Law School/ Career Advice Forum

[yokismokescaleb]

Hi all,
My Stats:
Age: 22 (23 next month)
Major: Econ BSc (4th year)
LSAT: 169 (not a very good score for me, hoping to turn that into a 170+ next month)
GPA: at my school it's out of 9, but lets call it a 3.5-3.75 for now
School: Decent university in Canada (not top, but decent)
Factors:
1. I am founder/president of a non-profit that connects low income kids to free tutoring at my university campus, I handle about 30 volunteers, I am hoping to use that to my advantage for applications
2. I likely will not need to worry about student loans

I am hoping to go to the US for law school and stay there afterwards, I would really like to get out of Canada. My dream school right now is UCLA, but I will apply to a whole bunch of schools, my LSAT seems to be in the 75th percentile for some really good schools, and as I said I'm hoping to increase that score as well. I don't mind too much where in the US I go to school, I would love to be in the southwest, or even Oregon, but I need to consider the job market first.
My dream job is to work 40-60hours per week and make at least 75k out of school. I don't want to work in Big Law, I'm interested in criminal, immigration, tax, among others. I mainly just don't want to sell my soul after graduation to work in some meaningless corporate firm where I have to worry about getting 2000 billable hours a year etc, but I'm also willing to work more than the average person.
It's essentially going to take me 4 years between starting law school and landing a job anyway, and my plan B if I choose not to go to law school is to get a degree in software/electrical engineering in the US.
Please put aside the "why do you want to be a lawyer" stuff, I'm not worried about hating law, I'm worried about going to a T15-T25 US school and being underemployed or working for like 60k a year indefinitely.

MY QUESTION: In your opinion(s) Can I get close to my dream job situation graduating from UCLA, Berkley, Vandy, Cornell, Virginia, UoT etc. or should I move on and get a eng degree? I can see myself well in both positions.

[The Lsat Airbender]

Your career goals are realistic from those schools, and your stats position you well to get into some of those schools at a decent price, but have you thought about your own immigration situation? It's sadly pretty hard to get a green card right now, even for Canadians who attend US universities and secure job offers. Engineering might be a safer bet for that reason alone - it's easier (but still not guaranteed) to get H1B sponsorship from an employer (the only legal employers who do this are big firms).

I'd also caution you against overvaluing "get out of Canada". I've lived there and in the US and they're pretty similar countries with many of the same problems. If you go to law school at UofT (which I'm pretty sure you're also qualified for) then you still have realistic routes into the US but you'd have much more solid fallback options at home.