Seton Hall? Forum

[bigkahuna2020]

Please beg him to drop out if he's not top 5% after first year. There is virtually no OCI to speak of at Seton Hall anymore, esp. since the two biggest NJ firms (McCarter & Lownstein Sandler) are no longer taking summer associates.

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Even funnier, they sent a mass email out last year telling all 2 and 3 L's to consider looking for work in more rural areas like Southern NJ and central/western PA "markets." Pretty humorous that a school where the NYC skyline can be seen from the windows is telling its own students to head out to Armpit Cove, PA to find work!
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Anyone expecting a 70 to 80 K a year job coming out of SH is in for a rude awakening. I have friends from class of 2005 who aren't yet making 80 K six years into practice. It's mostly low-end insurance defense firms that hire SH grads, and these places usually start new associates at 35-45 K, sometimes a bit lower if you'll take it. For example, the ID firm that paid me 45 K in 2005 is now paying first-years 33 K- they know better than anyone the supply-demand imbalance and take full advantage of it. Understand also that these firms don't give a crap about quality work or your "career development" - ID work is utterly mindless cut n' paste slop and the court appearances are a complete joke. The partners could care less who churns out this crap- the hourly rates are a joke (like $90-$120) and many types of files (like soft tissue car accidents) are handled on flat-fee basis.

While Seton Hall isn't great, you do sound like a bit of an entitled douche.

1) Placement at NLJ250's are consistently above 10% at Seton Hall
2) Outside of a woman who placed #1 in her class, MOST of the successful lawyers from Seton Hall I have met who aren't doing IP are in Central Jersey and South Jersey---maybe you should think about moving to the "boondocks" for a job instead of complaining
3) I have personally interviewed at a larger midsized firm that largely does class action and personal injury (and as a Seton Hall grad you should know it) for a paralegal position. It paid 35k starting and most of their paralegals move into law school at Seton Hall and come back to work. If they were paying only 10k more this wouldn't happen

[TheFactor]

Seton Hall did have a SCOTUS clerk a few years ago. Like seriously...

[SetonHallstinks]

The guy at Third Tier Reality had a ball ripping this place:

http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/20 ... rsity.html

and

--LinkRemoved--


Pretty easy to bash Seton Hall, with it's whopping 46 K tuition and downright dismal salary/employment prospects, plus a VERY shady administration more concerned with their own fat paychecks and arrogant self-aggrandizement.

[SetonHallstinks]

I have personally interviewed at a larger midsized firm that largely does class action and personal injury (and as a Seton Hall grad you should know it) for a paralegal position. It paid 35k starting and most of their paralegals move into law school at Seton Hall and come back to work. If they were paying only 10k more this wouldn't happen
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Stark & Stark? You can't be serious- that place has a truly awful reputation and I know for a fact they don't pay a dime over 50 K to start. A good friend of mine was at their Princeton office right outta law school and lasted a whopping 8 months- he said it was the worst experience of his life.

Personal injury firms in general are horrific places to work- this guy even started a special "hate site" against his old NJ shitlaw firm and the shitlaw partners took him to court over it:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/1 ... _whet.html

Here's a spot-on description of the average SH grads life:

--LinkRemoved--

[crit_racer]

ur kinda depressing

[Wholigan]

Maybe he is Scott Bullock, of "Big Debt, Small Law" fame.

[keg411]

Maybe he is Scott Bullock, of "Big Debt, Small Law" fame.

[bigkahuna2020]

I have personally interviewed at a larger midsized firm that largely does class action and personal injury (and as a Seton Hall grad you should know it) for a paralegal position. It paid 35k starting and most of their paralegals move into law school at Seton Hall and come back to work. If they were paying only 10k more this wouldn't happen
______________________________________________________________________________________________


Stark & Stark? You can't be serious- that place has a truly awful reputation and I know for a fact they don't pay a dime over 50 K to start. A good friend of mine was at their Princeton office right outta law school and lasted a whopping 8 months- he said it was the worst experience of his life.

Personal injury firms in general are horrific places to work- this guy even started a special "hate site" against his old NJ shitlaw firm and the shitlaw partners took him to court over it:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/1 ... _whet.html

Here's a spot-on description of the average SH grads life:

--LinkRemoved--

Nope. Class action more than PI. And it sounds like a lot of your friends are pussies. And I love how 35k turned to 50k. And the fact that you don't know this law firm right away is kinda proving how shitty your networking was. There are fuckloads of law firms in Newark, too bad you didn't get in on that.

Seton Hall isn't great, but it sure sounds like you were some dumbass who graduated near the bottom of the class and ALSO didn't know how to network. A toxic combination for basically any school outside of like, the top ten.

[flcath]

I have personally interviewed at a larger midsized firm that largely does class action and personal injury (and as a Seton Hall grad you should know it) for a paralegal position. It paid 35k starting and most of their paralegals move into law school at Seton Hall and come back to work. If they were paying only 10k more this wouldn't happen
______________________________________________________________________________________________


Stark & Stark? You can't be serious- that place has a truly awful reputation and I know for a fact they don't pay a dime over 50 K to start. A good friend of mine was at their Princeton office right outta law school and lasted a whopping 8 months- he said it was the worst experience of his life.

Personal injury firms in general are horrific places to work- this guy even started a special "hate site" against his old NJ shitlaw firm and the shitlaw partners took him to court over it:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/1 ... _whet.html

Here's a spot-on description of the average SH grads life:

--LinkRemoved--

Nope. Class action more than PI. And it sounds like a lot of your friends are pussies. And I love how 35k turned to 50k. And the fact that you don't know this law firm right away is kinda proving how shitty your networking was. There are fuckloads of law firms in Newark, too bad you didn't get in on that.

Seton Hall isn't great, but it sure sounds like you were some dumbass who graduated near the bottom of the class and ALSO didn't know how to network. A toxic combination for basically any school outside of like, the top ten.

This a fairly toxic combo within the top 10 as well.

[mom2law]

I also loved how $35,000 immediately went to $50,000 on the first challenge. Do I hear $65,000 anyone?
Some people just can't take responsibility for their own failure.

[reasonable_man]

Maybe he is Scott Bullock, of "Big Debt, Small Law" fame.

He hasn't been heard from in years.... Could it be?

[scammedhard]

You guys are missing the point: there is nothing wrong with a 35K or 50K salary, but these salaries are a huge problem when one considers the 200K-250K COA for Seton Hall. How can anyone be expected to repay back that debt?

And yes, SetonHallStinks probably is not so smart for having gone there, and I suppose that he/she knows that already. Thank you for sharing your experience.

I guess the lesson here is that despite "investing" 200-250K (not considering the opportunity cost as well), one could still be facing a situation of underemployed/unemployment, or where the salary makes repaying back the debt extremely unlikely. Why would anyone want to attend a school like that?

[SetonHallstinks]

Nope. Class action more than PI. And it sounds like a lot of your friends are pussies. And I love how 35k turned to 50k. And the fact that you don't know this law firm right away is kinda proving how shitty your networking was. There are fuckloads of law firms in Newark, too bad you didn't get in on that.

Seton Hall isn't great, but it sure sounds like you were some dumbass who graduated near the bottom of the class and ALSO didn't know how to network. A toxic combination for basically any school outside of like, the top ten.
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It didn't "turn" to 50 K- I said that's what he was making in 2005, so I know it certainly isn't a dime more than that in this economy, and probably well south of that.

Also pretty funny how you have all the answers- LOL at "networking." As if you're the first generation to have had the idea of trying to network to land a legal job, or do an unpaid internship etc. The bottom line is that even at Top 50 schools (which Seton Hall is not), upwards of 55% of the class fail to find full-time employment after graduation:

http://www.tnr.com/article/87251/law-sc ... n?page=0,1

For a school like Seton Hall, the numbers are likely much more gruesome given it's generally poor reputation and location in a hyper-competitive market.

Do you really think the 55% of these unemployed (or underemployed) kids were all slackers? Do you think none of them ever thought of "networking"? Fact is, with the amount of experienced lawyers out there on the breadlines, firms have little to no reason to hire a newbie other than the fact that they can obscenely lowball them on salary.

Seton Hall's COA is astronomical- they're currently at 46 K a year for full-time tution. Add in nothing more than books and student fees and you're easily north of 50 K before paying apt. rent, food, or parking in the grossly overpriced parking garage next to the school.

Here's the infamous Barasso project in Westfield, the #1 "employer" of Seton Hall grads:

--LinkRemoved--

To get a whopping $30 an hour requires one to three years of litigation experience:

--LinkRemoved--

Remember, these gigs pay no health benefits, no paid vacation./sick days, and no guaranteed hours- if the computers go down at 11 am, you're sent home for the day sans pay. I recommend a trip over to this site and a quick interview with the SH grads there- ask them all if they're "losers" who "failed to network." When you leave TLS and start speaking to licensed attorneys, I bet 9 of 10 of them will tell you that law school is a mistake. Ignore their advice at your peril.

I'd love to see the "real" employment stats for SH- I bet over 70% of SH grads are temping in dead-end doc review. I believe SH now even has the temp agencies coming into career services to sign people up, since they know better than anyone that finding a real associate job out of SH is nothing more than a snipe hunt.

[Grizz]

I also loved how $35,000 immediately went to $50,000 on the first challenge. Do I hear $65,000 anyone?
Some people just can't take responsibility for their own failure.

Yeah, and the 45,000 grads who don't get one of the 25,000 or so entry-level jobs just didn't work hard enough or can't take responsibility for their failure.

[reasonable_man]

I also loved how $35,000 immediately went to $50,000 on the first challenge. Do I hear $65,000 anyone?
Some people just can't take responsibility for their own failure.

Yeah, and the 45,000 grads who don't get one of the 25,000 or so entry-level jobs just didn't work hard enough or can't take responsibility for their failure.

Exactly. I wish more 0Ls understood that many (almost half), of the graduating 3Ls in any given class will have no shot at breaking into the profession. Many of them might not want to be attorneys (that is certainly possible), but the fact remains that many young lawyers will have no opportunity to actually become a lawyer (even though they want to).

[SetonHallstinks]

Funny that so many 0 L's feel some special exemption from the laws of supply & demand. At a toilet like SH probably 60%+ of the class will never break into the legal industry period, or will earn such pathetic salaries that they're out of law in under 5 years like myself and most of my classmates.

The thing about law is that the money is literally the only attraction, period. The "work" is extremely boring cut n' paste that's mind-numbingly dull. Then you have all the deadlines and stress, toilet court appearances in front of nasty judges, etc. That's another reason most people are gone in 5 years- if you ain't makin' 100 K+ this shit just isn't even close to worth putting up with.

[MrAnon]

Why is everyone picking on Seton Hall and giving schools like Rutgers (both of them), Temple, NYLS, and Brooklyn a pass? Aren't the job opportunities out of these schools non existent these days? I mean I am hearing about UVA students protesting because they can't find jobs. UVA! You think a Seton Hall student has a CHANCE? Not really. Probably the biggest game going is to run one of these schools and charge students outlandish tuition to attend, knowing full well that most of them will never get real return on the degree. Of course the students continue to pile in with the "It won't happen to me" mentality.

[SetonHallstinks]

No one's giving a "pass" to other embarrassing, overpriced sewers like Brooklyn, 'Bozo and NYLS. All of these schools along with Seton Hall are functionally the same: non-prestigious diploma mills with lax admission standards and scholarship scams, phony placement stats, etc.

Rutgers gets a pass b/c it's less than half the price of the other dumps and actually places better in Biglaw than everyone but maybe 'Bozo (although my ex-GF was magna at 'Bozo (w/ Barnard undergrad) and ended up in doc review and NYC 45 K gutter shitlaw).

Understand that Biglaw out of any of these schools is the longest of long shots and that 60%+ of the class are completely unemployed or slaving away in doc review for $25 an hour or less.

The real problem is that kids think if they miss Biglaw they'll find jobs starting at 65-85 K, which is simply not happening (and never happened, even in 2005). Fact is, most small firms in NYC/NJ aren't paying a dime more than 40 K for a newbie. Decent midlaw firms don't hire entry-level lawyers, esp. in this market.

[mom2law]

"The thing about law is that the money is literally the only attraction, period. The "work" is extremely boring cut n' paste that's mind-numbingly dull. Then you have all the deadlines and stress, toilet court appearances in front of nasty judges, etc. That's another reason most people are gone in 5 years- if you ain't makin' 100 K+ this shit just isn't even close to worth putting up with."

You see, to me the above exemplifies the personal responsibility part of the problem. And before anyone starts mumbling about naive 0L's, let me just say that I'm 60's+, retired, Columbia grad, and satisfied with my life, thank you. The state of NJ, where many people choose to live and work, believe it or not, has 3 law schools, and state agencies and politics are filled with Rutgers and SH grads, including recent ones. Do the math on the tuition and see what it's worth to you; if the numbers don't work, don't go. The overwhelming majority of SH grads are not unhappy with their choice. I know large numbers of extremely happy BLS and Cardozo grads, also. Not everyone is seeking the same thing, and not everyone thinks it's mind-numbingly dull. If you thought you were buying a magic ticket to stardom and wealth, you were stupid and narcissistic. Some young members of my family doing personal injury currently are satisfied and living very well; most have chosen to open their own firms. So, about the "45,000 for 25,000 jobs," create your own job. I've always been entrepreneurial, and I've thrived in tough economies, but you need to have a realistic understanding of what the profession is and what it offers. It's one thing to caution people to look very carefully, but quite another to unleash vitriolic garbage.

Lecture over. Thanks.

[bigkahuna2020]

Rutgers gets a pass b/c it's less than half the price of the other dumps and actually places better in Biglaw than everyone but maybe 'Bozo (although my ex-GF was magna at 'Bozo (w/ Barnard undergrad) and ended up in doc review and NYC 45 K gutter shitlaw).

This says more about you and the people you associate with than anything. Also, who the f cares about a BARNARD undergrad?

Fact is, most small firms in NYC/NJ aren't paying a dime more than 40 K for a newbie. Decent midlaw firms don't hire entry-level lawyers, esp. in this market.

You just explained it. If you strike out at biglaw and want a law firm---start out and work your way up. If they aren't hiring lawyers at the entry level at the firm you want---then work your way out of being entry level.

[Grizz]

So, about the "45,000 for 25,000 jobs," create your own job.

Right out of law school? Laughable.

[MrAnon]

"The thing about law is that the money is literally the only attraction, period. The "work" is extremely boring cut n' paste that's mind-numbingly dull. Then you have all the deadlines and stress, toilet court appearances in front of nasty judges, etc. That's another reason most people are gone in 5 years- if you ain't makin' 100 K+ this shit just isn't even close to worth putting up with."

You see, to me the above exemplifies the personal responsibility part of the problem. And before anyone starts mumbling about naive 0L's, let me just say that I'm 60's+, retired, Columbia grad, and satisfied with my life, thank you. The state of NJ, where many people choose to live and work, believe it or not, has 3 law schools, and state agencies and politics are filled with Rutgers and SH grads, including recent ones. Do the math on the tuition and see what it's worth to you; if the numbers don't work, don't go. The overwhelming majority of SH grads are not unhappy with their choice. I know large numbers of extremely happy BLS and Cardozo grads, also. Not everyone is seeking the same thing, and not everyone thinks it's mind-numbingly dull. If you thought you were buying a magic ticket to stardom and wealth, you were stupid and narcissistic. Some young members of my family doing personal injury currently are satisfied and living very well; most have chosen to open their own firms. So, about the "45,000 for 25,000 jobs," create your own job. I've always been entrepreneurial, and I've thrived in tough economies, but you need to have a realistic understanding of what the profession is and what it offers. It's one thing to caution people to look very carefully, but quite another to unleash vitriolic garbage.

Lecture over. Thanks.

I don't think anyone would dispute that those who graduated from Cardozo or BLS or Seton Hall several decades ago found opportunities. This idea however precipitates a false belief today that the same opportunities are available and they simply are not. As far as opening one's own personal injury firm, probably 1% of law students have such a dream prior to law school or at graduation. However I will agree that people do it out of necessity. Common sense dictates that as the number of people who have done this have proliferated then salaries and opportunities for all personal injury lawyers have declined. As far as NJ politics and government being full of Seton Hall grads, beyond this being an admission that better paying private jobs are unavailable, this also suggests that these grads are heading to the employer in the state with the biggest hiring and layoff problem of any employer around right now. Sure, exceptional people who went to Seton Hall years and years and years ago have risen to prominence--Chris Christie for example, he graduated 23 years ago-- but it takes a special kind of person to do that, and such local superstars dont stick around to go the local toilet school anymore.