Top Law Schools

I'm currently in at the following schools and looking to ultimately work in a big city with a preference for the Los Angeles area. I am, however, not tied down to having to coming back to LA. I'm sports-oriented and like outdoor activities. I will also be bringing two large dogs with me to law school. These are the offers I have thus far:

Univ. of Arizona 32k/yr after scholly
Univ. of Houston 38k tuition w/ scholly pending
Univ. of Cincinnati 15k/yr after scholly if I live in Northern Kentucky for the GMR
Univ. of Oregon 22k/yr after scholly

I just wanted to get insight from others who might be familiar with these schools. My greatest concern is opportunities after school and not getting pigeon-holed into a certain region.

None of these schools will place you in LA. Re-apply next year to get into an LA-based school, or determine which geographic area you would like to live in after law school. Also, all of these tuitions seem rather high for the school. I would wait to see what all of your scholarships look like and then try to negotiate scholarships at each school.

Agreed - these are all regional schools. If you want to work in Phoenix/Houston/Cincy/Portland you can probably get there from those schools, but if your heart is set on LA reapply next cycle.

To clarify, I am not tied down to having to come back to LA.

They're all regional schools, but lettuce be real here, I'm sure top-few% at Arizona would have little or no problem finding a gig in LA. That said, don't go to law school counting on being in the top-anything%.

Of these choices, U of A is probably your best option, but as others have said you are going to have to be in the very top of your class to get a job in LA upon graduation. Based on these schools, you should be able to get into Loyola in LA, which won't necessarily give you amazing chances at LA, but will probably provide about as good chances as the schools you mentioned will in their respective regional markets.

SBL wrote:They're all regional schools, but lettuce be real here, I'm sure top-few% at Arizona would have little or no problem finding a gig in LA. That said, don't go to law school counting on being in the top-anything%.

There was at least one LA offer to ASU and UA both. I don't think either of them took it.

You need to read this thread and reconsider

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=178938

FWIW, my best friend is a 3L at UofA, and apparently only 13 people in his class have secured jobs. That number may have gone up very slightly in the last month, and a lot of small firms in AZ don't hire until after bar passage, but still that number is scarily low IMO.

Don't know much about the other three, but the legal market in AZ is pretty rough right now and AZ JDs aren't very portable - in LA or anywhere else for that matter - so you might want to keep that in mind when making your decision.