Top Law Schools

-The schools you are considering: UIUC, University of Michigan

Michigan debt at repayment: $120,000 after $60,000 scholarship
UIUC debt at repayment: $20,000 after full tuition scholarship

-How you will be financing your COA: Savings and loans

-Where you are from and where you want to work, and other places where you have significant ties (if any): Chicago

-Your general career goals: Practice IP Law

-Your LSAT/GPA numbers: 171/3.2

-How many times you have taken the LSAT: Once

-Seven years work experience

I have made a similar post in the past, but Michigan had not offered me $60,000 at that time.

Also, I am still waiting on a hold decision from NU.

Michigan is a great option if the 120k figure is accurate. Did you include interest accumulating/living expenses/etc?

Northwestern? Feel like you might get more money than at Michigan, and with your WE it might be better for you.

Michigan is worth that premium imo

Michigan. Are you interested in IP prosecution or litigation?

OhBoyOhBortles wrote:Michigan is a great option if the 120k figure is accurate. Did you include interest accumulating/living expenses/etc?

Yes, i used the calculator on LST, i have a pretty decent savings coming in.

ndirish2010 wrote:Northwestern? Feel like you might get more money than at Michigan, and with your WE it might be better for you.

Haha, hoping for that hold decision. ...still.

TasmanianToucan wrote:Michigan. Are you interested in IP prosecution or litigation?

Prosecution as of now, I'm not hung up on anything going in though, trying to keep my options open

How much money are you pulling from savings for each?

boognish42 wrote:

ndirish2010 wrote:Northwestern? Feel like you might get more money than at Michigan, and with your WE it might be better for you.

Haha, hoping for that hold decision. ...still.

Good luck! Otherwise I agree with the other posters. I would eat the extra debt for Michigan in this situation.

Nomo wrote:How much money are you pulling from savings for each?

About 30,000, planning on earning 15,000 while in school. Parents said they would throw in 10,000 if i choose Michigan.

boognish42 wrote:

TasmanianToucan wrote:Michigan. Are you interested in IP prosecution or litigation?

Prosecution as of now, I'm not hung up on anything going in though, trying to keep my options open

OK. I only ask because if litigation is your goal most serious patent litigation of which I'm aware is handled by biglaw firms, and if you want biglaw Mich will give you a much better shot than UIUC.

Assuming that you have little or no existing educational debt, then Michigan at $120,000 seems to be the better option based on job placement stats.

I don't often say this lately...Michigan in this case.

I was in the same situation re: UMich v. UIUC for law school. I chose UMich, but I don't think you should.

A couple things:

- I came to Michigan with 3 years work experience in finance. I did far better at OCI than I expected based on my 1L GPA. I interviewed mostly for transactional practices, and I think my success had a lot to do with the relevance and duration of my experience.

- Based on what I saw at OCI, I sometimes regret coming to Michigan because I think I could have landed a substantially similar job coming out of UIUC. When I say substantially similar, I don't necessarily mean similar Vault ranking - the Michigan name significantly increased my chances of nabbing a spot at my current "prestigious" firm.* However, I'm confident that I could have landed a market-salaried Big Law gig in Chicago doing substantially similar work. People in Big Law want to hire responsible, reliable adults who can produce consistently high-quality work product; raw brilliance is nowhere near as important as you might think. If your 7 years w/e is actually relevant to IP practice, this will be a huge boost come hiring season.

With 7 years of work experience (and a strong LSAT score to boot) I think you have a good shot of being successful at UIUC and, ultimately, in the Chicago job search. You may have to "network" a bit harder since the employment channels offered by Michigan are undoubtedly better, but I personally don't think they're worth an extra $100k in your scenario.

*I'm trying my hardest not to be a dick about this. If you want more details please PM me. It's no secret that lawyers are obsessed with prestige, and I'm discussing my firm in such terms to enhance the credibility of this post.

I would pick UIUC but I don't think paying $100k more for Michigan is a clearly wrong decision.

RE: Daft & Direct's post above seems to point more favorably to Michigan, not UIUC, by my reading. One's first placement out of law school greatly affects future near to mid-term opportunities. Better to go with the odds since a $100,000 difference is a reasonable amount of student loan debt for one seeking biglaw in a major location.

As a UIUC person I would almost always say go to Michigan, but IP at UIUC is a lot easier to do than your average UIUC student. Every person from my class that had a hard science background got biglaw at OCI or the Patent fair. Most even had firm jobs their 1L summers, something almost no one else at UIUC gets. They didn't have to be in the top 1/4 like the rest of the class and also they had a lot more geographical flexibility than the average UIUC student.

With that said, $120k for Michigan isn't bad at all. But I think if OP has a hard science background, will be pretty safe at either place

thebobs1987 wrote:As a UIUC person I would almost always say go to Michigan, but IP at UIUC is a lot easier to do than your average UIUC student. Every person from my class that had a hard science background got biglaw at OCI or the Patent fair. Most even had firm jobs their 1L summers, something almost no one else at UIUC gets. They didn't have to be in the top 1/4 like the rest of the class and also they had a lot more geographical flexibility than the average UIUC student.

With that said, $120k for Michigan isn't bad at all. But I think if OP has a hard science background, will be pretty safe at either place

I come from a chemistry background, not ideal, but i am patent bar eligible.

boognish42 wrote:

thebobs1987 wrote:As a UIUC person I would almost always say go to Michigan, but IP at UIUC is a lot easier to do than your average UIUC student. Every person from my class that had a hard science background got biglaw at OCI or the Patent fair. Most even had firm jobs their 1L summers, something almost no one else at UIUC gets. They didn't have to be in the top 1/4 like the rest of the class and also they had a lot more geographical flexibility than the average UIUC student.

With that said, $120k for Michigan isn't bad at all. But I think if OP has a hard science background, will be pretty safe at either place

I come from a chemistry background, not ideal, but i am patent bar eligible.

Usually anything outside of engineering usually requires a MS or higher based on what I've heard, but your work experience could probably overcome that.