Top Law Schools

Schools
Columbia: $173k at repayment
Duke: $122k at repayment

(Numbers reflect various contributions including parents and scholarships)

Ties and Plans
I'm from Houston and would love to come back to Texas (or the South generally). NYC biglaw seems useful, but biglaw/in-house somewhere in Houston/Dallas/ATL is the long term goal.

Stats:
3.3/173 (taken twice)

I'd take Duke with your goals.

Based on completely anecdotal information, I know Duke places a lot of students in Texas. You can achieve those goals just as easily at either school. The questions are - where do you want to spend three years of your life, and how cold are you willing to be?

I would ask both schools to connect you with alumni working in Texas and see how easy that is for each of them to do

If you wanted NYC Biglaw, CLS might be worth $50k more. But for Texas, it's not worth $1 more - in fact, Duke is arguably better. With your ties, you'll be able to find a job in TX from either school, but tons of TX firms come to Duke's OCI whereas I would be surprised if the same was true for CLS.

They come to CLS EIP as well, FWIW.

rickgrimes69 wrote:If you wanted NYC Biglaw, CLS might be worth $50k more. But for Texas, it's not worth $1 more - in fact, Duke is arguably better. With your ties, you'll be able to find a job in TX from either school, but tons of TX firms come to Duke's OCI whereas I would be surprised if the same was true for CLS.

rickgrimes69 wrote:If you wanted NYC Biglaw, CLS might be worth $50k more. But for Texas, it's not worth $1 more - in fact, Duke is arguably better. With your ties, you'll be able to find a job in TX from either school, but tons of TX firms come to Duke's OCI whereas I would be surprised if the same was true for CLS.

I've actually done some research this on this NALP site because I have similar goals to OP, and at least for Houston it seems like all the big firms go to Columbia OCI.

Also, I'm still waiting for need based aid from CLS. That's really encouraging about the firms coming up there.

At Duke you've got a 50/50 shot at biglaw (and biglaw is also the most realistic first step to reaching your in-house goals). Your chances at Columbia are substantially better.

Part of Columbia's better chances is due to the fact that it does so well in NY. But, that works in your favor, you can interview with all the TX firms and interview with 10 or 15 NY firms as a backup plan. And if you end up in NY you can try to lateral to TX in 3-5 years.

I'm in favor of Columbia here. Duke at that price is certainly reasonable, but there is some serious risk involved. The risk at Columbia is much smaller, and the debt isn't so high you won't be able to pay it off.

It seems like you're Biglaw or bust, and I think that means you should always consider NYC as a backup wherever you go. Texas is relatively easy to get back to from any T-14, but their hiring patterns are more chaotic and can leave the unprepared out in the cold; if you really want to lock down a Biglaw job you should aim for 1L summer Texas and a NYC/Texas split 2L summer.

If that's what you end up doing, I narrowly vote Columbia. Your chances of Biglaw at Duke are certainly much better than 50/50 if you start out with that goal in mind; you will have a leg up at Columbia for NYC Biglaw that's worth 50k. But it's not worth much more than that; it's close to a toss-up.

Nomo wrote:At Duke you've got a 50/50 shot at biglaw (and biglaw is also the most realistic first step to reaching your in-house goals). Your chances at Columbia are substantially better

More like 60/40 but who's counting

OP: TX firms will not give even one single fuck about CLS over Duke. If you are TX or Bust, the extra $50k at CLS won't buy you a thing.

Columbia ended up offering substantial need-based aid, so it actually came down below Duke price-wise which made the decision so much easier. I'm heading to NYC in the fall. Thanks y'all.

More like 60/40 but who's counting

Roughly 60% of Duke grads go straight to BigLaw (101 attorneys or more) or into clerkships (which means they almost certainly have BigLaw options). But of course, what matters isn't the % of the whole graduating class that has the chance to do BigLaw, but the % of those who *want* BigLaw who get it. Surely, a significant portion of the student body freely choose to go to small firms and the government, right?

bowser wrote:It seems like you're Biglaw or bust, and I think that means you should always consider NYC as a backup wherever you go. Texas is relatively easy to get back to from any T-14, but their hiring patterns are more chaotic and can leave the unprepared out in the cold; if you really want to lock down a Biglaw job you should aim for 1L summer Texas and a NYC/Texas split 2L summer.

If that's what you end up doing, I narrowly vote Columbia. Your chances of Biglaw at Duke are certainly much better than 50/50 if you start out with that goal in mind; you will have a leg up at Columbia for NYC Biglaw that's worth 50k. But it's not worth much more than that; it's close to a toss-up.

Why would you aim for a NYC/Texas split? It sounds like you don't know the Texas Market. The top Texas firms are first half firms. It would be more beneficial to do a 2 way split in Texas, and have options as to where you want to go. Only reason to split NY is to add a couple paychecks before you accept the NY firm.

critically useless necro.