Top Law Schools

1. What on earth constitutes a "tie" (to a certain market)? Unless your mom or dad is somewhat of an established lawyer or your grandfather is a judge in a certain city, how would anyone have any meaningful tie to any market?

2. What are some of the "good" regional law schools?

2-1. On a related note, is it safe to assume for the following cases that one can secure a firm job (big or small) with relative ease out of a local law school in a city in which that school is located: say, Madison or Milwaukee out of Wisconsin-Madison, Atlanta out of Emory, Minneapolis-St. Paul out of Minnesota, Pittsburgh out of Pitt, etc.?

3. What are some of the "known" LSAT-heavy/splitter-friendly T-14 schools, besides NWU?

snooze wrote:1. What on earth constitutes a "tie" (to a certain market)? Unless your mom or dad is somewhat of an established lawyer or your grandfather is a judge in a certain city, how would anyone have any meaningful tie to any market?

2. What are some of the "good" regional law schools?

2-1. On a related note, is it safe to assume for the following cases that one can secure a firm job (big or small) with relative ease out of a local law school in a city in which that school is located: say, Madison or Milwaukee out of Wisconsin-Madison, Atlanta out of Emory, Minneapolis-St. Paul out of Minnesota, Pittsburgh out of Pitt, etc.?

3. What are some of the "known" LSAT-heavy/splitter-friendly T-14 schools, besides NWU?

1. You were raised there or you grew up there...you have lots of family there...you have a fiance there...Anything you can point to as a reason why you'd want to stay there long-term.

2. Depends on the region and how many competing schools there are. If you wanna practice in Oklahoma forever, then UOklahoma is probably the best way to do it. The bigger the legal market is in that region, the better the job placement will be for its regional schools, unless there's like a shit ton of schools or something

3. Not safe. Because those smaller markets don't really have a lot of legal openings for new grads...especially not those that pay well

4. UVA...Michigan maybe? GULC...

FrostedMiniWheats wrote:

snooze wrote:1. What on earth constitutes a "tie" (to a certain market)? Unless your mom or dad is somewhat of an established lawyer or your grandfather is a judge in a certain city, how would anyone have any meaningful tie to any market?

2. What are some of the "good" regional law schools?

2-1. On a related note, is it safe to assume for the following cases that one can secure a firm job (big or small) with relative ease out of a local law school in a city in which that school is located: say, Madison or Milwaukee out of Wisconsin-Madison, Atlanta out of Emory, Minneapolis-St. Paul out of Minnesota, Pittsburgh out of Pitt, etc.?

3. What are some of the "known" LSAT-heavy/splitter-friendly T-14 schools, besides NWU?

1. You were raised there or you grew up there...you have lots of family there...you have a fiance there...Anything you can point to as a reason why you'd want to stay there long-term.

2. Depends on the region and how many competing schools there are. If you wanna practice in Oklahoma forever, then UOklahoma is probably the best way to do it. The bigger the legal market is in that region, the better the job placement will be for its regional schools, unless there's like a shit ton of schools or something

3. Not safe. Because those smaller markets don't really have a lot of legal openings for new grads...especially not those that pay well

4. UVA...Michigan maybe? GULC...

Honest question, why does it matter if you have family there? Do ties really matter, if the job is enough to keep you around why does the firm care?

rahulg91 wrote: Honest question, why does it matter if you have family there? Do ties really matter, if the job is enough to keep you around why does the firm care?

haha honestly I don't know...I'm guessing they assume that you're familiar with the area (since you presumably visit your family) and therefore have a better idea of whether you wanna stay? And/or that you want to be close to your family and therefore are committed to staying in the area

snooze wrote:Honest question, why does it matter if you have family there? Do ties really matter, if the job is enough to keep you around why does the firm care?

Because firms worry that if you don't have any reason to be in that city besides the job, you're going to want to leave the job as soon as you can get one in the place where you do have reasons to be (family, SO, experience, etc.). I think, too, that in insular markets employers just prefer people who know what that particular place is like. Sure, tons of people who aren't from Seattle want to live in Seattle, but Seattle employers just like the idea of hiring the local person who's one of them over someone who's never been to Seattle.

You can make an argument that the job is what draws you to that location, but this works best if there's something unique about the job (to make up examples that might suck, regulatory work in DC, tech start-up stuff in Silicon Valley, etc.) that you can't do elsewhere in the country, and if you have some kind of unique experience/background/demonstrated interest in that kind of job.

I think people also underestimate how much firms don't care if you'd stay or not but instead just want to hire a local for irrational reasons.

What are some Character and Fitness Friendly schools?

lilliemerebearspace wrote:What are some Character and Fitness Friendly schools?

No direct disrespect, but this should not be a consideration. C&F is a bigger deal after school, not before it. Minor issues won't stop you anywhere. Major issues will affect you in admissions and with the bar, but even if the school overlooked it, don't you think the bar is a bigger deal regardless?

lilliemerebearspace wrote:What are some Character and Fitness Friendly schools?

Arkansas, Oregon & Stanford are all pretty good for fitness historically.

matthewsean85 wrote:

lilliemerebearspace wrote:What are some Character and Fitness Friendly schools?

No direct disrespect, but this should not be a consideration. C&F is a bigger deal after school, not before it. Minor issues won't stop you anywhere. Major issues will affect you in admissions and with the bar, but even if the school overlooked it, don't you think the bar is a bigger deal regardless?

So I'm either fucked or I'm not?

FYI: I am talking about something that most people who have gotten one have passed bar with. I even had the charges dropped through some service. But some schools still might not like it, idk.

lilliemerebearspace wrote:

matthewsean85 wrote:

lilliemerebearspace wrote:What are some Character and Fitness Friendly schools?

No direct disrespect, but this should not be a consideration. C&F is a bigger deal after school, not before it. Minor issues won't stop you anywhere. Major issues will affect you in admissions and with the bar, but even if the school overlooked it, don't you think the bar is a bigger deal regardless?

So I'm either fucked or I'm not?

For employment, yes. My point isn't that C&F will be an issue. I'm just saying that there is no point in going to a law school with more relaxed C&F policies if you can't get admitted to the bar.

lilliemerebearspace wrote:FYI: I am talking about something that most people who have gotten one have passed bar with. I even had the charges dropped through some service. But some schools still might not like it, idk.

If it wasn't a problem for those people, and your situation is similar, it probably won't matter for you either.

FrostedMiniWheats wrote:

snooze wrote:1. What on earth constitutes a "tie" (to a certain market)? Unless your mom or dad is somewhat of an established lawyer or your grandfather is a judge in a certain city, how would anyone have any meaningful tie to any market?

2. What are some of the "good" regional law schools?

2-1. On a related note, is it safe to assume for the following cases that one can secure a firm job (big or small) with relative ease out of a local law school in a city in which that school is located: say, Madison or Milwaukee out of Wisconsin-Madison, Atlanta out of Emory, Minneapolis-St. Paul out of Minnesota, Pittsburgh out of Pitt, etc.?

3. What are some of the "known" LSAT-heavy/splitter-friendly T-14 schools, besides NWU?

1. You were raised there or you grew up there...you have lots of family there...you have a fiance there...Anything you can point to as a reason why you'd want to stay there long-term.

2. Depends on the region and how many competing schools there are. If you wanna practice in Oklahoma forever, then UOklahoma is probably the best way to do it. The bigger the legal market is in that region, the better the job placement will be for its regional schools, unless there's like a shit ton of schools or something

3. Not safe. Because those smaller markets don't really have a lot of legal openings for new grads...especially not those that pay well

4. UVA...Michigan maybe? GULC...

Anyone else care to supplement the above response?

My thanks to FrostedMiniWheats, btw.

snooze wrote:

FrostedMiniWheats wrote:

snooze wrote:1. What on earth constitutes a "tie" (to a certain market)? Unless your mom or dad is somewhat of an established lawyer or your grandfather is a judge in a certain city, how would anyone have any meaningful tie to any market?

2. What are some of the "good" regional law schools?

2-1. On a related note, is it safe to assume for the following cases that one can secure a firm job (big or small) with relative ease out of a local law school in a city in which that school is located: say, Madison or Milwaukee out of Wisconsin-Madison, Atlanta out of Emory, Minneapolis-St. Paul out of Minnesota, Pittsburgh out of Pitt, etc.?

3. What are some of the "known" LSAT-heavy/splitter-friendly T-14 schools, besides NWU?

1. You were raised there or you grew up there...you have lots of family there...you have a fiance there...Anything you can point to as a reason why you'd want to stay there long-term.

2. Depends on the region and how many competing schools there are. If you wanna practice in Oklahoma forever, then UOklahoma is probably the best way to do it. The bigger the legal market is in that region, the better the job placement will be for its regional schools, unless there's like a shit ton of schools or something

3. Not safe. Because those smaller markets don't really have a lot of legal openings for new grads...especially not those that pay well

4. UVA...Michigan maybe? GULC...

Anyone else care to supplement the above response?

My thanks to FrostedMiniWheats, btw.

I think he pretty much hit everything.

I guess I'll add that as for the local law schools, they're definitely a better bet for getting a local job than a non-local non-national school. Emory is not going to be a better school for getting a job in Atlanta than Harvard or Columbia or Duke, but it's surely a better school for getting a job in Atlanta than UC Davis or Minnesota. So "good" regional depends entirely on where you want to work.

I do think people who know what city they want to be in can have a good shot at a local job coming out of the top local regional (I'm probably more optimistic about this than the rest of TLS), but that's ANY job. I went to a regional school with no T-14 in the local market, and my classmates all ended up in jobs, but there are plenty on this website who would not consider all those jobs positive outcomes, because (like FrostedMiniWheats said) my local market has very little biglaw and instead lots of little firms and local government jobs. Lots of people are perfectly happy in those jobs, but if you have $150K+ debt and you get a job at a small law firm making $50K, you might not consider that a good outcome.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

snooze wrote:

FrostedMiniWheats wrote:

snooze wrote:1. What on earth constitutes a "tie" (to a certain market)? Unless your mom or dad is somewhat of an established lawyer or your grandfather is a judge in a certain city, how would anyone have any meaningful tie to any market?

2. What are some of the "good" regional law schools?

2-1. On a related note, is it safe to assume for the following cases that one can secure a firm job (big or small) with relative ease out of a local law school in a city in which that school is located: say, Madison or Milwaukee out of Wisconsin-Madison, Atlanta out of Emory, Minneapolis-St. Paul out of Minnesota, Pittsburgh out of Pitt, etc.?

3. What are some of the "known" LSAT-heavy/splitter-friendly T-14 schools, besides NWU?

1. You were raised there or you grew up there...you have lots of family there...you have a fiance there...Anything you can point to as a reason why you'd want to stay there long-term.

2. Depends on the region and how many competing schools there are. If you wanna practice in Oklahoma forever, then UOklahoma is probably the best way to do it. The bigger the legal market is in that region, the better the job placement will be for its regional schools, unless there's like a shit ton of schools or something

3. Not safe. Because those smaller markets don't really have a lot of legal openings for new grads...especially not those that pay well

4. UVA...Michigan maybe? GULC...

Anyone else care to supplement the above response?

My thanks to FrostedMiniWheats, btw.

I think he pretty much hit everything.

I guess I'll add that as for the local law schools, they're definitely a better bet for getting a local job than a non-local non-national school. Emory is not going to be a better school for getting a job in Atlanta than Harvard or Columbia or Duke, but it's surely a better school for getting a job in Atlanta than UC Davis or Minnesota. So "good" regional depends entirely on where you want to work.

I do think people who know what city they want to be in can have a good shot at a local job coming out of the top local regional (I'm probably more optimistic about this than the rest of TLS), but that's ANY job. I went to a regional school with no T-14 in the local market, and my classmates all ended up in jobs, but there are plenty on this website who would not consider all those jobs positive outcomes, because (like FrostedMiniWheats said) my local market has very little biglaw and instead lots of little firms and local government jobs. Lots of people are perfectly happy in those jobs, but if you have $150K+ debt and you get a job at a small law firm making $50K, you might not consider that a good outcome.

Thanks for putting things in perspective.

This is an obviously premature question for me, but how does one go about "showing" your potential employers that you have a certain tie in a certain market, besides showing them where you went to school through your resume, etc?

snooze wrote:
This is an obviously premature question for me, but how does one go about "showing" your potential employers that you have a certain tie in a certain market, besides showing them where you went to school through your resume, etc?

First, résumé: ie "2012 BA Sociology Local State College"

Second, cover letter "I've wanted to move to Armpit Missouri ever since my visit there with my wife's family, and really hope you give me an interview."

Third, interview: "I went to undergrad here, which is where I met my husband, and I'd be so excited to come back and go to [local attraction], watch [local sports team], and have sex with [local well known whore]. My husband will be excited to be here with his friends and family again. Also, he got a really good job offer here to manufacture giant dildos at the [insert local plastics factory]."

Soco Law wrote:

lilliemerebearspace wrote:What are some Character and Fitness Friendly schools?

Arkansas, Oregon & Stanford are all pretty good for fitness historically.

Outted as being a college cross-country runner/supporter.

WheatThins wrote:

Soco Law wrote:

lilliemerebearspace wrote:What are some Character and Fitness Friendly schools?

Arkansas, Oregon & Stanford are all pretty good for fitness historically.

Outted as being a college cross-country runner/supporter.

I wish I was in that kind of shape! I just picked a few historically pretty good running/track schools from watching random meets over the years on TV, ha.