Pace or brooklyn Forum

[citygal14b]

34 year old student here. I work full time and applied to law school the last week in June to whatever NY schools had part time programs and were still open. Surprisingly, got in every where I applied with money and now I'm stuck between doing what will be a more manageable schedule and going to the “better” school. I’m considering pace because it's Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:30 - 9:30 and one Saturday morning class. very manageable,but I know Brookyln is considered a better school. They would be four days a week 6-10 and 6-8.I want to be a criminal defense lawyer, so that rules out big law.

Also I got a 168 on the LSAT, GPA on the lower side 3.2 or something but that was over 10 years ago si I feel like it counts less.

I considered going to pace for a year and transferring to a better school but that means I'll love all merit and that sounds painful.

Question: what are ppl’s impressions of pace? Does it matter or will it be held against me in the future.

Also, is Brooklyn a better enough school it's worse a really tough schedule for 4 years. Again, I have a high stress corporate job and work long hours as it is.

[CanadianWolf]

If you are certain that you want to practice as a criminal defense lawyer, then you need to research each law school's course offerings in that practice area as well as clinics devoted to the practice of criminal defense.

[nealric]

Doesn't Fordham have a part time program? Did you get in there? You don't have to go this year. Law school will still be there next year.

I don't want to throw shade on anybody who went to Pace, but going there will render any large institutional employment much more difficult. It may not matter as much for criminal defense, but having some sort of institution behind you early in your career is usually much better for your development. For example, working for the federal public defender's office is likely to bring much better training opportunities than just hanging a shingle and signing up for state public defender overflow.

I disagree with Canadian Wolf somewhat. I don't think course offerings are all that important. Every law school has the classes you would need for a criminal defense career.

Law school is going to be inconvenient and stressful no matter what your class schedule is. One thing that may make Pace more stressful is lower-tier schools tend to put a lot more grade pressure on you. You would almost have to try to fail a class at Fordham, but a school like Pace expects a significant portion of the class to flunk out. This is necessary for lower-tier schools to maintain accreditation-worthy bar passage stats.

[nixy]

I will disagree with nealric somewhat in that I don’t think school name is always as important for criminal defense (and you’re extremely unlikely to start with the FPD or the NY equivalent straight out of law school no matter where you go).

I would ask both schools if they can give you 1) some numbers about how many/what percentage of their alumni are in criminal defense and 2) names of alumni in that field you can talk to. (I’d also try to track down some alumni on your own and reach out for input, so you’re not limited to those who have a good relationship with the schools in question.)

Then I’d reach out to those people and ask them which school they think would be better and why. Also if you can connect with any criminal defense attorneys generally, ask them, too.

People who are practicing in the field will have a better idea of whether the school name makes a big difference here and how you can best position yourself to enter that field. If they all say that Brooklyn is a materially better move for getting into the field, that’s really helpful to know.

Last thing to consider: one of the best ways to get hired in criminal defense after you graduate is to do internships/externships/clinics etc while in law school, because experience and connections are probably the most important qualifications for getting hired. So consider whether attending part-time is going to allow you the opportunity to do that.

(This is all presuming you want to get hired by a public defender org after graduation, which I’m presuming because it’s the best way to get into the field. There are criminal defense firms, but they tend to be small and experience varies a lot. You can also hang out a shingle, as nealric mentioned, but I think that’s an extremely bad way to start your career - or at least, extremely hard. I suppose there are a few souls who thrive in that context, but law school teaches you so little about practice, it’s really really tough to start out completely on your own. Plus why should anyone hire you over the many experienced defense attorneys out there? I’m also presuming you want to work in NYC. If not, going to law school in NYC for the purpose of going into criminal defense elsewhere probably isn’t a good move, unless you’re talking NYU or Columbia.)

[nealric]

I will disagree with nealric somewhat in that I don’t think school name is always as important for criminal defense (and you’re extremely unlikely to start with the FPD or the NY equivalent straight out of law school no matter where you go).

I would ask both schools if they can give you 1) some numbers about how many/what percentage of their alumni are in criminal defense and 2) names of alumni in that field you can talk to. (I’d also try to track down some alumni on your own and reach out for input, so you’re not limited to those who have a good relationship with the schools in question.)

Then I’d reach out to those people and ask them which school they think would be better and why. Also if you can connect with any criminal defense attorneys generally, ask them, too.

People who are practicing in the field will have a better idea of whether the school name makes a big difference here and how you can best position yourself to enter that field. If they all say that Brooklyn is a materially better move for getting into the field, that’s really helpful to know.

Last thing to consider: one of the best ways to get hired in criminal defense after you graduate is to do internships/externships/clinics etc while in law school, because experience and connections are probably the most important qualifications for getting hired. So consider whether attending part-time is going to allow you the opportunity to do that.

(This is all presuming you want to get hired by a public defender org after graduation, which I’m presuming because it’s the best way to get into the field. There are criminal defense firms, but they tend to be small and experience varies a lot. You can also hang out a shingle, as nealric mentioned, but I think that’s an extremely bad way to start your career - or at least, extremely hard. I suppose there are a few souls who thrive in that context, but law school teaches you so little about practice, it’s really really tough to start out completely on your own. Plus why should anyone hire you over the many experienced defense attorneys out there? I’m also presuming you want to work in NYC. If not, going to law school in NYC for the purpose of going into criminal defense elsewhere probably isn’t a good move, unless you’re talking NYU or Columbia.)

Any sort of institutional public defender's office (federal or otherwise) in NYC is extremely competitive. Brox defenders and the like get a ton of T14 graduates. Same thing if you want to get started as a prosecutor (it's usually a huge advantage to have prosecution experience if you want to do defense). If you go to Pace, you are most likely going to have hang up a shingle on your own or hope an Alumni takes you under their wing. It can be done, but it's a very tough road.

You can talk to graduates of each, but you'll get a somewhat blinkered view. An established practitioner is going to have a good deal of survivorship bias. I've interacted with plenty of third/forth tier graduates in biglaw or at high-end in-house jobs. And many are very happy with their choices. But what you miss when talking to them is the fact that those folks are the top 5% outcome for their schools.

[CanadianWolf]

Doesn't Fordham have a part time program? Did you get in there? You don't have to go this year. Law school will still be there next year.

I don't want to throw shade on anybody who went to Pace, but going there will render any large institutional employment much more difficult. It may not matter as much for criminal defense, but having some sort of institution behind you early in your career is usually much better for your development. For example, working for the federal public defender's office is likely to bring much better training opportunities than just hanging a shingle and signing up for state public defender overflow.

I disagree with Canadian Wolf somewhat. I don't think course offerings are all that important. Every law school has the classes you would need for a criminal defense career.

Law school is going to be inconvenient and stressful no matter what your class schedule is. One thing that may make Pace more stressful is lower-tier schools tend to put a lot more grade pressure on you. You would almost have to try to fail a class at Fordham, but a school like Pace expects a significant portion of the class to flunk out. This is necessary for lower-tier schools to maintain accreditation-worthy bar passage stats.

Sure, I agree. But my post also directed the OP to examine the defense clinics offered. Courses can be important depending upon who is teaching the course and whether they are actively involved in the practice of criminal defense (either active in a school related clinic or an adjunct professor who actively practices in the field) and depending upon the individual student's ability to form a relationship with a professor in the field.

Defense clinics typically allow one to get experience in the field.

[nealric]

Clinics are nice I guess, and maybe you get super lucky and an adjunct hooks you up. But a few cases in a clinic is nothing next to the dozens (or even hundreds) you will do a year in your first year of practice. A good clinical program is a poor substitute for actual job placement.

[nixy]

I will disagree with nealric somewhat in that I don’t think school name is always as important for criminal defense (and you’re extremely unlikely to start with the FPD or the NY equivalent straight out of law school no matter where you go).

I would ask both schools if they can give you 1) some numbers about how many/what percentage of their alumni are in criminal defense and 2) names of alumni in that field you can talk to. (I’d also try to track down some alumni on your own and reach out for input, so you’re not limited to those who have a good relationship with the schools in question.)

Then I’d reach out to those people and ask them which school they think would be better and why. Also if you can connect with any criminal defense attorneys generally, ask them, too.

People who are practicing in the field will have a better idea of whether the school name makes a big difference here and how you can best position yourself to enter that field. If they all say that Brooklyn is a materially better move for getting into the field, that’s really helpful to know.

Last thing to consider: one of the best ways to get hired in criminal defense after you graduate is to do internships/externships/clinics etc while in law school, because experience and connections are probably the most important qualifications for getting hired. So consider whether attending part-time is going to allow you the opportunity to do that.

(This is all presuming you want to get hired by a public defender org after graduation, which I’m presuming because it’s the best way to get into the field. There are criminal defense firms, but they tend to be small and experience varies a lot. You can also hang out a shingle, as nealric mentioned, but I think that’s an extremely bad way to start your career - or at least, extremely hard. I suppose there are a few souls who thrive in that context, but law school teaches you so little about practice, it’s really really tough to start out completely on your own. Plus why should anyone hire you over the many experienced defense attorneys out there? I’m also presuming you want to work in NYC. If not, going to law school in NYC for the purpose of going into criminal defense elsewhere probably isn’t a good move, unless you’re talking NYU or Columbia.)

Any sort of institutional public defender's office (federal or otherwise) in NYC is extremely competitive. Brox defenders and the like get a ton of T14 graduates. Same thing if you want to get started as a prosecutor (it's usually a huge advantage to have prosecution experience if you want to do defense). If you go to Pace, you are most likely going to have hang up a shingle on your own or hope an Alumni takes you under their wing. It can be done, but it's a very tough road.

You can talk to graduates of each, but you'll get a somewhat blinkered view. An established practitioner is going to have a good deal of survivorship bias. I've interacted with plenty of third/forth tier graduates in biglaw or at high-end in-house jobs. And many are very happy with their choices. But what you miss when talking to them is the fact that those folks are the top 5% outcome for their schools.

This may be the case; I don’t know enough about NYC criminal defense to say for certain. But I know that many local schools have pipelines to the local criminal justice jobs and that alumni networks are strong, so OP would be best served actually researching those with practitioners rather than relying on anyone’s assumptions here.

I agree that there’s survivorship bias among people who end up in a particular field (though I don’t think that you have to be in the top 5% at either Pace or Brooklyn to end up staying in the legal profession; for jobs that hire more for experience and connections, grades are of limited relevance). But I think people in a particular field can still give you relevant information about the degree to which people from their school are/aren’t shut out of that field. I know, for instance, who tends to get jobs in my field; I don’t blindly tell people from my school that just because I got a particular job, they will too!

(Though I think it is helpful to focus on people who graduated in the last 10 years at most.)

Plus, a T14 isn’t on the table here. So once you’re out of that realm, it’s perfectly possible that Pace and Brooklyn are similarly situated to place students in local criminal jobs; I don’t think their rankings are really material to that analysis.

I’m more arguing against the automatic assumption that Brooklyn is better than Pace for this situation. If your point is that neither school is worth it for this goal, maybe; I think though it’s up to the OP to do a lot of research and make that decision for themselves. We lack a lot of the necessary information to weigh in very effectively. But my experience has been that there are a LOT of criminal defense attorneys from very ordinary schools, and I’m not convinced that school name is especially important.