Seton Hall/St. Johns/RU-Newark/Villanova Forum

[20130312]

Probably some terrible advice, but I'm not sure because it's tl;dr.

HE'S BACK!

[sadsituationJD]

Even if you aren't able to get into BigLaw, your debt load will be manageable as long as you are able to keep your scholarship throughout the 3 years.

But why have a "debt load" at all when the only goal is to simply attend an ABA-accredited school to get a ticket to the bar exam? CUNY will serve that purpose every bit as well as St John's, and will probably do so for free (or nearly free). And this "even if you don't get into Biglaw" is really funny. It should read: WHEN you don't get into Biglaw. Getting proper Biglaw from any of the schools OP is considering is as unlikely as winning the Powerball lotto. If you're considering ANY of those schools, get Biglaw off your mind right now. It is so unlikely it shouldn't even factor into one's decision making.

Gotta ROTFL at this St John's "alumni network" nonsense. Sure kids, just phone up those associates at Cole Porter or whatever and say "Howdy, I'd like to join your BK practice group, I also went to St John's BTW. When do I start? Rumor is Sears Roebuck is going under, lets roll up our sleeves and get started boyz."

If you can get CUNY for free w/ no stips, take it and don't look back. Debt sucks.

[stillwater]

OP—I started a similar thread and all I can say is don't let these people deter you from going to law school if that's what you really want to do with your life. The best thing you can do is make a well-informed decision knowing full well that these schools will not get you into BigLaw unless you're at the top or near the top of the class, and even then in no way is it guaranteed. No matter what, make sure you work HAM at any place you decide to go. Only you know your financial situation well enough to know what you can manage in terms of your debt load and the kinds of risks you can take in accepting a seat at one school over the other.

Personally, if you want to try your hand at NYC I would take the large scholly at St. John's, negotiate that stipulation down as much as possible, work your ass off and be prepared to drop out if you lose the scholly and/or aren't in the top 40% of your class. You're taking a risk, but St. John's has a huge alumni base in many mid-level and even large firms in NYC that are very loyal to those who do well at St. John's. For example, if you take a look at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, a mid-size NLJ250 firm in Manhattan that starts its associates at $160k/year, you will find a solid amount of St. John's grads working in the bankruptcy practice group. It's all about networking and working very hard to find niches like the one I described, but they do exist. Even if you aren't able to get into BigLaw, your debt load will be manageable as long as you are able to keep your scholarship throughout the 3 years.

If you don't mind being outside of NYC, Rutgers is also a good option. Their grads tend to do very well and you'd be taking a much lower risk attending there than at St. John's. However, know that the NYC jobs will be harder to come by as a Rutgers grad than as a St. John's grad, but they do still exist (there are even a couple of Rutgers grads at Curtis, too). It's a trade-off and only you can decide if it is worth it or not.

I personally don't think anyone should be attending a school that isn't T14 at sticker price, so for me that would eliminate American and Cardozo. They are certainly good schools, but not worth going into over $200k of debt for imho.

Oh god, the rainbows and cotton-candy apologist for high debt and no jobs.

People are aware its not 2007 right?

[iceicebaby]

Lol... I'm gonna bow out on this hereafter since I've learned my lesson that it's a bad idea to combat bitter people on TLS that try to convince everyone that didn't score a 165+ on the LSAT to avoid law school. OP— do what you want to do. Just make sure that you read up on it and make an informed decision knowing that law school is not a golden ticket. Avoid debt the best you can, but don't sacrifice what you want to do out of fear or current market speculation/fluctuations. You get one life to live and if you want to be a lawyer, you gotta go after it. For me, it's better to try and fail than to sit cowering in a corner wondering how your life could be better or different. If it costs me money in the process, then so be it. Just know what you're getting yourself into, work hard and stick by your decision no matter what you decide to do.

/typical "caveat emptor" and "carpe diem" response

InGoodFaith— good to be back... glad to see they changed their policy on the use of "homophobic language" in light of my ban

[JCFindley]

Even if you aren't able to get into BigLaw, your debt load will be manageable as long as you are able to keep your scholarship throughout the 3 years.

Getting proper Biglaw from any of the schools OP is considering is as unlikely as winning the Powerball lotto. If you're considering ANY of those schools, get Biglaw off your mind right now. It is so unlikely it shouldn't even factor into one's decision making.



If you can get CUNY for free w/ no stips, take it and don't look back. Debt sucks.

Technically, the odds of winning the big money Powerball are 1/80,089,128 while the odds of winning anything are 1/35.

So, if any one of these schools has ever place on associate in big law then the odds are considerably better than winning the lotto outright.

Now, if you meant the 1/35 chance of winning anything that is the top 2.86% of any class and actually more closely matches the stats of big law coming from these schools.

Not saying that ~3% would be a good chance, but it is a far cry from the odds of actually winning the 200,000,000 that I may well win tomorrow.

[sadsituationJD]

Personally, if you want to try your hand at NYC I would take the large scholly at St. John's, negotiate that stipulation down as much as possible, work your ass off and be prepared to drop out if you lose the scholly and/or aren't in the top 40% of your class.

Why go thru all this "Top 40% or dropping out" nonsense when probably CUNY or Pace or some other TTTTToilet would give OP a full ride? Or if you want nice weather go to some TTTT in Florida or Cali that will give a full ride. Once you get below Fordham level in NYC, the rest of these also-ran dumps are all pretty much fungible. No one in shitlaw is going to care anything about where you went to school anyway so long as you're admitted and can be in the basement of Bronx Civil at 9 am tomorrow to answer calendar call and stip out some boilerplate discovery motion for a trip n' fall case.

Pretty sad how many people on here refuse to face reality, esp. given the deluge of mainstream media articles lately which cite lawschool as a complete waste of time & money which more often than not leads to chronic un/under employment.

[Azmatt]

I guess Chicago is back in the running. 30k/year from Kent. Not sure how I feel about that though, but it's much more affordable.