W&M v Temple v other options Forum

[paint-with-5]

LSAT: 159 on retake (PT’d 157-165, avg 162), 157 on first take 2 years prior. GPA: 2.9.

URM with 2 years work experience, applied super late in the cycle.

I have NO IDEA where I ultimately want to live/practice, other than somewhere on the Eastern seaboard where there’s also work for my trailing S.O. I'm from NY, but moved to IN very recently and don't particularly want to stay here. Interested in international corporate law and cybersecurity law. However, I’ve only had experience with the area I don’t want to practice in, and plan to figure out what I really do want as I go. Ideal career has Asia/Japan focus.

Should I retake AGAIN, and if so, in June? Or, should I sit out yet another cycle?

W&M- Sticker
W&L- 53k/yr COA
Temple- 25k/yr COA
Wake Forest- 34k/yr COA (deposit deadline is 4/5, eesh)
Cardozo- 29k/yr COA

Waiting to hear from quite a few more (2 T14, ~10 T50, and Rutgers), and haven’t started negotiating yet. I’ll be relying on loans to finance COA, as well as a small amount of education savings.

[BigZuck]

What do you mean by "international corporate law" and "cybersecurity law"? What would your ideal career look like in each of those fields?

[paint-with-5]

As for international corporate law, handling transactional matters between companies in Japan and the US would be ideal. Not as certain about Japan M&A lit being a good fit for me. The option of working in a Tokyo office after a while would be nice. Honestly, as a 0L, I plan to get a better idea of what I want as I go--I mainly know what I don't want at this point.

Scratch the latter as a flight of fancy.

[barkschool]

As for international corporate law, handling transactional matters between companies in Japan and the US would be ideal. Not as certain about Japan M&A lit being a good fit for me. The option of working in a Tokyo office after a while would be nice. Honestly, as a 0L, I plan to get a better idea of what I want as I go--I mainly know what I don't want at this point.

Scratch the latter as a flight of fancy.

None of that is possible from the school's you listed.

[paint-with-5]

As for international corporate law, handling transactional matters between companies in Japan and the US would be ideal. Not as certain about Japan M&A lit being a good fit for me. The option of working in a Tokyo office after a while would be nice. Honestly, as a 0L, I plan to get a better idea of what I want as I go--I mainly know what I don't want at this point.

Scratch the latter as a flight of fancy.

None of that is possible from the school's you listed.

T14 only, then? There are other, non-T14 schools I didn't list that I hadn't heard from at the time of posting (where I'm now waitlisted). And again, I plan to keep an open mind with regard to figuring out what I want.

[cavalier1138]

As for international corporate law, handling transactional matters between companies in Japan and the US would be ideal. Not as certain about Japan M&A lit being a good fit for me. The option of working in a Tokyo office after a while would be nice. Honestly, as a 0L, I plan to get a better idea of what I want as I go--I mainly know what I don't want at this point.

Scratch the latter as a flight of fancy.

None of that is possible from the school's you listed.

T14 only, then? There are other, non-T14 schools I didn't list that I hadn't heard from at the time of posting (where I'm now waitlisted). And again, I plan to keep an open mind with regard to figuring out what I want.

Yes, T14 only.

International law is a highly selective field. You'll always find exceptions to the rule, but you have almost no chance of working on the type of law you described without a T14 degree, and even then, it probably needs to be from a specific T14. The ideal school for international work of that kind in Asia is Stanford, and simply put, you're probably not getting in there without a stunning LSAT and an admissions officer who can overlook your GPA.

I'll ask a broader question than the last poster: why do you want to go to law school?

[paint-with-5]

As for international corporate law, handling transactional matters between companies in Japan and the US would be ideal. Not as certain about Japan M&A lit being a good fit for me. The option of working in a Tokyo office after a while would be nice. Honestly, as a 0L, I plan to get a better idea of what I want as I go--I mainly know what I don't want at this point.

Scratch the latter as a flight of fancy.

None of that is possible from the school's you listed.

T14 only, then? There are other, non-T14 schools I didn't list that I hadn't heard from at the time of posting (where I'm now waitlisted). And again, I plan to keep an open mind with regard to figuring out what I want.

Yes, T14 only.

International law is a highly selective field. You'll always find exceptions to the rule, but you have almost no chance of working on the type of law you described without a T14 degree, and even then, it probably needs to be from a specific T14. The ideal school for international work of that kind in Asia is Stanford, and simply put, you're probably not getting in there without a stunning LSAT and an admissions officer who can overlook your GPA.

I'll ask a broader question than the last poster: why do you want to go to law school?

After researching the profession, including working as a paralegal, having informational interviews with attorneys in a variety of fields, reading accounts of what attorneys do and their level of (dis)satisfaction, I find that it seems to suit me. Endless reading of technical documents is up my alley (along with understanding and synthesizing the information), doing research for and writing motions is fun even when the subject matter becomes repetitive, and I could go on. Of course, there are the important to recognize negative aspects, but my desire to work in law trumps that. I feel that I could work in a variety of fields, and I am used to living on little money already, in case I manage to end up at the low end of the bimodal distribution when I get out of school.

tl;dr - I think I would be good at it and have reason to believe I will enjoy it.

[cavalier1138]

As for international corporate law, handling transactional matters between companies in Japan and the US would be ideal. Not as certain about Japan M&A lit being a good fit for me. The option of working in a Tokyo office after a while would be nice. Honestly, as a 0L, I plan to get a better idea of what I want as I go--I mainly know what I don't want at this point.

Scratch the latter as a flight of fancy.

None of that is possible from the school's you listed.

T14 only, then? There are other, non-T14 schools I didn't list that I hadn't heard from at the time of posting (where I'm now waitlisted). And again, I plan to keep an open mind with regard to figuring out what I want.

Yes, T14 only.

International law is a highly selective field. You'll always find exceptions to the rule, but you have almost no chance of working on the type of law you described without a T14 degree, and even then, it probably needs to be from a specific T14. The ideal school for international work of that kind in Asia is Stanford, and simply put, you're probably not getting in there without a stunning LSAT and an admissions officer who can overlook your GPA.

I'll ask a broader question than the last poster: why do you want to go to law school?

After researching the profession, including working as a paralegal, having informational interviews with attorneys in a variety of fields, reading accounts of what attorneys do and their level of (dis)satisfaction, I find that it seems to suit me. Endless reading of technical documents is up my alley (along with understanding and synthesizing the information), doing research for and writing motions is fun even when the subject matter becomes repetitive, and I could go on. Of course, there are the important to recognize negative aspects, but my desire to work in law trumps that. I feel that I could work in a variety of fields, and I am used to living on little money already, in case I manage to end up at the low end of the bimodal distribution when I get out of school.

tl;dr - I think I would be good at it and have reason to believe I will enjoy it.

Great. Then what you need to figure out is whether you just want to practice law, or if you have to practice international transaction law. Because you cannot do the latter without going to a higher-ranked school.

[paint-with-5]

As for international corporate law, handling transactional matters between companies in Japan and the US would be ideal. Not as certain about Japan M&A lit being a good fit for me. The option of working in a Tokyo office after a while would be nice. Honestly, as a 0L, I plan to get a better idea of what I want as I go--I mainly know what I don't want at this point.

Scratch the latter as a flight of fancy.

None of that is possible from the school's you listed.

T14 only, then? There are other, non-T14 schools I didn't list that I hadn't heard from at the time of posting (where I'm now waitlisted). And again, I plan to keep an open mind with regard to figuring out what I want.

Yes, T14 only.

International law is a highly selective field. You'll always find exceptions to the rule, but you have almost no chance of working on the type of law you described without a T14 degree, and even then, it probably needs to be from a specific T14. The ideal school for international work of that kind in Asia is Stanford, and simply put, you're probably not getting in there without a stunning LSAT and an admissions officer who can overlook your GPA.

I'll ask a broader question than the last poster: why do you want to go to law school?

After researching the profession, including working as a paralegal, having informational interviews with attorneys in a variety of fields, reading accounts of what attorneys do and their level of (dis)satisfaction, I find that it seems to suit me. Endless reading of technical documents is up my alley (along with understanding and synthesizing the information), doing research for and writing motions is fun even when the subject matter becomes repetitive, and I could go on. Of course, there are the important to recognize negative aspects, but my desire to work in law trumps that. I feel that I could work in a variety of fields, and I am used to living on little money already, in case I manage to end up at the low end of the bimodal distribution when I get out of school.

tl;dr - I think I would be good at it and have reason to believe I will enjoy it.

Great. Then what you need to figure out is whether you just want to practice law, or if you have to practice international transaction law. Because you cannot do the latter without going to a higher-ranked school.

I just want to practice law, really. With the exclusion of a very few practice areas. I'm not even aiming for a specific geographical region. The Japan/international transaction law are just current icing-on-the-cake ideals, and certainly subject to change.

[barkschool]

I just want to practice law, really. With the exclusion of a very few practice areas. I'm not even aiming for a specific geographical region. The Japan/international transaction law are just current icing-on-the-cake ideals, and certainly subject to change.

Why do you want to practice law? There are many careers that pay the same 50k salary.

[mogwli]

OP, what's concerning to a lot of people is some misunderstanding about what you can actually achieve by going to law school. No one graduates from law school and starts working on international corporate transaction unless you are in a very specific biglaw corporate office. The firm needs to (1) actually do that practice (2) have an opening (3) have an opening for an entry-level (unlikely). Corporate biglaw offers a lot of different options though, so maybe you say you are ok doing something else. To get into biglaw at all, you need very good grades from a top school. It doesn't need to be T14, as there are plenty of good regional schools that place their top students into biglaw, but a T14 makes it a lot easier.

Biglaw life is not this glamorous field. Working on "international corporate transactions" or anything else for that matter will involve you doing a crap ton of boring due diligence work for several years + grueling hours, and that is the best case scenario from a top school. You want to go $200k+ in debt for that? 200k debt that you won't pay off for 10+ years even with a biglaw salary(you're unlikely to last that long anyway in biglaw).Your life will be miserable and you will regret your choice, but you'll be stuck into it because that's the only way you can pay your debt off. Again, this is all assuming you even get a big law job, which from the schools you listed you very, very likely won't.

Of the schools you mentioned, your chances at getting a big law job are very slim to none. Your best chance would be at W&M, but taking that at sticker price for like a 10-15% chance of ever paying off your debt is a terrible, terrible choice.

Having no idea where you ultimately want to live is also an issue. Outside of the T14, schools are incredibly regional. The school you go to is very likely going to be the area in which you live and work for the next 30+ years. If you aren't comfortable living in VA, don't go to W&M. Have you ever been to DC/ know you'd like living there? Edit: Employers actually like to see you tied down to one location as well. No one likes hiring someone who hates the area and will likely move as soon as they can. You need to find the market/region where you WANT to work, not just where you DON'T want to work.


You need to take a VERY hard look into the employment statistics of the various schools you mentioned. What salaries are students getting? What percentage even will go into careers as lawyers (J.D. required)? What percentage even have jobs? You can't have dreams about international corporate law when there is a 30%+ you will be unemployed/not working as a lawyer after you graduate.

OP, even if you get into a T14, don't go on sticker. Retake, get into 160+ and apply VERY early in the cycle. You'll get into much better schools with much better scholarship opportunities. Biglaw isn't as bad when you aren't forced into it because of debt.

[champloo]

How good is your Japanese? If you can speak fluent enough there seems to be demand from Japan for bilingual JDs. Just an anecdote: know of two ppl in different lower T1 schools --> both at median --> both lived in tokyo for more than 15 years --> both fully trilingual --> multiple summer offers from japan (in house and foreign firms): if this isnt you then you'll have a harder time getting offers from Japan.

If you've lived there long enough to know all the detailed mannerisms (of which Japan has a ton) and know the language enough to hold an intelligent convo then I would focus on going to a T1 school for as cheap as possible, network your ass off, and pass the CA or NY bar.

Looking on JDU even Japanese doc review/translation seems like good money.

eta: Are you J/A? part Japanese? if you're not and only know the culture+language you're gonna have a harder time than my friends. Japan (as well as other Asian cultures) isnt as welcoming to foreigners as most other developed countries.

[timbs4339]

OP: The fact that you want to work on international transactions and are considering going to these schools concerns me. You not only need to get biglaw to do this, you need to get biglaw at one of the few firms with a strong transactional practice AND that handles work for international clients AND specifically Japanese clients. As you can expect, that's not a lot of firms.

I know you said that this is sort of your pipe dream, but it's a dream that's so far away from what most lawyers who attend these schools do that I'd think long and hard about what you'd consider your "career floor." I mean would you take being a DA or a PD as an acceptable career path? What about doing personal injury or med mal litigation?