Top Law Schools

I am removing personal info from the OP now, but will leave the general details for posterity.

Cost of Attendance
Chicago: ~$190k
NU: ~$145k
WUSTL: ~$20k

Financing
Loans

Location/Ties
I've lived in St. Louis my entire life. I'd like to work in Texas, but I would be fine staying in St. Louis if I go to Wash U.
I do not want either coast.

Career Goals
Transactional biglaw (StL biglaw is ok) followed by in-house after loans are paid

LSAT/GPA numbers
[Removed]

[This section used a lot of words to say I would commute by train from Chicago to StL on the weekends]

Thanks everyone!

Commuting sounds horrible as a 1L. For your regional goals, I'd take the full ride at WashU and hope for top quarter, or retake for a full ride at Lower T14 if your family would be willing to move (which in that case they should).

What is keeping you/your family to St Louis? Or do you mean your parents home?

jbagelboy wrote:Commuting sounds horrible as a 1L. For your regional goals, I'd take the full ride at WashU and hope for top quarter, or Good luck! Follow your dreams! for a full ride at Lower T14 if your family would be willing to move (which in that case they should).

What is keeping you/your family to St Louis? Or do you mean your parents home?

I like the area, mainly. I guess I'm a little wary of moving because I've lived here my entire life. My wife also likes being near her family. We would both be willing to move to Texas after school, though.

My wife and kids will stay here because my wife has a decent, stable job and my kids are just starting school. We talked about them moving up for 2/3L years, but it would be nice to have her safely employed while I'm not working during 1L.

The commute sounds utterly awful, but I take solace in the fact that it would only be weekends and I could study or sleep on the train.

WUSTL.

rayiner wrote:WUSTL.

Thanks. Any particular reason?

jbagelboy wrote:Commuting sounds horrible as a 1L. For your regional goals, I'd take the full ride at WashU and hope for top quarter, or Good luck! Follow your dreams! for a full ride at Lower T14 if your family would be willing to move (which in that case they should).

What is keeping you/your family to St Louis? Or do you mean your parents home?

Thanks for the response, btw.

WUSTL

It seems to be the best fit for your goals, and there's the whole no debt thing. There's something to be said about the career flexibility that comes with no debt while still getting an excellent education at a school with a very strong reputation in your target market.

EDIT: In the context of law school, 20k is the same thing as no debt.

transferror wrote:WUSTL

It seems to be the best fit for your goals, and there's the whole no debt thing. There's something to be said about the career flexibility that comes with no debt while still getting an excellent education at a school with a very strong reputation in your target market.

Thanks!

So are we all assuming exit options from StL biglaw include good in-house positions? I think I could probably tolerate working in Anheuser-Busch or Monsanto's legal departments.

I commuted about 2 and 1/2 hours between family and school for the first semester of my 2L year. That was all we could take before we decided to move. (I was a transfer student) My wife almost went crazy dealing with the kids herself for 3 days a week. Note that I crammed all of my classes into three days, an option you will not likely have as a 1L, and that was bad enough. I was just close enough to come home for emergencies or if I wanted to skip class for a day (again, not an option for a 1L with biglaw(ish) aspirations). At the outset it looked like a good idea, but we were wrong.

You will miss out on way too much of law school if you are commuting that far. You will also miss out on many special family moments. 3 years is a really long time in terms of family development.

My suggestion is to carefully consider your long-term goals as a family and make a decision based off of that. But I would strongly caution against counting on a long term weekly commute.

fanlinxun wrote:I commuted about 2 and 1/2 hours between family and school for the first semester of my 2L year. That was all we could take before we decided to move. (I was a transfer student) My wife almost went crazy dealing with the kids herself for 3 days a week. Note that I crammed all of my classes into three days, an option you will not likely have as a 1L, and that was bad enough. I was just close enough to come home for emergencies or if I wanted to skip class for a day (again, not an option for a 1L with biglaw(ish) aspirations). At the outset it looked like a good idea, but we were wrong.

You will miss out on way too much of law school if you are commuting that far. You will also miss out on many special family moments. 3 years is a really long time in terms of family development.

My suggestion is to carefully consider your long-term goals as a family and make a decision based off of that. But I would strongly caution against counting on a long term weekly commute.

I appreciate the first-hand account. Were you commuting 2.5 hours daily? Because I can't imagine doing that.

My vote is WUSTL.
-It's Free.
-It's where you have lived your whole life.
-It's where your family is (& where you want to be)
-You don't mind staying there post-graduation.
-That Commute would blow.
-Who would want to miss out on being with their kids for 1-3 years, whenever they have another perfectly viable option?

Seems like a no brainer. Good luck!

I personally would take WUSTL, but I think you need to readjust your career expectations. You have a good shot at biglaw from WUSTL, but you can't count on it like you could from NU/Chi. Family would be a bigger concern for me (and I'm sure is for you) and I would rather be there with my family than have to commute and miss out. If you really have to have biglaw, you need to move your family to Chicago.

Exit options aren't going to be as plentiful as NYC, but you'll have less competition. Don't worry too much about exit options right now, since so much of it will be based on timing, desires at the time (will likely be different than now), input from SO... Too many variables.

Just do well at WUSTL, enjoy the time with your family, and you'll be in a great spot. If your exit options suck coming out of St. Louis biglaw, it won't be the end of the world since you'll have zero debt and a nest egg by then. The main thing is w/in 2 or 3 years of graduation, you'll be able to focus on quality of life and doing something you enjoy. = winning

ZGr88n wrote:My vote is WUSTL.
-It's Free.
-It's where you have lived your whole life.
-It's where your family is (& where you want to be)
-You don't mind staying there post-graduation.
-That Commute would blow.
-Who would want to miss out on being with their kids for 1-3 years, whenever they have another perfectly viable option?

Seems like a no brainer. Good luck!

Winston1984 wrote:I personally would take WUSTL, but I think you need to readjust your career expectations. You have a good shot at biglaw from WUSTL, but you can't count on it like you could from NU/Chi. Family would be a bigger concern for me (and I'm sure is for you) and I would rather be there with my family than have to commute and miss out. If you really have to have biglaw, you need to move your family to Chicago.

Thanks for the input, guys.

I'm actually surprised by the amount of Wash U love ITT. I guess my thought process was pretty consistent with everyone else's. The only reason I haven't deposited at WUSTL yet is because I really, really want biglaw (whether StL or not).

Winston, that is my hang-up. I've heard good ties make StL biglaw a realistic option lower in the class at WUSTL, but I can't bank on getting it. Chicago and NU, on the other hand, give me a better shot at market biglaw (TX in particular). Maybe I should move my family.

If only I could know where I'd be class rank-wise in advance.

transferror wrote:Exit options aren't going to be as plentiful as NYC, but you'll have less competition. Don't worry too much about exit options right now, since so much of it will be based on timing, desires at the time (will likely be different than now), input from SO... Too many variables.

Just do well at WUSTL, enjoy the time with your family, and you'll be in a great spot. If your exit options suck coming out of St. Louis biglaw, it won't be the end of the world since you'll have zero debt and a nest egg by then. The main thing is w/in 2 or 3 years of graduation, you'll be able to focus on quality of life and doing something you enjoy. = winning

Thanks! If I could guarantee St. Louis biglaw I'd be so much into this.

Let me add: I may sound contrarian right now, but I'm just trying to elucidate my thoughts about all of this.

I really am taking everyone's advice into consideration, and I was already leaning WUSTL, anyway.

If you really want transactional biglaw you need to negotiate Northwestern down as far as you can and move your family to Chicago. WUSTL's really not a solid option for that career goal, but neither is trying to commute that distance every weekend. Last year WUSTL only placed 32.3% into biglaw or federal clerkships. They have cut down the class size somewhat, but biglaw is still not something you can count on, especially if you're already not interested in litigation.

Tiago Splitter wrote:If you really want transactional biglaw you need to negotiate Northwestern down as far as you can and move your family to Chicago. WUSTL's really not a solid option for that career goal, but neither is trying to commute that distance every weekend. Last year WUSTL only placed 32.3% into biglaw or federal clerkships. They have cut down the class size somewhat, but biglaw is still not something you can count on, especially if you're already not interested in litigation.

Is this because the major transactional markets get all of the transactional work? Looking at St. Louis biglaw firm profiles, it looks like they all have corporate transactional practices. Are these just token groups without real, substantive work?

StLTLSer wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:If you really want transactional biglaw you need to negotiate Northwestern down as far as you can and move your family to Chicago. WUSTL's really not a solid option for that career goal, but neither is trying to commute that distance every weekend. Last year WUSTL only placed 32.3% into biglaw or federal clerkships. They have cut down the class size somewhat, but biglaw is still not something you can count on, especially if you're already not interested in litigation.

Is this because the major transactional markets get all of the transactional work? Looking at St. Louis biglaw firm profiles, it looks like they all have corporate transactional practices. Are these just token groups without real, substantive work?

The main problem is that WUSTL doesn't place all that well in big firms to begin with. Being inflexible about practice area preferences makes it that much harder.

The other problem is that transactional work is largely confined to the big firm sphere. So while the people with strong grades at WUSTL can get those jobs in St. Louis and elsewhere, most of the class will be looking for gigs that are quite different from what transactional biglawyers do. What would you do if you can't work in biglaw?

WUSTL for 4 reasons 1) Don't rip your kids out of school or away from their friends/neighbors 2) Graduate with no debt 3) That commute is untenable - it should really not even be considered an option 4) For your own sanity and the health and well-being of your family - make the choice that will cause the least amount of upheaval and unrest - all of the above answers point to one school that is virtually a no-brainer. Now in 99% of cases I would say Chicago but in your case this isn't even close imho -cya in St. Louis next year!

Tiago Splitter wrote: The other problem is that transactional work is largely confined to the big firm sphere. So while the people with strong grades at WUSTL can get those jobs in St. Louis and elsewhere, most of the class will be looking for gigs that are quite different from what transactional biglawyers do. What would you do if you can't work in biglaw?

Litigation just does not appeal to me, so I guess I would try to do some mid-level real estate work or something similar.