitis? You will love western Alaska.

While you won't have your dog nailed to a tree on the road system, we still don't really care very much for outsiders. You will have to spend a number of years there before you are anything more than a goddamned cheechako.

Most Iditarod mushers are assholes.

Alaska is an amazing place. It is my home and I will return after law school. However, the Pipeline days were a long time ago. It's an awful lot harder to just cast off for Alaska and land on your feet than it was in the '70s and '80s. There isn't oil money and cocaine falling out of everyone's pockets like there used to be.

Anyway, if you think I'm being an asshole I'm just trying to do you a favor. If you want to make a legit go of running away to Alaska go get your pilot's license and learn to land on really small bush strips.

Haha, You're trying too hard to discourage OP. Very few people actually want to practice in Alaska. All you'd really have to do is mention the lack of daylight during the winter.

[concurrent fork]

Sometimes they get eaten by brown bears they think are their friends, and sometimes they die in a bus in the woods because they thought they were going to go be Thoreau.

With all due respect, Alaska sounds fucking awful.

[Patriot1208]

Sometimes they get eaten by brown bears they think are their friends, and sometimes they die in a bus in the woods because they thought they were going to go be Thoreau.

With all due respect, Alaska sounds fucking awful.

TBF, it's great to visit for outdoorsy type things.

[fnm]

I used to practice in Anchorage. Another poster mentioned Northeastern, and while I think you can do better with your numbers, he is correct about their placement. Northeastern's co-op program has an association with the State Public Defender's Office, and a lot of Northeastern students make contacts and choose to relocate to Alaska after graduation. I would say the top law school in Alaska, in terms of total number of lawyers represented, is probably Lewis and Clark, then the University of Minnesota. Regionally, I would say about a third of the attorneys I met went to a law school in the Pacific Northwest. But, there were attorneys from law schools all over the country. I went to a law school in the midwest with no apparent connection to Alaska.

[jcl2]

I'm a 1L at UW. I have no real expertise, but there are quite a few people here who are Alaskan's and planning to go back there after school. There are also several graduates every year who get jobs in Alaska. There are usually UW law grads clerking for the Alaska supreme court or the federal district courts in Alaska (I would actually love to clerk in alaska). There is obviously not much biglaw opportunity in Alaska, but there are lots of other jobs up there.

My guess would be that UW or Minnesota would probably be your best bets, and both are in range for your numbers.