Public Interest / immigration law Forum

[dmenendez]

I am interested in applying to law school in about 2-3 years but was wondering whether anyone has advice concerning good public interest and/or immigration law programs/clinics. I am open to studying pretty much anywhere geographically. I have been looking at Vanderbilt, Emory, Northwestern and USC, but it appears that other schools such as Northeastern and CUNY also have very strong public interest programs, any help is much appreciated, thanks!

[Taffybear2]

Specialty rankings like public interest and immigration don't matter all that much. You will want to go to the best law school you can get into or what is best based on a cost/benefit analysis and what region of the country you want to practice in. You won't really know what schools you will be able to get into until you have taken the LSAT. So it's great to start checking out schools and doing research but your options will be closely decided based on what your LSAT/GPA combination is. I would suggest any sort of internships or work experience in those fields would be beneficial. I've learned that immigration law is incredibly depressing:(

[sgtgrumbles]

Are you in college right now? Spend the next two to three years making sure your GPA is as close to 4.0 as possible. Make sure you have solid activities and leadership experience, too, but be aware that law school admissions is unfortunately almost entirely a numbers game.

Also, as the previous poster said, specialty rankings are pretty much irrelevant. Some schools have reputations for having strong support for public interest students, but you'll be able to pursue that work (and immigration law) at any of them.

You have plenty of time to perform research into specific schools in the future. In the meantime keep your GPA high, understand the importance of the LSAT, and build leadership experience to describe in your resume and/or personal statement down the line.