gregfootball2001 wrote:Where do you want to practice?
From Florida. FL, GA and NY ties. Recently deceased father started career in Atlanta and remained member of GA Bar which by mentioning in my essay probably won me the in-state tuition equalization scholarship +5k disc. He came with NYU tax LLM to make a career there also in a lousy economy/ recession of 1971. There are federal agencies in both Atl and Mia. Slightly lower cost of living and higher quality of life prob in atlanta. Another factor (minor and wishful thinking) is that UGA has placed kids as SCOTUS clerks almost every year for the past decade (mostly with Thomas but sometimes Kennedy and once Souter, I believe) The NYTimes calls UGA #2 best deal (following #1 UT-Austin) in law ed today.
Although DC is competitive I hear, UGA, Wake, UM have done their best to show off their alumni contacts there, and trotted out all the "star" professors and talked up the work practice off term option in DC in fields that interest me such as international law of treaties, hr/environ/UN, and in'l arbitration. Would a good strategy at this point is to base a decision on faculty I'd be interested in working with? I am a pragmatic idealist and I know there are many opportunities for those who hustle and have language skills.
Since I'm gay and not a true Georgian, but internationalist with time in New England, Georgia and FL, I'm trying get a feel for lifestyle and quality-of-life factors because I don't want to commit social suicide by moving to Winston Salem or Athens...
But they seem great for a weekend.
Miami is significantly cheaper. I was turned off Wake by the faith and football vibe and conservative Carolina bankers parents I met at accepted students weekend but when I did my own scouting, I met two nice girls from WPB and Miami on Law and Policy Journal and the OutLaw president who shared a much more realistic perspective outside the tour and talked up the curriculum and teaching quality. One of the two girls had transfered from UMiami and said the quality of instruction and number of required courses (a three-term legal writing requirement) are testament to her belief she is getting a much higher quality education at Wake than Miami.
By the way, worth a mention: a-la-Yale, U of GA doesn't give grades in all its first semester 1L classes, only in 2 out of the 5:
"The fall semester of the first year of study at Georgia Law will consist entirely of required courses: Civil Procedure I, Contracts & Sales, Criminal Law, Legal Research & Writing, and Torts. First year students will receive a fall semester final grade in Civil Procedure I and Criminal Law. Contracts & Sales, Legal Research & Writing, and Torts are year-long in length and students will receive a final grade at the end of the spring semester."
The other three do give a "practice" exam that is worth 1/3 of your final grade. It would seem this should be a major selling point, but I seem to have been the only one aware of it and raised a question about it ( to UGa's credit for being "innovative" and experimenting to some degree, I believe, and felt like I was plugging UGA for a second) but the deans seemed reluctant to discuss it since they never even brought it up. The only drawback of this might be if one were to attempt an ED transfer, but I guess profs writing recs could just estimate your grade based on Dec. exam performance even if it doesn't result in a transcript letter grade. Also 80% of the class is from GA. The profs ALL call students by Mr. or Ms. Very traditional. And you can be cold-called Socratic Method at any time. Sections are 63-68 students.
By contrast, Wake sections are capped at 45 students. Legal Writing 20-25. Students are broken into sections A,B, C, D, and notified in advance when their "team" is on call by the prof. in a watered-down Socratic Method. Are these kinder, gentler aspects of legal education worth 3k more a year? Giving up GA ties I might restore? Potentially more down-to-earth social life in Athens (an hour from Atlanta). Beautiful courtroom and campus, but could anyone speak to the presence of gay, Liberal Christian or Jewish life presence on either campus? General level of tolerance? Like bringing a guy to the Barristers' Ball at either school??
Sorry for the rant. I'm really back and forth on this Wake, Georgia or neither question... Thanks.