Top Law Schools

Long time lurker, first time poster! Just want to thank everyone here for helping me get through these stressful times. Will definitely contribute more to these forums.

Anyways, Ive been accepted to multiple schools. I have narrowed it down to a few of them with Loyola Law in LA and UCIrvine being at the top.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

1. Offers: Irvine = $50K and Loyola = $120K ... already asked about negotiation for both. Would also save money in Loyola as I probably would commute from home.

2. I've always been interested in Immigration Law and other areas of PI but mostly immigration just because it stems from personal stories I have. Will I eventually change my mind of my future practice area? Possibly, not likely, but I'm open to it. But for now I am definitely leaning the PI/immigration direction. This is the reason I want to do law in the first place

3. Would love to work in LA, but open to work in other areas inside and outside the state. So that's why I'm thinking of which school is more well known outside of their local counties/regions

4. Clinics are important to me.

5. Because I'm doing PI/immigration route, scared about debt afterwards. But also scared about job prospects.

Any light on this decision would help! Thanks!!

This is a tough one, even for me. If you care a lot about clinics, UCI has a robust clinic program which includes an immigration one. In addition to that, there are many pro bono programs that deal with immigration and can help you get experience and make connections.

But you're debt adverse. There's gonna be debt graduating from either of these schools.

If you can retake and think you could do better to get more money next year, I would do that. Otherwise, I would pick UCI just because I truly believe it provides better options.

Disclaimer: I went to UCI.

zot1 wrote:This is a tough one, even for me. If you care a lot about clinics, UCI has a robust clinic program which includes an immigration one. In addition to that, there are many pro bono programs that deal with immigration and can help you get experience and make connections.

But you're debt adverse. There's gonna be debt graduating from either of these schools.

If you can retake and think you could do better to get more money next year, I would do that. Otherwise, I would pick UCI just because I truly believe it provides better options.

Disclaimer: I went to UCI.

How did you like it there?

I loved it. But I also know some people who didn't. But the reasons are all person-specific. I knew someone who hated UCI because they didn't bring a car to Irvine and public transportation wasn't as good as D.C. As a Southern Californian, I couldn't care less about something like that since I'm used to driving everywhere.