. Forum

[kjacobs7]

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[banjo]

These questions are too general. What are your S.O.'s options and how much will each one cost?

[TheNextAmendment]

YLS is always the answer.

[jbagelboy]

Columbia presents best value, dollar per opportunity wise. Make of that what you will.

[Clearly]

For someone who doesn't know much about law schools, you sure ask the right questions, use the right lingo, and frankly know a lot about law schools.

[03152016]

wow, send my congrats to your SO
honestly all of these options are great

so here are what i see as the relevant considerations

-so wants biglaw, at least at first
-not super keen on nyc, but no strong geographic preferences
-desire to go into academia and politics
-leaning uva for lifestyle, penn for prestige (no), yale for academic environment
-60k all in uva, 75k max all in penn, 90k max all in cls, 150k all in s, 180 all in h, 180 all in y

as someone with no interest in academia or politics, if i had these choices i would immediately deposit at either penn or cls and never look back
but given your so's goals...

i'd start by eliminating uva and penn

they are both excellent schools. but if academia is a major consideration, i would absolutely pay an extra 15k to attend cls over penn, and an extra 30k for cls over uva

i'd eliminate h. i just can't imagine choosing h over y at equal cost for academia/politics. tho h places more in biglaw, i assure you y students have absolutely nothing to worry about in private sector placement

so that leaves 90k cls, 150k s, 180k y

are you looking at west coast? if so, maybe s. but idk, it's only 30k less than y
idk unless there's a good reason to attend, i'd probably pass given your offers at cls and y

so between the two, it's honestly a tough call
y obviously is the best in terms of outcomes. 180k is a decent chunk of change though. it's a 90k difference, that's real money

because so wants academia and politics, y at 180 > cls at 90 imo

[kjacobs7]

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[Mack.Hambleton]

Penn winning when considering the general public's perception of prestige

The general publics perception that it's some state school in Pennsylvania?

[quiver]

S.O. is a very good public speaker and has sights set on practicing trial law. I believe S.O.'s plan is to work as a grunt associate in litigation at a big law firm somewhere. S.O. doesn't have a huge preference between LA/Chicago/DC/Houston/NYC, but we are both from midwest and do not know how much NYC would suit us. However, S.O. then plans on branching off into a smaller, more hands-on trial practice where S.O. would be running the show. Where it gets complicated is the fact that S.O. would like to teach law part-time, and S.O. has a pipe dream of being a politician someday. Hence, prestige carries some weight with S.O.

SO won't get real trial experience in biglaw (at least not for many years). The two best places to get real, high-level "trial" experience are prosecutor/PD or a litigation boutique (a small firm of lawyers that tends to do more hands-on trial work--eg: Susman Godfrey, Bartlit Beck, etc.). I could be wrong, but it doesn't sound like SO is leaning toward PI. Based on that assumption, SO should probably aim for a lit boutique. That usually means having a federal clerkship; that's generally a formal/informal requirement for top lit boutiques. To get a fed clerkship, Yale and Stanford are the best bets. I say visit both and decide which your SO likes better.

Of course, taking CLS at full ride is a great opportunity as well. I don't think the other schools are in contention.

No wrong decision, but those are my thoughts.