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I live in San Francisco and would like to work in the Bay Area, as well, and so was wondering if you could help me with some decisions. Cost of living would be minimal for UC Hastings, not too bad for UC Davis and grotesque for UVA. I would also be paying full sticker at UVA and have a nice scholly from UCH and UCD. Then again, UVA outranks the other two and UCD ranks higher than UC Hastings. Which would you choose??? Any thoughts are appreciated

UVA may well be better for SF than the other two. Hastings is only placing 10% of its classes in large firms. I assume Davis is similar.

But graduating $150,000 in debt is a pretty penny to attend UVA (includes cost of living, tuition) compared to UC Hastings. Cost-benefit analysis says the jump in job prospects coming out of law school might not be worth the extra 100,000 or so I would pay to go to UVA. =/ I got some thinkin to do

I just graduated top 15% from Hastings with 65k debt and no job. It's not the worst of circumstances, but if I had passed on a T14 school for this, I'd be pretty full of regret.

The greater certainty of gainful employment would be worth 100k to me.

thanks for the response. if you don't mind me asking, is there any one particular reason why finding gainful employment has been so difficult or would you blame it on the saturated Bay Area market?

UCH and UCD haven't made any decisions yet, how do you know you would have a nice scholarship from them? Also, spoiler alert: they don't really give good scholarships.

Just go to Berkeley you silly billy. Problem solved.

I would rather take UVA at sticker than go to one of those shitshows.

be(au)ar wrote:thanks for the response. if you don't mind me asking, is there any one particular reason why finding gainful employment has been so difficult or would you blame it on the saturated Bay Area market?

Well it's a combination of things really. I probably am stating the obvious to you as a long-time resident, but the SF Bay Area may well be the most competitive job market in the nation. For all industries. Everybody wants to work here. Most of the big and mid-sized firm jobs are going to T14 graduates from all across the country. And small-firm jobs can be equally competitive... when I worked at a small firm in Oakland, we regularly got resumes from big-law castoffs that had attended T14 schools. These people had either been no-offered after their SA or had been laid off during the recession.

So the job market here is super competitive, and I think you'd be in a better position with a T14 degree. These firms care about ties to California, which you can easily explain in your interviews.

There are personal factors which have hindered me as well. I'm not a California native. I moved here shortly before starting law school. So I don't have ties or personal connections in this job market. That's huge.. a lot more important than I realized before law school. We tend to think of America as a land of opportunity, but in reality its more about cronyism and corruption. I'm stuck now where I have a degree in a state with no connections, and I cannot return to where I grew up with a U of Cali degree without being branded a hippie communist. I'll just stick it out in Cali till I find something.

be(au)ar wrote:But graduating $150,000 in debt is a pretty penny to attend UVA (includes cost of living, tuition) compared to UC Hastings. Cost-benefit analysis says the jump in job prospects coming out of law school might not be worth the extra 100,000 or so I would pay to go to UVA. =/ I got some thinkin to do

FYI, full COA at UVA is a lot more than $150k. Non-discounted total COA is $264,000. That said, I still think it's a better option that Hastings or Davis, but it's something to consider.

rickgrimes69 wrote:

be(au)ar wrote:But graduating $150,000 in debt is a pretty penny to attend UVA (includes cost of living, tuition) compared to UC Hastings. Cost-benefit analysis says the jump in job prospects coming out of law school might not be worth the extra 100,000 or so I would pay to go to UVA. =/ I got some thinkin to do

FYI, full COA at UVA is a lot more than $150k. Non-discounted total COA is $264,000. That said, I still think it's a better option that Hastings or Davis, but it's something to consider.

+ 1. Plus monthly repayment of the loan about $ 3000 per month

It depends on how badly OP wants to be a lawyer with a decent salary. Yes, paying off that kind of debt is a huge consideration. But if you want this career, it may be necessary.

The number of UVA students failing to secure full-time legal employment is probably around 10-20%. At Hastings/Davis, it is probably more like 50-60%.

You really should retake. These are all objectively depressing. I am sorry.

Hastings gives solid scholly. They offered 100k after my June retake last year

Everyone needs to remember that a significant amount of UVA graduates do not end up with positive outcomes.

OP, if you can attend Hastings for less than $50K total debt, you should strongly consider it over paying full price for UVA. You should also consider Private Messaging BruceWayne concerning UVA as well.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:Everyone needs to remember that a significant amount of UVA graduates do not end up with positive outcomes.

OP, if you can attend Hastings for less than $50K total debt, you should strongly consider it over paying full price for UVA. You should also consider Private Messaging BruceWayne concerning UVA as well.

No one attends Hastings for less than 50K debt unless they are contributing their own money. A full ride can still put someone 60-80K in debt in the Bay area.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:Everyone needs to remember that a significant amount of UVA graduates do not end up with positive outcomes.

Anything to back this up?

97.8% of the class of 2011 are employed in jobs requiring a JD.

98.6% are employed full-time in long-term positions.

84.3% are employed by firms, clerking or working for the government.

2 (not two percent, 2 graduates) are seeking employment.

So where does the significant amount come from?

Oh okay. I thought when the OP said that their cost of living would be minimal at Hastings, that they meant it would be lower than the suggested rates. Nevertheless, Hastings for ~$70k isn't extraordinarily unreasonable if the only other option is UVA for ~$270k.

To the other poster, you do realize that UVA hires a chunk of its graduates, right? Those graduates are counted as full time, long term, JD required jobs. Also, relax. UVA isn't a bad school.

albanach wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:Everyone needs to remember that a significant amount of UVA graduates do not end up with positive outcomes.

Anything to back this up?

97.8% of the class of 2011 are employed in jobs requiring a JD.

98.6% are employed full-time in long-term positions.

84.3% are employed by firms, clerking or working for the government.

2 (not two percent, 2 graduates) are seeking employment.

So where does the significant amount come from?

Many of those aren't positive outcomes, especially the firm jobs that aren't with big firms. 18 people were employed by firms smaller than 26 attorneys, with another 11 employed in the 26-50 attorney band. Most importantly, 64 out of 377 grads were employed by the school nine months after graduation.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:Oh okay. I thought when the OP said that their cost of living would be minimal at Hastings, that they meant it would be lower than the suggested rates. Nevertheless, Hastings for ~$70k isn't extraordinarily unreasonable if the only other option is UVA for ~$270k.

I think I overlooked that part of the OP, so you might be right. The bigger problem is that Hastings doesn't give any full rides. And only 8.7% of students are even on a half scholarship.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... 0U3c#gid=0

Tiago Splitter wrote: Many of those aren't positive outcomes, especially the firm jobs that aren't with big firms. 18 people were employed by firms smaller than 26 attorneys, with another 11 employed in the 26-50 attorney band. Most importantly, 64 out of 377 grads were employed by the school nine months after graduation.

Starting with the last point first, I can't think of anyone who took a fellowship that would quit it within nine months.

Let's think about it - 17% of graduates got a fellowship. 7% more than at the somewhat more prestigious NYU. At many other schools they would be unemployed. Instead their school stood by them and now they'll be getting year of solid legal experience. I suspect the majority will be retained permanently by their current employer. For those that are not, they at least enter a difficult job market with some experience behind them.

Looking at your comment on small firms (ignoring that several of those are probably boutiques paying market, and that at NYU 14% of 2011 grads are with small firms compared to 10% at UVA) you still have almost 75% of the class in the sort of positions that folk here seem to believe are the only successful outcomes from law school - that is big firm, clerking or with the government.

In this economy, I'd say UVA is a pretty good place to be right now.

albanach wrote:97.8% of [UVA's] class of 2011 are employed in jobs requiring a JD

Virginia's a great school, but as others have pointed out, that figure is an egregious misrepresentation of the outcomes for the Class of 2011. As some other dude suggested to the OP, you may want to ask BruceWayne, an upperclassman in Charlottesville, for a sober assessment of your school's placement in this shitty economy.

I'm not saying UVA is a terrible choice, just that 95% of the class being employed in full time long term JD required positions doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people who ended up in what most would not consider a positive outcome. You need only look at past data to see that working at small firms isn't typically desired by UVA grads. From 7 to 64 "fellowships" in just three short years.

http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/career/stats.htm

EDIT: Yes, I just said "doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people who ended up in what most would not consider a positive outcome." Triple negative FTW

I'm not sure of the graph was made using old figures.

Adding the ABA reported employment stats + the number of clerkships reported by UVA careers gets the figure for 50+ firms plus clerkships to 59% of 2011 graduates. Going by your graph, that's the seventh highest in the country.

That leaves 40% of the class with bad outcomes. That's a huge gamble if you are looking at paying $270k.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:That leaves 40% of the class with bad outcomes. That's a huge gamble if you are looking at paying $270k.

if it's that bad at UVA, there's hardly a law school in America worth attending. Can I change my poll answer to "NONE"?