Top Law Schools

Edit: Thanks for the feedback. I think I know which direction I'm going to go.

I know this doesn't answer your question but there seems to be some lack of clarity in your goals. It is not guaranteed you will end up in biglaw (far from it). Also, a transition from "biglaw" to "litigation" is not necessarily a transition in practice area.

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Definitely try to come up with more clarity surrounding geographic and career goals. It's really important.

If you know you want to do PI (not in the way that most 0Ls say they want to do PI, but in a genuine way) then I would probably skip the top school/big law thing altogether. Going into debt to get a job to pay down debt doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

(This is of course assuming the type of PI you want to do is attainable without having to go to a top school/do big law first)

BigZuck wrote:Definitely try to come up with more clarity surrounding geographic and career goals. It's really important.

If you know you want to do PI (not in the way that most 0Ls say they want to do PI, but in a genuine way) then I would probably skip the top school/big law thing altogether. Going into debt to get a job to pay down debt doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

(This is of course assuming the type of PI you want to do is attainable without having to go to a top school/do big law first)

Sounds good, I understand I asked a question with broad parameters. I appreciate the perspective.

I'm leaning toward GWU. I'm curious if anyone would advocate for Georgetown here.

Public interest law is a very broad "field," covering legal services, public defender/district attorney offices, goverment at all levels, and even some private plaintiff side work. These jobs are sometimes directly legal in nature, sometimes JD advantage types. Most of these jobs are incredibly competitive to get, including low paying ones. Some types of work, like legal services, would probably actually look down on big law and question your commitment to their cause. For other fields, like many federal government jobs, big law is a great way to learn the requisite skills and build the resume to break in.

If you are dead set on big law for any period of time, Georgetown is the clear choice. If you are interested in a PI career then you really need to consider what that means to you before anyone can answer this question in any meaningful way.

Also, Google law school transparency school reports for information on both schools in terms of debt, job placement and the other relevant info that would help with this decisonX

OutOfTheQuestion wrote:
Sounds good, I understand I asked a question with broad parameters. I appreciate the perspective.

I'm leaning toward GWU. I'm curious if anyone would advocate for Georgetown here.

Negotiate (more?) with Georgetown, especially come April/deposit time.

I don't know this for a fact, but I BELIEVE Georgetown has a good LRAP for PI compared to GW. (Helps repay your loans if you make under a certain amt)

foregetaboutdre wrote:I don't know this for a fact, but I BELIEVE Georgetown has a good LRAP for PI compared to GW. (Helps repay your loans if you make under a certain amt)

Georgetown has one of the best LRAP in the country for PI...I believe they are only beaten by NYU (which was created after and set its 100% cut-off at $80k to one-up GULC's $75k.

OutOfTheQuestion wrote:I'm leaning toward GWU. I'm curious if anyone would advocate for Georgetown here.

They are both good schools, but the Georgetown name and alumni network is going to serve you a lot better than GW. It leaves the door open for being able to make BigLaw as a median student instead of needing at least top ⅓, and they are generally going to have the stronger faculty. Georgetown's LRAP is also hard to beat if you are wanting to go into PI law, and they have an entire office dedicated to providing assistance to people interesting in PI law (for instance, they hold an annual event that is basically a pseudo-OCI for PI organizations and some government entities, and provide a small summer stipend for folks working unpaid PI internships).