Top Law Schools

In at Notre Dame, no scholly
In at Pepperdine and Loyola, scholly covers 2/3 of tuition, but contingent on remaining in top third of the class

I want to end up practicing in Los Angeles, and though the answer may seem obvious to some, I am concerned about being below the top 1/3 at Loyola LA and Pepperdine, and essentially being stuck at median at those schools and having to pay sticker for 2 years. I have visited both schools in Los Angeles and would be more than happy to attend either.
Getting into Notre Dame was a bit of a reach, I would be really excited to go there. I understand that although they have quite a few alumni in California, the transition would probably be more difficult, and they were hit fairly hard at OCI last year.
Thoughts?

I'd say Loyola if you can get your stipulations removed.

Have you tried to negotiate away the stipulation?

Edit: Didn't see BK's post, but that is definitely what you should do.

Did you apply to Davis or Hastings. Seems like if you got into ND you should be able to get into Davis which would be far superior to Loyola or Pepperdine. I would ask for more money from Loyola and go there, or at least drop the stips. Honestly, Pepperdine is in my top 5 "If you wanna screw yourself come here" schools in the nation.

bk187 wrote:I'd say Loyola if you can get your stipulations removed.

From what I have read on TLS, stipulations are non-negotiable, but I will go ahead and call the admissions office to confirm.

BarbellDreams wrote:Did you apply to Davis or Hastings. Seems like if you got into ND you should be able to get into Davis which would be far superior to Loyola or Pepperdine. I would ask for more money from Loyola and go there, or at least drop the stips. Honestly, Pepperdine is in my top 5 "If you wanna screw yourself come here" schools in the nation.

I applied and was accepted to Hastings, no scholarship. I was under the impression it did not fare as well as Loyola in LA, but I could totally be wrong. I was impressed with Pepperdine's facilities and the administration are nice, but I get that the LA market is tough competition for lower ranked schools

spicymeatball111 wrote:

bk187 wrote:I'd say Loyola if you can get your stipulations removed.

From what I have read on TLS, stipulations are non-negotiable, but I will go ahead and call the admissions office to confirm.

BarbellDreams wrote:Did you apply to Davis or Hastings. Seems like if you got into ND you should be able to get into Davis which would be far superior to Loyola or Pepperdine. I would ask for more money from Loyola and go there, or at least drop the stips. Honestly, Pepperdine is in my top 5 "If you wanna screw yourself come here" schools in the nation.

I applied and was accepted to Hastings, no scholarship. I was under the impression it did not fare as well as Loyola in LA, but I could totally be wrong. I was impressed with Pepperdine's facilities and the administration are nice, but I get that the LA market is tough competition for lower ranked schools

I don't know whether they are negotiable or not in your case, but others have gotten them dropped or lessened.

I would take Hastings at sticker over ND at sticker for SoCal. That being said, I probably wouldn't take Hastings at sticker as a good financial choice.

What would your total CoA be at Pepperdine/Loyola?

including tuition, room/board, books, fees, travel, and personal expenditures, the COA at both Pepperdine and Loyola comes out to around $33,000, which I could cover with savings without going taking out much in loans.
COA at Notre Dame would be about $57,000, and Hastings just below that at $54,000. This would be a bit trickier.

You have around 100k in savings?

Well I guess if you really want to be a lawyer and don't mind burning through your savings it's not that bad to go to Loyola/Pepperdine if you can get your stips removed or lessened. At least when you graduate you won't have all the debt hanging over your head.

If you have the savings to cover that I almost think Hastings is your best bet. Its not by any means the best answer and its not a great financial choice at sticker, but if you are A.) 100% not retaking no matter what and B.) 100% set on the CA market no matter what then I think that basically forces your hand.

I'm not sure what your political beliefs are, but pepperdine is known for being fairly conservative, something that would influence my decisions.

BarbellDreams wrote:If you have the savings to cover that I almost think Hastings is your best bet. Its not by any means the best answer and its not a great financial choice at sticker, but if you are A.) 100% not retaking no matter what and B.) 100% set on the CA market no matter what then I think that basically forces your hand.

interesting, I will definitely take a closer look at Hastings. To be honest I am not against either of the alternative options, but I figured that my LSAT will probably not get much better and that the LA market was at least a little better than the Chicago market

I'd attend Loyola and put some of your savings into some other investment. DIVERSIFY

oh and drop out if lose scholarship

General Tso wrote:oh and drop out if lose scholarship

i don't intend to go to law school with the option of dropping out, but point taken.

spicymeatball111 wrote:

BarbellDreams wrote:If you have the savings to cover that I almost think Hastings is your best bet. Its not by any means the best answer and its not a great financial choice at sticker, but if you are A.) 100% not retaking no matter what and B.) 100% set on the CA market no matter what then I think that basically forces your hand.

interesting, I will definitely take a closer look at Hastings. To be honest I am not against either of the alternative options, but I figured that my LSAT will probably not get much better and that the LA market was at least a little better than the Chicago market

The LA market is arguably the worst market on the planet IMO. If you were considering things like NY and Chicago I would just take ND if those are the only options (though that opens up other schools like Fordham, BC,BU, etc. that you may or may not have applied to and have a decent shot to get in if you got in at ND).

BarbellDreams wrote:The LA market is arguably the worst market on the planet IMO. If you were considering things like NY and Chicago I would just take ND if those are the only options (though that opens up other schools like Fordham, BC,BU, etc. that you may or may not have applied to and have a decent shot to get in if you got in at ND).

LA is not the worst market on the planet. It is definitely better than SF. I'm not even sure it is worse than Chi or DC.

bk187 wrote:

BarbellDreams wrote:The LA market is arguably the worst market on the planet IMO. If you were considering things like NY and Chicago I would just take ND if those are the only options (though that opens up other schools like Fordham, BC,BU, etc. that you may or may not have applied to and have a decent shot to get in if you got in at ND).

LA is not the worst market on the planet. It is definitely better than SF. I'm not even sure it is worse than Chi or DC.

Sorry, I meant the CA market as a whole. I would roll the dice in DC and Chicago before coming to CA FWIW.

BarbellDreams wrote:Sorry, I meant the CA market as a whole. I would roll the dice in DC and Chicago before coming to CA FWIW.

Is there a way to quantitatively measure the hiring within regions? I have been looking at the NJL 250 hiring trends but that does not really indicate the strength of regional markets.

spicymeatball111 wrote:

BarbellDreams wrote:Sorry, I meant the CA market as a whole. I would roll the dice in DC and Chicago before coming to CA FWIW.

Is there a way to quantitatively measure the hiring within regions? I have been looking at the NJL 250 hiring trends but that does not really indicate the strength of regional markets.

It's hard to tell how the economy hit each market and how those firms reacted to it by changing their hiring practices (i.e. did they cut more from the bottom schools or did they just cut from each school uniformly) without data available from the most recent OCIs.

Some things are certain, like if you want to be a PD/DA there are many local governments with hiring freezes so you can't even get employed there because they are not hiring. Chicago has been hit very hard, NYC recovered the fastest, etc.

bk187 wrote:

spicymeatball111 wrote:

BarbellDreams wrote:Sorry, I meant the CA market as a whole. I would roll the dice in DC and Chicago before coming to CA FWIW.

Is there a way to quantitatively measure the hiring within regions? I have been looking at the NJL 250 hiring trends but that does not really indicate the strength of regional markets.

It's hard to tell how the economy hit each market and how those firms reacted to it by changing their hiring practices (i.e. did they cut more from the bottom schools or did they just cut from each school uniformly) without data available from the most recent OCIs.

Some things are certain, like if you want to be a PD/DA there are many local governments with hiring freezes so you can't even get employed there because they are not hiring. Chicago has been hit very hard, NYC recovered the fastest, etc.

For example, LA DA has had a hiring freeze since around June of 2010, and in speaking with a recent DA, he thought it would last until around June 2012. SF cannot be much better. I believe PD is still hiring but extremely competitive. Although if your looking at gov., location of school and internships at those local offices are more important than relative school rank

bk187 wrote:

BarbellDreams wrote:The LA market is arguably the worst market on the planet IMO. If you were considering things like NY and Chicago I would just take ND if those are the only options (though that opens up other schools like Fordham, BC,BU, etc. that you may or may not have applied to and have a decent shot to get in if you got in at ND).

LA is not the worst market on the planet. It is definitely better than SF. I'm not even sure it is worse than Chi or DC.

Attorneys I've talked to are sure that LA is worse than both Chi and DC.

ITE every attorney thinks their legal market is the worst.

*Then again ITE every attorney might be right

bk187 wrote:You have around 100k in savings?

Well I guess if you really want to be a lawyer and don't mind burning through your savings it's not that bad to go to Loyola/Pepperdine if you can get your stips removed or lessened. At least when you graduate you won't have all the debt hanging over your head.

What a waste of money.

i think i'm leaving this thread more conflicted than I started, but thanks for all of your input.

can the people that voted ND speak up? i'm just curious what your reasoning is