Top Law Schools

Hi,

I'm currently an east coaster looking to settle out west (at least eventually) and I'm not sure where to go. Places I'm considering are Loyola, UCI, Hastings, American, Fordham, and Cardozo. I'm still waiting to hear from USC and Davis, but I doubt I'll get in. Any advice is helpful.

thank you so much.

Given that you want West Coast, only go to a school on the West Coast. Your other options won't get you there.

Edit: Voted UCI.

nthakker wrote:Hi,

I'm currently an east coaster looking to settle out west (at least eventually) and I'm not sure where to go. Places I'm considering are Loyola, UCI, Hastings, American, Fordham, and Cardozo. I'm still waiting to hear from USC and Davis, but I doubt I'll get in. Any advice is helpful.

thank you so much.

my opinion. if you really want west coast getting out there to build connections is going to be key. that siad you don't have a lot of options in your pool there.

West
Loyola isn't worth the money.
UCI is a gamble as its too new to tell what kind of prospects they really offer.
Hastings is an established school, which I personally hate. High cost of living, but it is certianly respected in the SF area.

East:
American - never go here.
Fordham - worth it if you want to stay on the east coast, not such great prospects out west though.
Cardozo - see Fordham, but then imagine lower prospects on the west coast.

If you get into either Davis or USC those might be worth it, but if that's unlikely you don't have great prospects here for what you want. What type of law are you looking to break into on the west coast?

Also, do you only want California? If you were open to OR or WA, I would've applied to UO, UW, and L&C if I were you.

I applied to UW, still waiting to hear. I'm pretty open as far as what I want to practice, mid-size firm would be ideal, and I'm interested in IP. Thanks so much for all the advice, any more is always welcome.

nthakker wrote:I applied to UW, still waiting to hear. I'm pretty open as far as what I want to practice, mid-size firm would be ideal, and I'm interested in IP. Thanks so much for all the advice, any more is always welcome.

I'd say
1) Hastings
2) UCI

but pretty much everything else isn't going to work out with your career placement/goals.

travman90 wrote:

nthakker wrote:I applied to UW, still waiting to hear. I'm pretty open as far as what I want to practice, mid-size firm would be ideal, and I'm interested in IP. Thanks so much for all the advice, any more is always welcome.

I'd say
1) Hastings
2) UCI

but pretty much everything else isn't going to work out with your career placement/goals.

Pretty much agreed. Which one of the UCs gave you more money? R
That school would be my pick.

Hastings hasn't given me any money, UCI gave me $20k/year. Thank you so much!

top30man wrote:

travman90 wrote:

nthakker wrote:I applied to UW, still waiting to hear. I'm pretty open as far as what I want to practice, mid-size firm would be ideal, and I'm interested in IP. Thanks so much for all the advice, any more is always welcome.

I'd say
1) Hastings
2) UCI

but pretty much everything else isn't going to work out with your career placement/goals.

Pretty much agreed. Which one of the UCs gave you more money? R
That school would be my pick.

nthakker wrote:Hastings hasn't given me any money, UCI gave me $20k/year. Thank you so much!

top30man wrote:

travman90 wrote:

nthakker wrote:I applied to UW, still waiting to hear. I'm pretty open as far as what I want to practice, mid-size firm would be ideal, and I'm interested in IP. Thanks so much for all the advice, any more is always welcome.

I'd say
1) Hastings
2) UCI

but pretty much everything else isn't going to work out with your career placement/goals.

Pretty much agreed. Which one of the UCs gave you more money? R
That school would be my pick.

Pretty much agreed, except where on the west coast do you want to live. NorCal and SoCal are so different, the mere fact that they are on the same ocean can't be the whole story. SoCal=UCI/USC; NorCal=Hastings/Davis.

And those east coast schools are worthless if you want to live on the west coast. Rule them out.

You applied to Loyola, so I'm a little confused as to why you didn't apply to USD. You may have got more money and I'm of the opinion that USD>Loyola.

Yeah, I'm not really sure why I didn't apply to USD either -- I applied to 24 schools so I guess I just got bored after a while. I'm pretty open as to where I move, I don't have a strong preference between Norcal and Socal. Thanks, everyone.

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coldpixies wrote:I'm surprised the polls are tipped towards UCI's favor; with your information/goals in mind, I'd definitely go with Hastings. With no ties/connections to the west coast, you're going to want to build it up during your 3 years in law school and Hasting's alumni network is extensive, plus its strong reputation in NorCal is going to help you out tremendously come time for interviews. UCI, on the other, is too new like one poster previously mentioned and therefore too much of a gamble without any real alumni network/ties.

Hastings gave OP $0. UCI gave OP $20k/year. That's the difference.

OP: are you confident you won't get money at Hastings or have you simply not received your financial aid info yet?

I'm certain I didn't get any merit award from Hastings; I haven't heard about need-based award from any of my schools yet.

This is probably a stupid question, but how much is a strong alum network worth? I figure at UCI, since they're so new and have a small class, the career services office will work twice as hard to make sure students get jobs if only to impress USNWR -- am I just being naive?

Thanks!