Help me! Columbia v. GTown. How important is location? Forum

[sagirl27]

I am very interested in working in D.C after law school and I was wondering if it is more important that I stay in D.C (cultivate relationships, network etc) or whether I go to a more competitive school like Columbia and after graduation attempt to get back into the D.C market. Is it easy to do this? Are there others in this position? I have until next week to decide on GTown because I got a scholarship and I am still waiting on Financial Aid from Columbia.

I'm not sure whether I want Big Law or PI but still am tied to the area.

Please Help!

[mcweanis]

columbia. no doubt.

[chasgoose]

Yeah unless Georgetown is offering you a 1/2 scholarship or more, it's going to be a lot easier to get a job in DC from Columbia than it will be from Georgetown.

[Patriot1208]

It will likely to be easier to get a job in DC from Gtown, but not a good job.

[bk1]

In 2005, a plurality of GULC grads worked in NY, heck only 36% of them stayed in the DC/MD/VA area. For reference, in that same year only 61% of CLS grads stayed in NY. I'd imagine that things aren't significantly different now, though both schools may be skewing higher towards NY due to the fact that its legal market is recovering faster than DC's.

DC is a tough market to crack and they care a lot about prestige. CLS has a good LRAP and has the prestige edge. Go to CLS.

[Perch]

Yeah unless Georgetown is offering you a 1/2 scholarship or more, it's going to be a lot easier to get a job in DC from Columbia than it will be from Georgetown.

so if Georgetown is offering 1/2 scholarship or more, the odds of getting a job in DC change?

[T14Dilemma]

I'm facing the exact same dilemma and the same deadline next week. I have a scholarship from Georgetown (would end up with 100k) in debt and I'm still waiting from my financial aid package at CLS. I want to do international law of some sort. Location isn't that important to me although I imagine myself ending up in NYC.

[chasgoose]

Yeah unless Georgetown is offering you a 1/2 scholarship or more, it's going to be a lot easier to get a job in DC from Columbia than it will be from Georgetown.

so if Georgetown is offering 1/2 scholarship or more, the odds of getting a job in DC change?

No, but the difference in the odds between CLS/Georgetown becomes outweighed by the scholarship.