WF, W&M or GW for Appellate Law Forum

[Eaturgreenz]

Interested in doing appellate law and I don't care about where I practice. I've heard that for appellate, it's big law or bust... Is this true? I have 40k or so saved up for law school.

[AT9]

What will the total COA be at these schools?

IF appellate law is biglaw or bust (I don't know if it is), I wouldn't do any of these three schools. The biglaw chances aren't all that good. GW may be a little different, but I'd be good working small law in NC/VA before I decided if you don't land biglaw from W&M or Wake.

[sublime]

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[ndirish2010]

What will the total COA be at these schools?

IF appellate law is biglaw or bust (I don't know if it is), I wouldn't do any of these three schools. The biglaw chances aren't all that good. GW may be a little different, but I'd be good working small law in NC/VA before I decided if you don't land biglaw from W&M or Wake.

My impression is appellate law isn't a real thing. And it certainly isn't attainable from outside the T14, if not higher.

Of course it is a real thing, and there is no requirement that you go to a T14 to do appellate work. But when most people say appellate work, they want to do the stuff that big firms do, not cut and paste personal injury briefs in front of a state court of appeals. So basically you want big law.

[sublime]

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[jbagelboy]

If you want any chance at doing prestigious "appellate" work, you'll absolutely need to clerk with a judge on one of the federal circuit court of appeals. So that basically means Yale or Stanford. Attending any of these three schools will for all intents and purposes do nothing for a career in appellate litigation.

[YankeesFan]

Wake has a year-long appellate clinic for third-years, although I am sure a number of other schools have this as well. Only does 4th Circuit COA work. Have no idea if this even remotely helps someone interested in "appellate work".

[El Principe]

What will the total COA be at these schools?

IF appellate law is biglaw or bust (I don't know if it is), I wouldn't do any of these three schools. The biglaw chances aren't all that good. GW may be a little different, but I'd be good working small law in NC/VA before I decided if you don't land biglaw from W&M or Wake.

My impression is appellate law isn't a real thing. And it certainly isn't attainable from outside the T14, if not higher.

Although there are only 4 associates firm-wide, there is an LSU (T2) Law Alum is in the Appellate/Supreme Court Practice group for BB. Two more are from UTexas and the only T14 associate is from UVA.

That being said, your chances of Big Law in general aren't optimistic from your choices, so...