USC $135,000 vs. Boston College $90,000 Forum

[Patssoxceltics130]

Lets play a game to disassociate advice from bias:

Lets say X is from the East coast and got into both USC ($135,000 total) and Boston College ($90,000 total) and X will not be retaking ever. With only these two data points which school would be the smarter choice to attend? According to the recent ABA statistics BC has a 46% biglaw + fed clerkships while USC has a 43% biglaw + fed clerkships. What do you believe is the better law market, Boston or Los Angeles? Are there any reasons besides employment statistics why you would choose one of these schools over the other?

[objctnyrhnr]

Lets play a game to disassociate advice from bias:

Lets say X is from the East coast and got into both USC ($135,000 total) and Boston College ($90,000 total) and X will not be retaking ever. With only these two data points which school would be the smarter choice to attend? According to the recent ABA statistics BC has a 46% biglaw + fed clerkships while USC has a 43% biglaw + fed clerkships. What do you believe is the better law market, Boston or Los Angeles? Are there any reasons besides employment statistics why you would choose one of these schools over the other?

Congrats on the solid options. The boston biglaw (and to an extent even midlaw) market is booming. I think generally speaking many speculate that this is a result of the tech/pharma sector also blowing up in that market. Off the top of my head from reading the periodicals that show up in my firm email, I think that orrick Kirkland quinn mofo hogan have all opened offices there in the past couple years. My suspicion would be that Bc would be the primary beneficiary of these additions (with Bu being a close second I suppose). Anecdotally it seems like Bc grads generally dominate that market because Bu grads tend to leave after graduating more for whatever reason.

Now that all being said, that’s a significant chunk of change at a solid t20 in usc. Since la has always been somewhat of a major market, I don’t think it’s been experiencing the kind of growth in terms of firm additions that boston has. One downside to putting your eggs in the LA market versus the boston market, though, is that LA is a market in which outsiders tend to land in large numbers (think nyc but not quite to that extent), meaning you will have more competition trying to get biglaw there. By contrast, there are far fewer outsiders (think non Bc/Bu) trying to land boston out of oci. But of course the caveat is that LA has much more capacity.

On the whole, even though that number at usc is significantly more, I think with those numbers, it should really come down to where you wAnt to live. In other words, I don’t think usc at 135 is so much better than Bc at 90 that it should outweigh a relatively stronger desire to be in boston.

Sorry if that answer sounded wishy washy, but I thought it might help you to lay out what I see are pros and cons along the lines of the factors you identified.

[cavalier1138]

What are X's career goals? You mentioned biglaw and clerking, but it wasn't clear what X actually wants to do with his hypothetical law degree.