Is NY law School (www.nyls.edu) a good school? Tier 1,2,3 ?? Forum

[juanamayo]

I can't find it on any ranking, but it certainly is very expensive (40K /year). A friend of mine said it is good but how come it isn't anywhere I have researched???

[Ken]

Within the law school tiers the national law schools are those that both recruit and send their graduates around the nation. Examples include Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan. The next sub-category within the law school tiers are the law schools within the top 15-25 such as UCLA, Vanderbilt, Texas, very strong schools but their reach and strength of employment only extends a few states beyond their own.

The next set of law school tiers would be those in the first tier (as determined by US News Law School rankings). The first tier are the top 50 law schools. The next group within the law school tiers are the tier 2 law schools, or the top 50-100. Exclusive profiles of all of the top 100 law schools and those within the 1st and 2nd law school tiers can be found at http://www.top-law-schools.com/rankings.html.

New York Law School is a tier 3 law school that has a regional focus (at least it is in a good region to practice law in). I would not consider New York Law School unless you want to practice in New York. The following link is from my father's website and it breaks down the tier 3 law schools into their actual relative standings amongst other law schools. You will find that New York Law School is at the lower level of tier 3 law schools.

http://www.prelawhandbook.com/law_schoo ... third_tier

[juanamayo]

You father has a very good web site. The yellow background makes it a little difficult to read.

[Ken]

Hi,

Thanks for the compliment to my father. His site is full of excellent content but he has designed it himself and I will pass along your feedback for I too feel that the yellow background color makes it hard to read. The section on rankings contains some unique attributes which are excellent, such as ranking the Tier 3 and 4 law schools and also providing relative rankings of selectivity (such as how hard a law school entering GPA and LSAT score are in relation to other schools), thereby allowing students to focus on schools that prioritize the LSAT over GPA and vice-versa.

Best regards,

Ken

[Corsair]

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[Ribbit]

Your father's website is one of the best resources I have found for specific, statistical information. I would also recommend to him to change the design a bit to make for easier reading. It would be unfortunate for someone to miss out on all the great information just because they were turned off a little by the bright yellow background.

[colleenmm]

A professor told me that New York Law School is generally more liberal in its focus than many other law schools. This could be a good thing for you or not.

[dwharris2]

It does seem to be quite liberal (for me a plus). The faculty looks very accomplished, both academically and professionally. This is the first school I've been admitted to (and maybe the last). I'd welcome any opinions or thoughts others have.
David

[BkGirl22]

Does anyone know this schools precise ranking against other tier 3 schools, such as Hofstra and Pace Law?

[mc5284]

The link that was added by Ken seems to have a ranking of the schools, I would check that out. I also was accepted to NYLS and am thinking of attending. Any word on job prospects after graduation?

[Georgetown51]

Anecdotal, but my good friend is graduating from NYL this year and has locked up a big law job making 160+ in NY. Granted he is currently #3 in his class, but should let you know that you have the potential to get a big job out of there.

[BkGirl22]

Georetown, what area of law did your friend get into?

[Oklahoma Mike]

Does anyone know this schools precise ranking against other tier 3 schools, such as Hofstra and Pace Law?

Well, according to the US News survey results, reputation wise Hofstra is just ahead of NY Law which is just ahead of Pace.
In terms of placement into biglaw jobs, according to the Law Firm Addict blogs, it seems over the last couple of years NY Law is better at placing people into Vault100 firms, with Hofstra and Pace being about equivalent. The difference is not huge though, and you'll have to be at the very top of your class to get a job like that. In 2002 the 3% of NY Law 2Ls had summer associate gigs with Vault100 firms, while 2.3% of Pace 2Ls did and 1.8% of Hofstra 2Ls did. It looks like the trend of NY Law doing better is continuing for this summer- and they are the only of the three schools to have had any 2Ls in vault5 firms.


I think NY Law gives the best opportunities of the three- but I'd be very hesitant to pay sticker price at any of them. the chance of getting a biglaw job are very small- and most of the jobs students do get are going to make it very hard to pay off large student loans.

[BkGirl22]

Ye Im gonna end up going to nyls. I think I will be okay in law school. Im pretty driven, I think if I focus everything on succeeding I will be fine. I have always been interested in project finance within the corporate law field. I highly enjoy the type of work involved not just cause of the potential salary, which of course is a perk. Regardless, I would have to work beyond hard to be top 5% or better in my class.
I still dont undertstand how the curving works in law school.

[Oklahoma Mike]

I still dont undertstand how the curving works in law school.

It depends on the school. Most curve to somewhere between a C+ and a B+
So, if your school curves to a C+, then it's basically like the 150 for the LSAT- most of the grades in a class will cluster tightly around that number. A small amount will get Ds, a very small amount fail the class. A small amount will get Bs, and a very small amount will get As.
So, it's possible to have a GPA bellow 3.5 at some schools and be in the top 10% of the class.
Basically, all that really matters is that you do better than everyone else.

[BkGirl22]

Oh ok. Thanks so much for that info.

[jlkrantz]

I am giving consideration to these three schools for admission for next year, I have been accepted to Pace and I am waiting to hear from Hofstra and New York Law. If anybody could help me out I am curious to know what the difference in starting salaries for post-graduate students for each of these schools.

Also regarding Pace, is this insitution concentrate mostly on the public sector, or do they apply equal emphasis on the private sector, I know their environmental law program is 3rd is the nation (which usually emphasizes the public sector).

[ari20dal7]

You are unlikely to make very much money coming from any of those schools unless you're at the very top of your class. Don't be fooled by Pace's specialty ranking: specialties matter very little unless you're comparing schools that are similarly ranked.

[Reznik]

Within the law school tiers I would not put NY Law School very high. The first of the law school tiers would be the top 14 law schools, all national in their reach. The next group within law school tiers would be the top 15-50 law schools, very strong regional schools. The next group within the law school tiers are the top 50-100 law schools, which most definitely have only a limited reach. Rounding out the categories of law school tiers are tiers 3 and 4, which are the remaining 85 law schools.

[infinity]

i worked for a while at a law firm involved in a large litigation - so lots of temp attorneys needed to be hired. most of the temps were from NYLS, Hofstra, Pace, Rutgers (not that many), etc. It was very hard to see b/c here were these people with law degrees and I was making just about as much as them . Their job was document review and I can tell you a lot of them were quite unhappy - I would be too. But just something to consider when thinking about applying to these schools.

[woeisme]

No, not really.