Top Law Schools

Given the talk in the last couple days that has popped up surrounding USC $$$ versus higher ranked schools, I'm curious to get some TLS wisdom concerning my own situation.

I'm a Californian, and would like to work Biglaw after graduation. Ideally, I'd prefer to work in the SF/Bay Area, but would settle for LA or even DC (if I could land on job there).

With that, I've narrowed my list down to my five best suspects--Berkeley (sticker), NYU (sticker), Virginia (75K) and USC (105K).

I've got ties to the Bay Area. Is the 'home court advantage' at Boalt worth the sticker cost?

Any words of wisdom are appreciated. Thanks!

Have you applied for the Berkeley Law Matching Scholarship (with UVA's offer)?

Bronck wrote:Have you applied for the Berkeley Law Matching Scholarship (with UVA's offer)?

Yes. I am still waiting to hear back, though I've been told from others that I should not expect to receive a matching offer.

This is a pretty useless discussion until you negotiate scholarship money from Berkeley and/or NYU. Make sure to negotiate with both since you can leverage UVA against NYU and Berkeley and if NYU gives you a lot of $ you can turn around and use that against Berkeley.

I think Berkeley is the ideal, but I'm not sure if it's worth $75k over UVA.

Thanks Doorkeeper! I'm waiting to hear back from both NYU and Berkeley on $. For the purposes of this thread, I am working under the assumption (one that I think is incredibly likely) that I will receive money from neither school.

If the money gets close, Berkeley is the fairly obvious choice. Otherwise, Enjoy UVA. T-14 security >30K.