Top Law Schools

Any and all advice is welcome and appreciated!

I've narrowed down my possible law schools to Washington and Lee, William and Mary, Emory, and the University of Kentucky.

Tuition costs after scholarships are as follows:
Washington and Lee: $27,500/year
William and Mary: $31,800
Emory: $30,000
Kentucky: $14,000


I'm a Kentucky resident and my parents and grandparents are alumni of the University of Kentucky. What's more, I'm an opera singer and Kentucky has a fantastic opera theatre program. The other three options obviously have some degree of national recognition.

I'm not certain where I want to practice, but I think I want to do estate planning, trusts, and large-scale real estate deals (or maybe constitutional law).

Now here's the kicker: My family will pay for Kentucky no matter what. So my decision then becomes do I take the free law school education and continue my music studies, or do I take out ~$50,000 in loans to go to a nationally acclaimed school?

Thank you!

Dcg16 wrote:Any and all advice is welcome and appreciated!

I've narrowed down my possible law schools to Washington and Lee, William and Mary, Emory, and the University of Kentucky.

Tuition costs after scholarships are as follows:
Washington and Lee: $27,500/year
William and Mary: $31,800
Emory: $30,000
Kentucky: $14,000


I'm a Kentucky resident and my parents and grandparents are alumni of the University of Kentucky. What's more, I'm an opera singer and Kentucky has a fantastic opera theatre program. The other three options obviously have some degree of national recognition.

I'm not certain where I want to practice, but I think I want to do estate planning, trusts, and large-scale real estate deals (or maybe constitutional law).

Now here's the kicker: My family will pay for Kentucky no matter what. So my decision then becomes do I take the free law school education and continue my music studies, or do I take out ~$50,000 in loans to go to a nationally acclaimed school?

Thank you!

I'd look at LST score reports and compare employment outcomes, then figure out which region I'd be okay working in for my legal career.

However, I don't understand why your music stuff had anything to do with your law school choice. It's a professional school and your number one consideration should be your legal career.

Also, most people are going to recommend that you don't attend any of those schools at those costs of attendance. It's probably too much money considering the likely earnings you'll see. Unless those tuition payments are for all three years.

Since Kentucky is free for you, it seems to be a reasonable choice as long as you are willing to accept doing what folks call shitlaw for a living. Forget large scale real estate deals or whatever you think constitutional law is. A good outcome is doing perhaps estates and trusts, but also divorces, insurance, and the like in the state of Kentucky. Can you live with that? If you kill it at Kentucky, then biglaw type things are possible, but killing it is like top 5-10% and that's far from assured.

Anyway, I can't imagine what you think Kentucky's opera theatre program has to do with choosing where to go to law school. It's as relevant as the quality of the basketball team.

Disregard the point about music as that's irrelevant to anyone but me.

If we assume that I'll be paying out of my own pocket

~$16k for Emory
~$14k for W&L
~$17k for W&M

Would it be worth the cost over the free education for UK? I'm not opposed to staying in the state but I don't want to be locked in to staying.

The fact that you want to do big real estate deals (or constitutional law) + opera singing suggests you don't really know what being a lawyer entails or the types of jobs that are out there. Which is totally fine, but you need to figure it out before attending law school.

Figure out what grads from these schools generally do, and if that outcome is fine with you and the cost of attendance is appropriate, then go for it. Is it stands right now it looks like all these schools will be too expensive, with the exception of Kentucky (also those other three schools don't really have very much national recognition in a meaningful sense).

Why not just do the opera thing and forget about law school altogether? Being an opera singer or actor sounds way cooler than being a lawyer.

For any of these schools, you're going to be locked in to a location. Generally, law is not a profession to pursue if you're really interested in geographical flexibility. You should go to school with a clear place to live, practice, and build a career in mind.

Dcg16 wrote:Disregard the point about music as that's irrelevant to anyone but me.

If we assume that I'll be paying out of my own pocket

~$16k for Emory
~$14k for W&L
~$17k for W&M

Would it be worth the cost over the free education for UK? I'm not opposed to staying in the state but I don't want to be locked in to staying.

You're changing the numbers around and it's not making much sense to me. How much debt will you be in at each school? Make sure you factor in tuition, tuition increases, cost of living, loan origination fees, and interest.

Also I don't think the music is necessarily irrelevant. If you think you're going to be able to devote a lot of time to developing two careers then that might be a mistake.

Worth noting that I have a 3.94 undergraduate GPA but only a 152 on the LSAT.

I have 5 years experience doing title work at a few law firms and recently did an undergraduate externship with the Kentucky Supreme Court.

With those in mind would it be worth my time to take a year off and retake the LSAT?

Dcg16 wrote:Worth noting that I have a 3.94 undergraduate GPA but only a 152 on the LSAT.

I have 5 years experience doing title work at a few law firms and recently did an undergraduate externship with the Kentucky Supreme Court.

With those in mind would it be worth my time to take a year off and retake the LSAT?

Absolutely! With your GPA, the right LSAT score can open up literally any school in the country.

Dcg16 wrote:Worth noting that I have a 3.94 undergraduate GPA but only a 152 on the LSAT.

I have 5 years experience doing title work at a few law firms and recently did an undergraduate externship with the Kentucky Supreme Court.

With those in mind would it be worth my time to take a year off and retake the LSAT?

Yes, focus, take a ton of practice tests, go to the LSAT forum here and retake. That's a great GPA and doing better on the LSAT will open up a ton of doors