rui wrote:Matthies wrote:rui wrote:Enrique - thank you for posting this. Truthfully. It's something I've done a lot of research into myself and if you've given even one person a second thought about whether LS is right for them, you've done a good thing.
Just curious, what reasearch have you done?
Reading everything I can get my hands on about placement out of different schools to figure out roughly where I stand in terms of landing the type of job that I want from my JD (looking to break into a relatively niche sector), as well as fallback options and alternatives should I not make it there. I've been able to grill currently practicing attorneys about the paths they've taken, their impressions of the market going forward and their thoughts on specific schools, as well as a few of my friends who made the jump directly to LS from undergrad.
edit not sure why sources make a difference but to humor you: I have friends at the following schools: Yale, USC, Georgetown and Stanford. I'm interested in those schools, and have also spoken to admissions folk at Berkeley and Harvard as they offer informational interviews. Grain of salt for what they have to say as well because they're obviously interested in your attendance.
Not listing the attorneys I'm speaking with because they're busy people and I don't need anyone sending them meme generator images (although I'll admit the "pretty lame" one quoting me made me chuckle). They work at some fairly large firms that I'm interested in joining. I'm too lazy to check where they are on the Vault list but I think they're up there.
In addition to the occasional relevant nugget posted on doomsday blogs (which must be taken with a grain of salt), ATL does a fairly good job about posting/interpreting legal market news, sometimes with interesting takes on NALP numbers. here's the last employment related article I remember reading, there are tons more:
http://abovethelaw.com/2010/05/nalp-201 ... eneration/
Schools do a fairly ridiculous job of inflating their numbers and I think it's important that people at least be cognizant of that. I know I wasn't when I joined TLS. I am now. I am also not ruling out being dead broke and unemployed in 4 years time when I graduate, but given that I love law it's a risk I'm willing to take much like an aspiring musician or filmmaker.I am of the opinion that if you truly love law and want to go, you should, but you should enter into something prepared and with realistic expectations.
ETA:
http://thelegaldollar.blogspot.com/2010 ... rt_15.html a general overview/ good read
(PS sorry fort he typos/,isspellings I have really bad dyslexia and my speech to text softare does not work in TLS chat box, so thsi is in my native ounge).
Given the schools you hope to attend you have done some relevant research, but its the standard "reasearch" ad really is not that predictive of individual results. A few things to consider, that while don't apply to you, apply to the vast magority of law stduenst who should NOT be cosulting the same scource you are:
70% of lawyers work in firms of 50 employees or less (check the ABA website, which is a good resource)
ATL is a gosspi blog and covers primarily NYC biglaw, where the vast magority of lawyers don't work. its no where near what the real profesion is like outside the magor markets or biglaw.
The scam blogs and posters on here talking about how hard is to find a job should be met with allmost unversial sketiscism unless then out themselves. They never do. neither do the folks hat riun the scam blogs. Theya re allmost allways the same genric BS top 14 school, top 20% LR no job or low paying job. Then when people like me or reasonable Man who went to lower ranked schools post abhout this shit and how we have jobswe are told we are the exception. Even though both of us have posted so many times what schools we went, what jobs we have, what grades we got and how we found those jobs. The doom and glooms won't even tell you wich of the "t-14" they went. What are they hiding if they are for real?
Of course me, RM, and my freind are all exceptions to rule becuase we have jobs, so they disount us and then sya stuf like "the vast magority of T2 grads don't have jobs" but don't give any specifica and of course never went to the schools or work int he markets they are experts in.
The vast magority of law stduenst will not find jobs fom OCI. The lower the ranking of the school the more likley this is, becuase wll only large emloyers tenbd to do OCI anyway. For most law stduenst they won't find jobs until AFTER they pass the bar abd get rsuklts ack, thats usually 6-9 months after graduation.
The NLJ stands for smiply one thing: the 250 largest law firms int he US, again see first point, most alwyers don't work at thes e firms and most LS won't get jobs there. So looking at them for anyone outside thw t14 (or even isnide now) as any indicator of legal hring for a school in that class is not undertsanding how he legal markest works.
I could go on. Best resources for information on the legal market: people who have actually gotten jobs, espcially thsoe hwo got them w/o the help of the school. TThe ocla bar assoction in the city you want to work in. people who work where you want to work (be leary of folks with less than 4 years, they tend to be cleless as as law steudnets). There are others, but pretty basci rule is if some person, website or poster traies o predct an individual's rulets based on some published "stats" that's a pretty big sing then really have no clue how leagl hiring really works outside of OCI and T14, where again most stduenst don't dgo.
Finally and my favoirt myth, if the economy is so bad that t14 schools can't get half there grads jobs then it must be killing t2 and below grads. Again this comes from a misunderatding of how legal hiring workls. For the past decade t14 grads have mostly gotten jobs from OCI, that has certaily dreid up.
But this has never woked at t2 or below schools, most did not get jobs this way even before ITE. Those that mistakenly thought that is how it worked tended to be the ones that hard the hardest time finding jobs. Those that smatneduyp and started lsitening to ceare experts and lcoal knowladge people realized they had to find jobs other ways. This is how its allways been. yes ITE has hurt lower ranked schools, but not near as much ad pople think, i.e. OCI is down 75% so it must be much worse at local T3 school. the thing is OCI was likley enevr more than 10% EVER at these schools int he first place.
Anyway, keep up the reasearch. I know the scam bloggers and the ayymous posters really think they are doing folks some good by posting doom and gloom, but they are really amikign things worese by perpetuating aldready bad mthys that never applied to mosy law studnets anyway. If they spent half as much time actaully lookign for a job other than want ads, mass mailing and caigslist as they do trying to blame everyone else for them not having a job, its likely they would have a job.
Good luck with your searchm and i agree wif your really want it bad enough you will make it work. if you just expect it to work becuase you went to school X then you will be likley joining the scam blog/ATL crowd in 3 years. Don't let that happen.
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