Top Law Schools

Rankings have Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State and Wisconsin all in the same sort of tier (I hope no one is offended by that, just trying to group them for purposes of this question). Heavily considering all of these schools (obviously Northwestern and Michigan as well, but they might be just out of my range), and I am just curious if anyone knows from experience or things they've heard about pros or cons for any/all of these schools that I should take into account. Any tips are appreciated!

P.S. I know the most important factors are best value/lowest debt and to target a school with best job prospects of where I want to practice, I just want to know about other things in general like help that career services provide, whether you particularly enjoyed your experience, an enjoyable environment to live and study, etc. Thanks!

Illinois: Aside from NW/Mich the best placement into Chicago by far.

Iowa: I go here. Pretty solid job placement around the Midwest. I did SAs 1L/2L year in Minneapolis and Chicago with grades far below top-10%. Do not come here if you are 100% Chicago-or-die. Generous with scholarship money.

Wisconsin: Seems to really struggle to place grads beyond Wisconsin (although they probably put 10 SAs into the MSP market every summer).

Indiana: Okay placement into Chicago. Crowded market in Indiana with IUI and Notre Dame.

Minnesota: Sounds like a hell-hole from working in MSP and summering with people that went there. School is in an insanely crowded market with 4 law schools in town. Very expensive, not good with scholarship money, and hometown legal market is $110-120,000 to start.

Ohio State: No idea.

DportIA wrote:Illinois: Aside from NW/Mich the best placement into Chicago by far.

Iowa: I go here. Pretty solid job placement around the Midwest. I did SAs 1L/2L year in Minneapolis and Chicago with grades far below top-10%. Do not come here if you are 100% Chicago-or-die. Generous with scholarship money.

Wisconsin: Seems to really struggle to place grads beyond Wisconsin (although they probably put 10 SAs into the MSP market every summer).

Indiana: Okay placement into Chicago. Crowded market in Indiana with IUI and Notre Dame.

Minnesota: Sounds like a hell-hole from working in MSP and summering with people that went there. School is in an insanely crowded market with 4 law schools in town. Very expensive, not good with scholarship money, and hometown legal market is $110-120,000 to start.

Ohio State: No idea.

Of these six, I have felt strongest about going to Illinois, Iowa and Indiana for the past couple months so this is good to hear. Seems like Illinois should be my top choice if I want Chicago. If Chicago were not my main priority (which I'm not sure if that is true or not yet), which of the three would you recommend? Should anything else matter beside cost/debt at that point?

Take everything I said above with the anecdotal grain of salt, and use this resource: http://www.lstscorereports.com/ as your bible.

On Jobs: LST highlights the difference between Iowa and Illinois extremely well. Iowa's Large Firm score is 14%; Illinois' is 24%. Illinois' is all Chicago and maybe some St Louis whereas Iowa's is MSP, KC, StL, Chicago, DC, and Milwaukee. But if you look at overall job prospects, Iowa fares slightly better (76% to 72% full-time, JD adv/req jobs) because Illinois has about 7 other law schools in the state of Illinois. and I reckon Iowa has been better with scholarship money the last two cycles.

On Debt: holy shit go to law school with a gigantic scholarship. If that means retaking your LSAT, retake the LSAT. I have classmates that are looking at $100,000 of debt (admittedly not the worst position for a solid T1 law degree) and everyone of them regrets not doing something different with scholarship decisions/LSAT retake decisions. That one year for a retake can mean a lifelong financial outcome change.

DportIA wrote:Take everything I said above with the anecdotal grain of salt, and use this resource: http://www.lstscorereports.com/ as your bible.

On Jobs: LST highlights the difference between Iowa and Illinois extremely well. Iowa's Large Firm score is 14%; Illinois' is 24%. Illinois' is all Chicago and maybe some St Louis whereas Iowa's is MSP, KC, StL, Chicago, DC, and Milwaukee. But if you look at overall job prospects, Iowa fares slightly better (76% to 72% full-time, JD adv/req jobs) because Illinois has about 7 other law schools in the state of Illinois. and I reckon Iowa has been better with scholarship money the last two cycles.

On Debt: holy shit go to law school with a gigantic scholarship. If that means retaking your LSAT, retake the LSAT. I have classmates that are looking at $100,000 of debt (admittedly not the worst position for a solid T1 law degree) and everyone of them regrets not doing something different with scholarship decisions/LSAT retake decisions. That one year for a retake can mean a lifelong financial outcome change.

Really appreciate your help, thanks for your advice. I will certainly look more into my debt planning and desired job location.

pav24 wrote:

DportIA wrote:Take everything I said above with the anecdotal grain of salt, and use this resource: http://www.lstscorereports.com/ as your bible.

On Jobs: LST highlights the difference between Iowa and Illinois extremely well. Iowa's Large Firm score is 14%; Illinois' is 24%. Illinois' is all Chicago and maybe some St Louis whereas Iowa's is MSP, KC, StL, Chicago, DC, and Milwaukee. But if you look at overall job prospects, Iowa fares slightly better (76% to 72% full-time, JD adv/req jobs) because Illinois has about 7 other law schools in the state of Illinois. and I reckon Iowa has been better with scholarship money the last two cycles.

On Debt: holy shit go to law school with a gigantic scholarship. If that means retaking your LSAT, retake the LSAT. I have classmates that are looking at $100,000 of debt (admittedly not the worst position for a solid T1 law degree) and everyone of them regrets not doing something different with scholarship decisions/LSAT retake decisions. That one year for a retake can mean a lifelong financial outcome change.

Really appreciate your help, thanks for your advice. I will certainly look more into my debt planning and desired job location.

I go to UIUC and echo pretty much everything dport says. These are all very similar schools, but have different location strengths. You need to decide where you want to end up. I was deciding between Minnesota and Illinois for law school, but I wanted to end up in Chicago, so Illinois was the no brainer. If you want to be in Minneapolis, Minnesota is the best choice. If you want to be in Wisconsin, Wisconsin is the best choice. You get the idea. It can't be overstated enough that if you don't go to a t14, go to the law school in the place you want to work. And all these are good schools, but don't have great big law scores so you want to keep debt as low as possible. I am going to a big law firm this summer, but a majority of my friends at Illinois are not and keeping that debt low will make life much better.

Mich and NU are the only BIG schools worth considering, for most people.

How is it that football conferences are serving as law school barometers in some of the choosing threads lately? Come on bro. Go to the school you have geographic ties to for cheap, or Mich/NU. Otherwise don't even.

speaking very generally:

if you don't know where you want to live in the midwest the b10 schools you want are northwestern or michigan

if you do know which specific state you want to be in (and dgaf about big law), go to that specific state school w/ a fully

cron1834 wrote:How is it that football conferences are serving as law school barometers in some of the choosing threads lately? Come on bro. Go to the school you have geographic ties to for cheap, or Mich/NU. Otherwise don't even.

agree w/ your last sentence but it's generally a relevant distinction for academics in the midwest (not counting nebraska)

take out UChicago and a few random lib arts schools and b10 are far and away the best options

darth lulz wrote:

cron1834 wrote:How is it that football conferences are serving as law school barometers in some of the choosing threads lately? Come on bro. Go to the school you have geographic ties to for cheap, or Mich/NU. Otherwise don't even.

agree w/ your last sentence but it's generally a relevant distinction for academics in the midwest (not counting nebraska)

take out UChicago and a few random lib arts schools and b10 are far and away the best options

We're not assessing undergraduates or libarts PhDs here. That's a different message board. For law school, Mich/NU are on one level, and you better have geographic ties and free tuition for the others ...

cron1834 wrote:We're not assessing undergraduates or libarts PhDs here. That's a different message board. For law school, Mich/NU are on one level, and you better have geographic ties and free tuition for the others ...

Yeah thats why I said I agree w/ your last sentence

was more saying I don't think OP was using the distinction in that sense

Sure, but OP is "heavily considering" 6 different state flagships. If not distinguishing based on B1G, then what ... ?

cron1834 wrote:Mich and NU are the only BIG schools worth considering, for most people.

How is it that football conferences are serving as law school barometers in some of the choosing threads lately? Come on bro. Go to the school you have geographic ties to for cheap, or Mich/NU. Otherwise don't even.

The B1G, unlike most athletic conferences, has a certain amount of academic prestige attached to the schools. They're all pretty much in the same geographic area as well.

If you were to take a dart board with B1G Law schools and throw blindly, you'd probably end up with a decent option. 9/13 B1G Law Schools are T1, and all are T100.

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bugsy33 wrote:

cron1834 wrote:Mich and NU are the only BIG schools worth considering, for most people.

How is it that football conferences are serving as law school barometers in some of the choosing threads lately? Come on bro. Go to the school you have geographic ties to for cheap, or Mich/NU. Otherwise don't even.

The B1G, unlike most athletic conferences, has a certain amount of academic prestige attached to the schools. They're all pretty much in the same geographic area as well.

If you were to take a dart board with B1G Law schools and throw blindly, you'd probably end up with a decent option. 9/13 B1G Law Schools are T1, and all are T100.

You're not getting it dude. One shouldn't be considering random regional schools with no connection to the area, as a rule. Football traditions are not a good reason to disregard this.

Regulus wrote:

cron1834 wrote:How is it that football conferences are serving as law school barometers in some of the choosing threads lately? Come on bro. Go to the school you have geographic ties to for cheap, or Mich/NU. Otherwise don't even.

It happens every year.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=215270

LOL. Oh, I believe it. I just happened to notice a couple threads on page 1 at the same time.

cron1834 wrote:

bugsy33 wrote:

cron1834 wrote:Mich and NU are the only BIG schools worth considering, for most people.

How is it that football conferences are serving as law school barometers in some of the choosing threads lately? Come on bro. Go to the school you have geographic ties to for cheap, or Mich/NU. Otherwise don't even.

The B1G, unlike most athletic conferences, has a certain amount of academic prestige attached to the schools. They're all pretty much in the same geographic area as well.

If you were to take a dart board with B1G Law schools and throw blindly, you'd probably end up with a decent option. 9/13 B1G Law Schools are T1, and all are T100.

You're not getting it dude. One shouldn't be considering random regional schools with no connection to the area, as a rule. Football traditions are not a good reason to disregard this.

Regulus wrote:

cron1834 wrote:How is it that football conferences are serving as law school barometers in some of the choosing threads lately? Come on bro. Go to the school you have geographic ties to for cheap, or Mich/NU. Otherwise don't even.

It happens every year.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=215270

LOL. Oh, I believe it. I just happened to notice a couple threads on page 1 at the same time.

If someone is thinking about applying broadly to B1G schools, then they're probably from the B1G region. Someone from Indiana would probably be fine going to UIUC/Iowa/OSU, and vice versa.

bugsy33 wrote:

cron1834 wrote:

bugsy33 wrote:

cron1834 wrote:Mich and NU are the only BIG schools worth considering, for most people.

How is it that football conferences are serving as law school barometers in some of the choosing threads lately? Come on bro. Go to the school you have geographic ties to for cheap, or Mich/NU. Otherwise don't even.

The B1G, unlike most athletic conferences, has a certain amount of academic prestige attached to the schools. They're all pretty much in the same geographic area as well.

If you were to take a dart board with B1G Law schools and throw blindly, you'd probably end up with a decent option. 9/13 B1G Law Schools are T1, and all are T100.

You're not getting it dude. One shouldn't be considering random regional schools with no connection to the area, as a rule. Football traditions are not a good reason to disregard this.

Regulus wrote:

cron1834 wrote:How is it that football conferences are serving as law school barometers in some of the choosing threads lately? Come on bro. Go to the school you have geographic ties to for cheap, or Mich/NU. Otherwise don't even.

It happens every year.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=215270

LOL. Oh, I believe it. I just happened to notice a couple threads on page 1 at the same time.

If someone is thinking about applying broadly to B1G schools, then they're probably from the B1G region. Someone from Indiana would probably be fine going to UIUC/Iowa/OSU, and vice versa.

Actually they likely would not. This is not like undergrad. If you go to OSU the vast majority of firms coming to interview you will be from Ohio. It is much harder to go from Ohio to Chicago or from UIUC to Ohio. Unless you go to a t14 you should go to law school in the state you want to practice

thebobs1987 wrote: Unless you go to a t14 you should go to law school in the state you want to practice

This should answer the question. As for more specific pluses and minuses at each school I can't really speak to any of them. I'd suspect they are all pretty comparable in a structure like this:
NU/Mich
----------------
The rest you listed.

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metroidbum wrote:Do even the T14 have that much national appeal, really?

From all I see and I hear, both in LS and on this site, the T14 schools (outside of HYS) will get you

1. NYC
2. The market you have pre-existing ties to
3. The market the school is located in

I just remember reading a long AMA thread from a guy in Michigan big law, and he basically made it sound like they only cared about T14 if you already had Michigan ties, otherwise they went straight to the local schools after that. And that included non-ties people who went to U of M.

None of what you wrote is inconsistent with the T14s having national appeal. No firm in, say, Kansas is gonna hire some random guy who doesn't want to be in Kansas. But if you have a pitch that explains why you want to be in Kansas (doesn't need to be preexisting ties, can be something as simple as "my wife is from Omaha and wants to move home", then firms from Kansas will prefer a Harvard grad to a KU grad. (I'm basing this off of the experience of a friend who had more or less this scenario, and had every good firm in the applicable flyover city fighting over him.)

...

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OP- if it is any help, I know first hand that UIUC was giving scholarships out last year like candy. A ton of 1Ls have full-rides and if not VERY close to it. They are really going all out to raise their LSAT median. It might be the same story this cycle.

bugsy33 wrote:If someone is thinking about applying broadly to B1G schools, then they're probably from the B1G region. Someone from Indiana would probably be fine going to UIUC/Iowa/OSU, and vice versa.

I strongly doubt that. I'd put money on these states doing that cripple fight thing where people from surrounding states and/or traitors are terrible and the born and bred loyal folk are awesome.

If you're from Indiana, go to Indiana. Not a school in Ohio.

ShipitHolla wrote:OP- if it is any help, I know first hand that UIUC was giving scholarships out last year like candy. A ton of 1Ls have full-rides and if not VERY close to it. They are really going all out to raise their LSAT median. It might be the same story this cycle.

I heard this; glad to know it's true since I'm applying (from IL and above both 75ths).