What is your real "dream" school? Forum

[ms9]

Wannabe, you have to give me some credit. That's why I responded as such.


On a serious note, how does participating in such programs effect a student when trying to find a job after law school? A school I'm interested in offers a semester at Oxford and I'm very interested but I'm worried I would miss out on law review, ocis, internships etc and not be in as good of a position later on.

I would advise strongly against doing said program until 2nd semester 2L year, because of the two main reasons you allude to. Quite frankly, 1L year all you should do is study and have a beer or two. That's it. Life as a law student is dramatically better if you can secure summer employment between your 2L/3L year and the straightest path to 2L summer employment is through OCI.

[talesofyore]

If everything were equal, I'd go to Washington & Lee.

[Skye]

My dream school is a warm climate T14 located near a beach (probably throw in a marina too). I guess the keyword here is “dream.”

[TripTrip]

My dream school is a warm climate T14 located near a beach

So Stanford?

[Skye]

My dream school is a warm climate T14 located near a beach

So Stanford?

Yep, (grades aside) that would have worked! 21 mile drive and I do believe they have plenty of sunshine in CA.

[WokeUpInACar]

Stanford for sure

[LaMuSayonga]

If career prospects didn't matter, then either the University of San Diego, UC-Boulder, or ASU.

[andreskicdo]

Stanford or Harvard (with better weather)

[Skye]

If career prospects didn't matter, then either the University of San Diego, UC-Boulder, or ASU.

Not exactly sure how the beach scene fits in with Boulder or ASU.

Beach and climate wise San Diego works, but their TLS web site review is underwhelming (might as well go to SD and just have fun!). Overlooking Stanford, what was I thinking?? (Probably something to do with their #2 ranking and my admittance chances).

Harvard is certainly close enough to the beach. Just grab some warm mittens and a heavy coat!

[bchirco]

UCSD

/thread!

[06102016]

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[Crowing]

UCSD

I wish they had a law school. They've been looking to gobble up a local TTTT for a few years so they'd have a downtown law campus. San Diego is best.

A long long time ago when I was little and my dad got his PhD he was considering two primary offers - to go to UCSD to become an associate professor or to go to bumfuck nowhere in the Midwest to join Corporate America.

Guess which one he picked and where I grew up. FML.

[06102016]

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[Richie Tenenbaum]

I think I get what you're getting at, but it's such a hard question to set-up to get that sort of information (especially if you allow location to still be involved, since people will just now pick a school solely on location). Excluding location (well, mostly), here is how I would try to decide (note that these are pretty weak factors, in my opinion--the factors being excluded are the ones that really matter):

If I was interested in biglaw: I would try to find a school that had a big name in the area I was interested in. Maybe it's a practitioner who teaches as an adjunct or maybe it's a tenured professor who's just very well known in a particular area (e.g., Jay Westbrook in Bankruptcy).

If I was interested in DA/PD work: I would look for a school with multiple criminal law clinics and with internship programs during the school year in the city the school is in (location probably matters more for this then, since it would be very helpful to be interning at an office where you want to end up after law school).

If I was interested in academia: I would look for big name professors who have similar research interests.

There's more legal to be added to the list, but this is just what I came up with off the top of my head.

The problem with this analysis? Most law students do not have a very concrete idea about what they want to do after law school, and, even if they do, they don't know much about what they need to do for that career path. And for something like biglaw--sure it would be cool to take a class from David Boies if you're interested in litigation, but it really doesn't matter. Law school is not really preparing you for biglaw, and it's hard to imagine what schools have to differentiate themselves for people who want biglaw when you exclude stuff like job prospects, cost, and location.

[superpippo]

LSE

[JWalker]

Princeton Law.

[Dr. Dre]

Lincoln Law School or San Francisco Law School

[Borg]

I would go to UCLA definitely. I would go and party so hard, go to the beach all the time, take road trips to the desert, talk to beautiful women, and generally enjoy being in LA. Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy with where I am, but one of the hardest decisions I ever made was saying no to a full ride there.

[Yukos]

GULC. I could take a classes with the guy who wrote the al-Aulaqi memo and the rest of their ridiculous faculty, party in one of the coolest cities in the country, see Supreme Court oral arguments in person, do some badass internships -- and not have to worry about their weak (for the T14) job prospects.

[Crowing]

I'd probs just go to some sTTTate and spend another 3 years acting like a UG.

[Dr. Dre]

I'd probs just go to some sTTTate and spend another 3 years acting like a UG.

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[californiabeauar]

Cornell, UVA, & Berkeley

[howlery]

Brown or McGill.

[06102016]

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[Crowing]

Brown or McGill.

would actually love it if Brown had an LS