How important is t13 if I don't want biglaw? Forum

[181plz]

I'm not entirely sure about biglaw at this point, but I haven't necessarily ruled it out

I'm currently sitting at a 168 Lsat and 3.4 Gpa, so my chances aren't great unless I improve my Lsat which I retake in September. However, to the point, is it necessary to attend these schools if I don't want to work for a rich large law firm?

[AJordan]

If you're confident you don't want to work biglaw, and by confident I mean you're like 27+ and know what it feels like to work for the man for five years and would rather put a bullet through your head than go down that road again, then the answer is to find the school where you want to live that will give you the best chance at getting a legal job you want while giving you the most money possible. Your numbers aren't all that bad; plenty of regionals are likely to offer you a full ride.

Just be careful about saying, "I'm confident I don't want to work biglaw..." they do employ roughly 25% of the entirety of the legal field. By shutting them out you're actively excluding active hiring organizations in a tough job market. It's not like other people don't want PI/Gvmt jobs as well. You'll be competing with folks from those schools who also want to do that work.

Find the money, take the money. Don't go into debt.

[cavalier1138]

It also depends on what you want to do. If you're sure you don't want to do biglaw, but that means that you'd rather do high-level PI work with organizations like the ACLU, etc., you may still need to focus on top schools.

[UVA2B]

T13 isn't important unless you figure out what you want and what you want is something a T13 does better at placing you in it. So what do you want to do if it's not biglaw? This has mostly been covered already, but bears repeating: different legal jobs hire based on different hiring criteria. If you want to work for Cravath or Wachtell, you should be going to a T6 (to be clear, for most it's demonstrably silly to target specific firms before entering law school, but that's a different topic altogether). If you want to be a PD or ADA in a suburb of Phoenix, you should go to ASU or U of A for free or as close to it as you can get.

I don't think this question was intended this way, but you layered multiple dichotomous questions on top of each other. It's not always better to go to a T13, and it's not necessarily better to go into biglaw. But if you haven't figured out what you want to do with a JD with specificity, a T13 keeps options open better than a regional, so only you can figure out how specific your actual goals are for this degree.

[Generally]

I missed the TLS memo. Is t14 officially dead now?

OP since you aren't sure, I would improve your LSAT and aim for "t13". It definitely will open up a lot more doors in the legal world, so more chance what you do decide you want for sure will still be possible. I can't imagaine it would close too many, except for debt, so just keep scholarships as an important piece of the decision.

[UVA2B]

I missed the TLS memo. Is t14 officially dead now?

OP since you aren't sure, I would improve your LSAT and aim for "t13". It definitely will open up a lot more doors in the legal world, so more chance what you do decide you want for sure will still be possible. I can't imagaine it would close too many, except for debt, so just keep scholarships as an important piece of the decision.

GULC has been a weird sub-tier for years now, and some/most have used the latest USNWR to seize on the opportunity to consolidate the T14. So if you just want to talk national placement generally, it's probably still T14. But if you want to specifically talk national placement that has a more than likely chance of getting what you want, it's kinda been T13 for years.

But this is all moot, because none of us know what the OP wants besides maybe/probably not biglaw. It's a big legal market out there, but going to law school just to go is pretty ill-advised in most/all cases.

[181plz]

It also depends on what you want to do. If you're sure you don't want to do biglaw, but that means that you'd rather do high-level PI work with organizations like the ACLU, etc., you may still need to focus on top schools.

Personal injury is high on my hypothetical list. I've been working in sales, making good money, but realizing how shitty it feels to solely pursue profit in a somewhat corrupt industry. I'd like to practice law in a manner that isnt purely profit driven.

[cavalier1138]

It also depends on what you want to do. If you're sure you don't want to do biglaw, but that means that you'd rather do high-level PI work with organizations like the ACLU, etc., you may still need to focus on top schools.

Personal injury is high on my hypothetical list. I've been working in sales, making good money, but realizing how shitty it feels to solely pursue profit in a somewhat corrupt industry. I'd like to practice law in a manner that isnt purely profit driven.

...maybe don't do personal injury law. Or private practice in general.

That said, if your goal is local, small firm practice, then you shouldn't go to a T13. Aim for a solid local school with a full ride.

[181plz]

It also depends on what you want to do. If you're sure you don't want to do biglaw, but that means that you'd rather do high-level PI work with organizations like the ACLU, etc., you may still need to focus on top schools.

Personal injury is high on my hypothetical list. I've been working in sales, making good money, but realizing how shitty it feels to solely pursue profit in a somewhat corrupt industry. I'd like to practice law in a manner that isnt purely profit driven.

...maybe don't do personal injury law. Or private practice in general.

That said, if your goal is local, small firm practice, then you shouldn't go to a T13. Aim for a solid local school with a full ride.

To be precise, I understand money makes the world go round and I'm ok with my work being like 80% profit driven or something like that. I don't mean to come off as naive. I just don't want EVERYTHING reduced to dollars and cents

[cavalier1138]

To be precise, I understand money makes the world go round and I'm ok with my work being like 80% profit driven or something like that. I don't mean to come off as naive. I just don't want EVERYTHING reduced to dollars and cents

Right. So you know that personal injury law is almost entirely about converting human suffering into a specific monetary amount, right?

Again, sounds like you can aim for local schools and get what you want. But I don't think law is going to provide any refuge from capitalism (at least not the kind you're thinking of).

[UVA2B]

It also depends on what you want to do. If you're sure you don't want to do biglaw, but that means that you'd rather do high-level PI work with organizations like the ACLU, etc., you may still need to focus on top schools.

Personal injury is high on my hypothetical list. I've been working in sales, making good money, but realizing how shitty it feels to solely pursue profit in a somewhat corrupt industry. I'd like to practice law in a manner that isnt purely profit driven.

...maybe don't do personal injury law. Or private practice in general.

That said, if your goal is local, small firm practice, then you shouldn't go to a T13. Aim for a solid local school with a full ride.

To be precise, I understand money makes the world go round and I'm ok with my work being like 80% profit driven or something like that. I don't mean to come off as naive. I just don't want EVERYTHING reduced to dollars and cents

It may just be you're looking at this the wrong way, but personal injury law, whether it be plaintiff side torts or medical malpractice or whatever else type of personal injury you can imagine, will be intensely profit-driven. Maybe you'll feel better about yourself when the client you managed to nail down for a personal injury claim gets a settlement awarded, but the business is so heavily contingency fee-driven that meeting basic goals of maintaining any profitability will more than likely pervade your entire practice. Even when you get to an established practice that does a lot of personal injury claims, the name of the game will likely be volume of settlements, which I'm just guessing here, might feel more soul-sucking than you're imagining.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yeah, these guys are absolutely right about personal injury (also to be clear, PI here often means public interest, which ironically sounds more like what you mean).