Tier 4 Law: New england Law vs Cuny Law Forum

[kylansb]

If you are guaranteed a job by your relative, then there's no point in discussing this further. Just go to the cheaper option as others have said. Waiting almost a year for CUNY seems like a waste of time to me given you seem to have a job waiting for you.

Both schools are absolutely terrible choices if you don't have a family member setting you up after graduating and passing the bar. If you are 100% sure your relative will hire you and that you will be content working at his firm, then go to the more affordable option because reputation is irrelevant here. As someone familiar with Boston, I can tell you that New England is the laughingstock of law schools here. I imagine CUNY has a similar reputation in NY.

Your mention of possibly transferring makes me think you're not completely set after graduation though. If this is the case, then please save yourself the time, money and effort and pursue engineering or anything else that you may excel in.

I hope you figure things out and succeed in whatever field you decide to enter. I don't mean to come off as harsh, but I don't want to sugarcoat things.

Best of luck to you.

thanks for the advise bud, don't worry i know just how bad this situation is for me. and i'm used all the comments in all size and flavor by now. cuny actually has a decent rep here. not the best but their acceptance rate is actually 40 percent. i feel like cuny actually wants me to join the program so i'll be better trained in passing the bar. however the length of their program and me delaying my 1L by another year is a no go by my parents.

the reason for transfer is for my personal goal, i want to get achieve a better academic record for myself, but if i fail in that endeavor i'll still have a job to come back to at my family's firm, i apologize for not explaining this earlier.

[stego]

I don't think you should attend law school because you're employment prospects from a TTTT are <50% for shitlaw. However, if you feel you must go, for whatever reason, then go to the cheapest school. Please keep in mind opportunity cost, even if you attend the cheapest school.

I think TTTT is TCR only if a family member is an attorney and has promised you a job.

i'm sorry i just joined the site today, what is TTTT and TCR?

TTTT = T4 = Tier 4 = unranked law schools (US News and World Report only publishes rankings for law schools ranked 1 through 150. Tier 1 is the top 50; Tier 2 is the next 50 after that; Tier 3 is the next 50 after that.)

TCR = "the credited response". Slang on this forum for "the correct answer" or "the right choice."

OP, is English your second language? If so, this could be a big factor in your low LSAT scores and could also affect your performance in law school significantly. Lawyers do a lot of reading and writing. Assuming you have a job lined up after graduation with your uncle's firm and are dead set on becoming a lawyer, I think you should do CUNY because of the lower tuition and the pipeline program.

[TheSpanishMain]

Go to New England assuming A) you really have a guaranteed job waiting for you and B) you think you'll be happy there. and C) it's free.

If any of the above aren't true, consider another path. Is English your first language?

[CanadianWolf]

CUNY has a good reputation for public interest law & only costs slightly over $15,000 a year for New York residents. CUNY's acceptance rate is about 40% whereas New England Law is expensive, accepts 80% of all applicants & has unusually low standards for admission. But I do know a recent graduate of NE Law who passed a bar exam much more difficult than New York's on her first try.
My impression is that CUNY cares about your development while NELaw cares about your tuition dollars.

[timbs4339]

Wait, are you going to be taking on debt or are you not?

You need to calculate your expected cost of attendance at each of these schools before we can help you, but if your choice is between New England at sticker and CUNY at sticker, then CUNY all the way even if you have to wait 10 months, which is a tiny amount of time given the 20 years you will have to wait before they will forgive your student loan debt from New England.

You need to plan for the most likely scenario, which is that you are not going to get the grades in the top 5% or 1% from either CUNY or NELS that you need to transfer to a decent law school. You'll most likely be working at your uncle's firm upon graduation. There's nothing wrong with that, but you can't have unreasonable expectations or else you will end up making poor professional/financial choices.

[CanadianWolf]

One year at New England law school will cost OP more than all 3 years at CUNY law.

[justkeepswimming794]

however i discussed this with my parents, even with the argument of effective cost saving and such, they disagree and ultimately shot it down. their reason is they don't want me to delay anymore time starting 1L. i did graduate from undergrad in 2013 and took the last 2 years studying lsat and working.

ultimately for my parents tuition is not a concern, their goal doesn't include which law school i go to as long as i'm eligible to take the bar.

if it was up to me i would have taken all the advise here and probably went engineering. i actually managed to pass 2 Newtonian calculus physics course in spring and summer semester before New England law sent me my acceptance.

your parents not wanting to delay you going to law school is a shit reason for going to law school, let alone a school like NELS. you need to explain to them that schools like that are a scam ultimately, very few people succeed.
and bolded: it IS up to you. do not let your parents make this life-changing/potentially ruining decision for you. I am not exaggerating.

also, you should really consider how difficult for you it might be to pass the bar. if you studied for 10 months and couldn't do better than a 142, it is a legitimate thing to consider.

[AReasonableMan]

OP: I just checked out CUNY's tuition for New York residents--it's only slightly above $15,000 per year. Three years of tuition should amount to less than $50,000

Yes, but this is foolish advice because it's not just Cardozo. He'd get into the same schools with tens of thousands in scholarships. If your parents are guaranteeing you all the salary you need to be happy then you can listen to them, but other than that what they want is irrelevant. You're an adult, and if your parents have a lucrative process and have only made intelligent financial decisions, you would have your own Yacht you could sail on while studying to retake.

The CUNY program is bad because he only gets to go if he gets a 151 (a score that will get him in anyway), and loses his freedom as a buyer to negotiate his tuition with CUNY at a later date. To use my contracts bar prep as an analogy, he's paying consideration by forfeiting his bargaining power as a consumer and in return all he is getting is the opportunity to pay money to take an additional program before enrolling. This program sounds predatory in nature and pitched towards people like OP - desperate with parents who want them out and no viable alternative who just want to do something next year. I personally know a NESL grad who was the brother of a former partner - this dude never even got a single interview. Although his personality was such that he would have had some difficulty coming from any school, he was pretty easy to get along with, very nice and did very well at NESL - not one interview; ultimately, he left law.

[AReasonableMan]

Oh and regarding transferring - this doesn't come up on this board very much because of the rarity of contributors from schools like NESL, but there is a school rank floor and geographic focus when it comes to transferring. I studied a lot of Talmud around NYC for many years with an assortment of people, many of whom studied Talmud full time and went to law school because of the similarities in the logic patterns b/w our legal system and Talmudic chains of reasoning. A lot of these people wound up going to weak schools, and a few of my good bros did really well - top 1% at Touro well.

The issue is once you venture into this school range, you're cut off from the schools that will give you an easier time. It doesn't matter if you're smarter than Judge Cardozo himself. #1 at Touro or NESL isn't going to get into NYU, Columbia or Cornell, and likely won't even get into Fordham because of the reputations these schools have (transferring is not only about how well you do in law school - it's also about how your graduating from their school will reflect upon the school). The conventional wisdom is that it's unwise to plan to transfer, because of the difficulty in predicting you'll be top 10%. What I'm saying is that even if you're in the 99.9th %ile and your prediction turns out to be 100% accurate, you will still be in big trouble. While Cardozo may be a terrible investment at 54k, 10% of Cardozo is in great shape. You're not chasing a 1% chance. You're buying a mega millions lottery ticket to get a job instead of winning a $1,000 week for the rest of your life.

[Young Marino]

Go to New England. It sounds like you have a job lined up after and don't mind working at a small firm and potentially, for yourself. No need to take an extra year's worth of study.

[gamerish]

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[OhBoyOhBortles]

Hi there gent or gal. I'd come up with a different career plan if I were you.

[Hat.trick]

I wouldnt go to any of those, theyre terrible schools

[rinkrat19]

Having a guaranteed job is great and all, but does it depend on passing the bar? I test pretty well, I got a 171 on the LSAT with very little study, and I thought the bar exam was TERRIBLE and estimate 50/50 odds that I failed. And I am definitely not alone. If the LSAT is a huge hurdle for you, the bar exam is only going to be worse. Much worse.

[Sweetneers]

i'm a terrible test taker

Are you forgetting the bar?