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Alabama has offered me 20000 per year. Georgia has yet to release any scholarship information. I would prefer to practice in Atlanta after graduation, but am not opposed to Birmingham or other cities in the southeast. Will Georgia or Alabama get me a better job? Is it easier to take an Alabama degree into Georgia or a Georgia segre into Alabama. Any insight or advice is greatly appreciated!

Harryp1991 wrote:Alabama has offered me 20000 per year. Georgia has yet to release any scholarship information. I would prefer to practice in Atlanta after graduation, but am not opposed to Birmingham or other cities in the southeast. Will Georgia or Alabama get me a better job? Is it easier to take an Alabama degree into Georgia or a Georgia segre into Alabama. Any insight or advice is greatly appreciated!

Come back to us when you have scholarship info from Georgia, but assuming the money situation ends up being comparable the real question is where do you want to work? I would think long and hard about where you prefer, Georgia or Alabama, and then make your decision based on that (assuming Georgia gives you a similar scholarship).

Do you have residency for either? What kind of law do you want to do? Any other schools in the running?

The more info you give us, the better we can help you.

I have Georgia residency. Right now I'm leaning toward corporate law. The only other school I would consider is Emory, but I haven't heard back from them.

Harryp1991 wrote:I have Georgia residency. Right now I'm leaning toward corporate law. The only other school I would consider is Emory, but I haven't heard back from them.

Georgia residency is a big deal. I'm sure you know this but you pay about 17k less than out of state, and about equal to what you would pay for Alabama out of state, even before any scholarships. Wait till you hear back for scholarships, though, and we'll reassess.

To give you an informed answer, we don't need scholarship amounts, we need total cost of attendance. Also, Emory would be huge for landing ATL biglaw so you would be better served coming back after you have total cost of attendance numbers for all three schools. At that point we would be far more equipped to help you make a sound decision. Good luck.

Harryp1991 wrote:Alabama has offered me 20000 per year. Georgia has yet to release any scholarship information. I would prefer to practice in Atlanta after graduation, but am not opposed to Birmingham or other cities in the southeast. Will Georgia or Alabama get me a better job? Is it easier to take an Alabama degree into Georgia or a Georgia segre into Alabama. Any insight or advice is greatly appreciated!

It comes down to where you want to practice. If you want to be in AL, go there. If you want to be in GA, go there. Sure, you can maybe get a job in the other state if you're high enough in the class/hustle, but it'll be exponentially harder. The downside of that gamble is having no job at all. FYI, OCI at Georgia was filled with, surprise, Georgia law firms.

As to Georgia vs. Emory - well, it comes down to money. IMO, the extra 15k to 30k more (per year!) isn't worth the extra 5% in job placement you'll get from Emory. Also realize that many people from Emory go outside the state - I've yet to hear any actual evidence that Emory people do better than Georgia people in Georgia.

Good luck!

Harryp1991 wrote:I have Georgia residency. Right now I'm leaning toward corporate law. The only other school I would consider is Emory, but I haven't heard back from them.

Retake for more money / better schools. Atlanta is supposed to be a tough market.

LET'S GET IT wrote:To give you an informed answer, we don't need scholarship amounts, we need total cost of attendance. Also, Emory would be huge for landing ATL biglaw so you would be better served coming back after you have total cost of attendance numbers for all three schools. At that point we would be far more equipped to help you make a sound decision. Good luck.

Looks like only about 10% of the most recent Emory class got Atlanta big law. Wouldn't exactly call that "huge" IMO.

OP- what do you mean by corporate law?

BigZuck wrote:

LET'S GET IT wrote:To give you an informed answer, we don't need scholarship amounts, we need total cost of attendance. Also, Emory would be huge for landing ATL biglaw so you would be better served coming back after you have total cost of attendance numbers for all three schools. At that point we would be far more equipped to help you make a sound decision. Good luck.

Looks like only about 10% of the most recent Emory class got Atlanta big law. Wouldn't exactly call that "huge" IMO.

OP- what do you mean by corporate law?

Maybe huge was overstating a bit, but still. Some of that is self-selection (plenty of Emory grads have options in other states, uga grads for the most part don't). Large firm % is 20% for Emory compared to 9% for uga. Unemployed 9 months out is 2% for Emory compared to 15% for uga. You get the picture. Emory is the superior option all things equal. I realize they probably are not equal, which is why I suggested OP come back when he has COA numbers in hand.

LET'S GET IT wrote:

BigZuck wrote:

LET'S GET IT wrote:To give you an informed answer, we don't need scholarship amounts, we need total cost of attendance. Also, Emory would be huge for landing ATL biglaw so you would be better served coming back after you have total cost of attendance numbers for all three schools. At that point we would be far more equipped to help you make a sound decision. Good luck.

Looks like only about 10% of the most recent Emory class got Atlanta big law. Wouldn't exactly call that "huge" IMO.

OP- what do you mean by corporate law?

Maybe huge was overstating a bit, but still. Some of that is self-selection (plenty of Emory grads have options in other states, uga grads for the most part don't). Large firm % is 20% for Emory compared to 9% for uga. Unemployed 9 months out is 2% for Emory compared to 15% for uga. You get the picture. Emory is the superior option all things equal. I realize they probably are not equal, which is why I suggested OP come back when he has COA numbers in hand.

I don't know if this is really the thread for UGA vs Emory, but let's hold on a moment with the numbers. First, as you said, many of Emory's students go out of state - Georgia's don't. So we don't have real numbers as to what percentage of each class receive good outcomes in Georgia. Again, my (very anecdotal) evidence is that Georgia and Emory people, in Georgia, are thought of equally. If your goal is to go to NYC, I will completely agree that Georgia probably isn't your best bet. 11% of Emory's grads last year went to NYC. I don't know if it's possible to see how much of that 11% comes out of Emory's biglaw numbers.

But even the numbers you posted (taking out that some of the Emory people go to NYC, where it's arguably easier to get into a big firm than in Atlanta) are a little misleading. 20.2% of emory's students went to a firm of 101+ lawyers right out of law school last year. Only 9.4% of Georgia's students did the same. However, 5.5% of Emory's students had federal clerkships, while 9% of Georgia's students had fed clerkships. Thus, you're really looking at 25.7% of Emory's students having a good outcome vs. 18.4% of Georgia's. It's still a gap, sure - but it's not quite the gap you made it out to be. That's where money (30k a year more for emory), cost of living (atlanta costs more than athens), all that comes in. It's a choice.

Also, to your "unemployed" argument. Emory had 68 out of 292 students in school-funded positions after they graduated. Georgia had 1 out of 234 students in school-funded positions. I'm not exactly sure how that goes into the overall employment numbers, but let's keep it in mind.

All these numbers came from:
http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/ ... yers/2013/
http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/ ... yers/2013/

gregfootball2001 wrote:

LET'S GET IT wrote:

BigZuck wrote:

LET'S GET IT wrote:To give you an informed answer, we don't need scholarship amounts, we need total cost of attendance. Also, Emory would be huge for landing ATL biglaw so you would be better served coming back after you have total cost of attendance numbers for all three schools. At that point we would be far more equipped to help you make a sound decision. Good luck.

Looks like only about 10% of the most recent Emory class got Atlanta big law. Wouldn't exactly call that "huge" IMO.

OP- what do you mean by corporate law?

Maybe huge was overstating a bit, but still. Some of that is self-selection (plenty of Emory grads have options in other states, uga grads for the most part don't). Large firm % is 20% for Emory compared to 9% for uga. Unemployed 9 months out is 2% for Emory compared to 15% for uga. You get the picture. Emory is the superior option all things equal. I realize they probably are not equal, which is why I suggested OP come back when he has COA numbers in hand.

I don't know if this is really the thread for UGA vs Emory, but let's hold on a moment with the numbers. First, as you said, many of Emory's students go out of state - Georgia's don't. So we don't have real numbers as to what percentage of each class receive good outcomes in Georgia. Again, my (very anecdotal) evidence is that Georgia and Emory people, in Georgia, are thought of equally. If your goal is to go to NYC, I will completely agree that Georgia probably isn't your best bet. 11% of Emory's grads last year went to NYC. I don't know if it's possible to see how much of that 11% comes out of Emory's biglaw numbers.

But even the numbers you posted (taking out that some of the Emory people go to NYC, where it's arguably easier to get into a big firm than in Atlanta) are a little misleading. 20.2% of emory's students went to a firm of 101+ lawyers right out of law school last year. Only 9.4% of Georgia's students did the same. However, 5.5% of Emory's students had federal clerkships, while 9% of Georgia's students had fed clerkships. Thus, you're really looking at 25.7% of Emory's students having a good outcome vs. 18.4% of Georgia's. It's still a gap, sure - but it's not quite the gap you made it out to be. That's where money (30k a year more for emory), cost of living (atlanta costs more than athens), all that comes in. It's a choice.

Also, to your "unemployed" argument. Emory had 68 out of 292 students in school-funded positions after they graduated. Georgia had 1 out of 234 students in school-funded positions. I'm not exactly sure how that goes into the overall employment numbers, but let's keep it in mind.

All these numbers came from:
http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/ ... yers/2013/
http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/ ... yers/2013/

I didn't make it out to be anything. The numbers I gave came straight from the links you just posted. You seem to have a bit of bias towards uga, maybe you go/went there, that's fine. I have none towards either, and was giving my opinion.

I never said "oh my god even if Georgia is free and Emory costs 200K, go to Emory". I just said all else equal, Emory is better. I don't think that is debatable. That was literally my only point.

When I was deciding on law school, my decision came down to Georgia and Alabama because they were both substantially cheaper than other options. For me, it wasn't worth paying $100,000+ to increase the odds of landing a big law job by a couple percentage points when I could attend UGA or UA for almost nothing. So if you're choosing between Georgia in-state + scholarship and Emory at full-price, I would say UGA is the better choice. Law school is too risky to justify incurring massive debt.

As for UGA vs UA, if you look at the ABA employment stats and the LST reports, not much separates the two. Both have placed about 20% of their grads in federal clerkships or 100+ attorney firms over the past few years. Instead of nitpicking numbers, I would be much more concerned with evaluating your ability to succeed once you start school. If you can graduate at the top of your class from either school, you will have good career prospects. If you aren't confident that you will be able outperform at least 80% of your class, avoiding law school is probably your best option.

banjo wrote:

Harryp1991 wrote:I have Georgia residency. Right now I'm leaning toward corporate law. The only other school I would consider is Emory, but I haven't heard back from them.

Retake for more money / better schools. Atlanta is supposed to be a tough market.

This is probably the credited response. I finished near the top of my class at UGA and didn't land Atlanta big law. I was k-jd with no work experience and not from Geogia. If your goal is corporate work at a large firm you should probably retake. If you are from Georgia with work experience (you seem mature in interviews ect.) and you do very well then you have a good shot. Because of the grades required you need to keep your debt low and assume the most likely scenario is not Atlanta big law.

retake

lawhopeful10 wrote:

banjo wrote:

Harryp1991 wrote:I have Georgia residency. Right now I'm leaning toward corporate law. The only other school I would consider is Emory, but I haven't heard back from them.

Retake for more money / better schools. Atlanta is supposed to be a tough market.

This is probably the credited response. I finished near the top of my class at UGA and didn't land Atlanta big law. I was k-jd with no work experience and not from Geogia. If your goal is corporate work at a large firm you should probably retake. If you are from Georgia with work experience (you seem mature in interviews ect.) and you do very well then you have a good shot. Because of the grades required you need to keep your debt low and assume the most likely scenario is not Atlanta big law.

How about Emory in that mix?

Did he get his numbers yet for Emory/UoA/Georgia to compare apples to apples?

RTR87 wrote:When I was deciding on law school, my decision came down to Georgia and Alabama because they were both substantially cheaper than other options. For me, it wasn't worth paying $100,000+ to increase the odds of landing a big law job by a couple percentage points when I could attend UGA or UA for almost nothing. So if you're choosing between Georgia in-state + scholarship and Emory at full-price, I would say UGA is the better choice. Law school is too risky to justify incurring massive debt.

As for UGA vs UA, if you look at the ABA employment stats and the LST reports, not much separates the two. Both have placed about 20% of their grads in federal clerkships or 100+ attorney firms over the past few years. Instead of nitpicking numbers, I would be much more concerned with evaluating your ability to succeed once you start school. If you can graduate at the top of your class from either school, you will have good career prospects. If you aren't confident that you will be able outperform at least 80% of your class, avoiding law school is probably your best option.

That big fish in small pond debate never goes away. You never know who will be your in class competition

Emory doesn't do much better. People from Vandy/UVA/Duke with Georgia ties regularly strike out in Atlanta, but at least they have backup options and play well in New York.

If you actually want to do corporate work, retake for a school with better biglaw placement and get used to the idea of having to go up north where the jobs are.