CU Boulder JD to New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming? Forum

[kdsunday]

Reading up on what some others have posted, the Colorado legal market can be a tough nut to crack without ties. Given that I don't any ties other than a desire to establish myself in that area of the country, could anyone please comment on the mobility of a Colorado law degree into the markets of Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona? Understand, of course, that my first state of choice for practice would be Colorado, but I'm not averse at all to these other states.

[CanadianWolf]

For Arizona, ASU or University of Arizona. For Wyoming, University of Wyoming. For New Mexico, the University of New Mexico. For Colorado, the University of Colorado or the University of Denver.

[BeautifulSW]

Basically true but U Colorado has a solid reputation in N. Mex. so the degree should sell well here. Question is whether any N.Mex. job will pay enough to service the debt you would incur in Boulder.

[CanadianWolf]

Even without any ties to New Mexico ?

[skers]

Wyoming is a very insular market.

[BeautifulSW]

Ties help. no doubt, but if you are willing to start your legal career in the more remote parts of the state, ties aren't absolutely necessary. Of course, once you've gotten that DA job in Roswell and hung in there for a couple of years, you will have ties.

I have no personal experience with what passes for N. Mex. Big Law (it isn't "big" by anyone else's standards) but I don't think those firms would reject an applicant out of hand from U. Colorado if the applicant had a good class rank, say, top 10%. They ARE picky, though...the major Albuquerque firms usually won't talk to any UNM grad under the Top Ten.

[skers]

My impression is that N. Mex is also incredibly insular and it's really hard to get a job as someone who isn't both from New Mexico and a UNM grad.

[BeautifulSW]

Impression based on what? If you are talking about the large Albuquerque/Santa Fe firms, they ARE picky but any T14 grad would have a solid shot I should think, maybe a better shot than a UNM grad (other than the Top Three or so). Outside that rarefied atmosphere, we see plenty of out of state grads coming here and finding work. The two schools I see most often are Denver University and Texas Tech but I've known folks from places as distant and obscure as Gonzaga, Vermont and U. Wisconsin. Heck, I shared office space with a fellow from a California CBE school once and he's certainly not the only one.

Of the T14ers, the most common by far is Georgetown but Harvard and Columbia are not unknown to me.

Ties DO help in landing the first law job but once you're in, you're in. The biggest problem isn't our alleged insularity but the fact that the pay here is so low.