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Arizona is the logical choice of course, but having grown up here and went to college here the number of distractions are endless and I fear I would do much better in a new environment. Ultimately I have two big questions for current students anywhere really?

1. How important is it to get away from the negative influences? Is it not as big of a deal as I'm thinking?

2. I have a decent amount of connections in the Phoenix/Tucson markets so I would be able to get summer placements in Arizona, that being said is going out of state so bad if I spend my summers working here?

If you're going to go to law school, I would hope you're grown up enough to avoid these "bad influences." If you want to work in Arizona, just go to Arizona. It will be viewed much better than Pepperdine within the state.

What do you mean "bad influences?"

Understand that there is something about law school that either causes or brings out a lot of anxiety, depression and substance abuse in the people who attend. This can't be boiled down to self-selection either - rates of all these things shoot way way up from when you enter law school to when you take the Bar. Unless your friends are drug dealers/habitual criminals, then I'd find it difficult to believe that they'd be more of a bad influence on you than the culture of law school itself.

The first year of law school should keep you busy enough to forget about your old crowd.

Arizona is the better choice since you'll build up a network of friends who work in the same profession in the same state. Feel free to vacation in California.