I know about half a dozen Crooklyn alums from my days in the sewers of personal injury/doc review in NYC.What are the few alums you know doing? I would advise against both schools, especially if you don't know what you want to be a lawyer for. Its way too expensive to be setting off for law school when you dont have a clear idea why you are going.
One got canned about 2 yrs ago from a small plaintiff's personal injury firm that closed up shop (as I've said before, the little "Joe Schmoe Esq." places that handled fender benders, whiplash & such are closing down left & right- they keep making the "threshold law" more anti-plaintiff each year:
http://www.articlesbase.com/personal-in ... 96684.html
The kid from the PI shop had 6 yrs experience and lots of trials under his belt, but best he could score w/ his resume was 60 K a year at shithole "firm" Lester Schwab (we all call it Lester Slob since they crank out very sloppy work - it's a real TTT boiler room). Last time we spoke he was bartending over at Rue-B in the East Village, and has no plans to ever return to law. On a good Saturday night he can make $400 cash at the bar, so why would he want to churn shitpaper 12 hours a day at some ID mill for what works out to about $20 an hour? He also does a few court appearances a week as a per diem for another shitlaw firm, which he is always chasing to get paid for (a very common per diem problem. I myself made the mistake of covering a traffic court appearance in NJ for a solo two weeks ago, and just found out my $250 check bounced- now dood is not answering his phone. Oh well.
Another very good friend of mine is an 2006 Crooklyn alum. He has done nothing but doc review since graduation, as almost no permanent jobs are available that would pay the debt load he has (roughly 90 K). He has been scraping by on what's left of doc review and is thinking of going back to school for graphic design (he was an Ivy League undergrad, and a "real Ivy" too, not Cornell). He hopes to milk some of those connections and get a job as a web developer or something like that.
Yet another Brooklyn alum was similar to me: worked doc review for 2 years, then did a 2 year stint at a gutter insurance defense dump which paid a whopping 45 K a year. Then that firm folded up and he went back to doc review. Now he's working w/ a family friend on L.I. who has a shitlaw solo shop doing DWI defense and other garbage. He hates it and now his wife is pregnant, so he may just give up and work for his dad who owns a business resurfacing flat roofs (that rubberized coating shit). Trouble is that his father is still "proud" of his TTT joke JD, and thinks there are pots of gold in law yet to come if only he "pays his dues." But the dood got out in 2005 so I think he's pretty much all paid up by now. Better to pick up a tar mop and start learning that trade, which is in high demand, unlike a laughable "JD" from Brooklyn.
I know a gal who got out in I think 2003 who works in-house at an insurance company and does OK- I think around 75 K. But that type of cut n' paste crap gets old really fast, and 75 K is pretty much top whack for dummy insurance defense work. Understand that there is no "partnership track" at most mom n' pop ID mills. Most of the partners are older guys who had or have family connections at a large carrier like State Farm or Liberty Mutual, and get files that way. There's really no "new" business to get since most small carriers have long since been gobbled up & merged into the big boyz like Geico, Allstate, Progressive, etc. Used to be you could sometimes "steal" enough files from certain adjusters you got friendly with and go solo that way. Not anymore. All "counsel" (if that's what you want to call ID lol) decisions are made at corporate level, and more & more of this refuse is being done in-house where you only need about 2 lawyers and 3000 paralegals to cut n' paste the crap together. I interviewed for in-house at Allstate in NJ and was offered a whopping 42 K a year, and that's with almost 2 yrs experience (including 2 jury trials first chair) on plaintiff's side under me belt.
And for the clowns who don't believe my stories about King's Civil and the absolute 3rd world toilet that practicing there is, just take a walk over to 141 Livingston Street (about 3 blocks from Crookyn Law) and ask some of the lawyers there whether law school is a good idea. Ask them if they recommend law school as a wise "career" move. As I've said, the "ten cent tour" of that place would scare anyone with half a brain away from all the NY area TTT's.
