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I'm thinking about moving to CA next month with my SO to gain residency and presumably up my chances at USC/UCLA, along with simply living in CA and being somewhat worry free in a stress-free work environment - not that i'm stressed in my current position. I'm living in a mountain west state now, and have been working as a paralegal at a consumer bankruptcy firm for a bit over a year, which is nothing special. My question is:

In terms of application boosts, is working at a dick around kinda job (think waiter, pizza boy, etc) in CA, while gaining residency, a better choice than staying here and keeping my legal job? A worse choice? No affect at all? My main concern is that admission boards will frown upon me going from a legal position into a position of little to no significance in the field.

FWIW, stats are URM 165/3.5

'SC is private, so residency will mean nothing to Admissions.

UCLA won't care. btw: State residency is really easy to obtain for a grad student. Being instate a year early would save you $6k for one year.

I don't think your chances will improve by moving to CA. Your chances will improve with URM status as well as increasing that LSAT score. However, those #'s you have already as a URM will put you in consideration for acceptance and at the LEAST waitlisted for both schools.

thanks for the quick replies. So CA residency won't help, but will me going from a legal job to non-legal job hurt?

Nope, not at all.

Also, apply early--it seems to be that the # of applicants will increase as already seen by the 2015-2016 cycle.

Move if you and your SO want to, but I wouldn't factor law school admissions into this. It's not Texas or Virginia, where residents do in fact get a substantial bump.

Also, you should retake. Even just a few points higher, and T14 schools will be all over you.