Waitlisted at lower ranked school? Forum

[bearhair89]

So I got waitlisted at a school ranked number 55. Does this essentially mean that I'll be either waitlisted or rejected at higher ranked schools (rank #s 50, 40, 37, 33, 22)?

[QContinuum]

No, but why are you applying to schools in so many different regions? Schools outside the T20 generally only place in their local market, so you should only attend law school where you want to practice law for the rest of your career. If you want to live in Boston, for example, you should not attend law school at UC Davis. For folks targeting non-T20 schools, it usually doesn't make sense to apply nationwide.

[Bingo_Bongo]

Schools outside the T20 generally only place in their local market, so you should only attend law school where you want to practice law for the rest of your career.

True, but I wouldn't go as far to say "for the rest of your career." I'd say only attend a lower ranked law school where you don't mind practicing for the first couple years of your career. After you get your first job, the name of your employer begins vouching for you a little more than the name of your school (especially if it's a lower ranked school).

[bearhair89]

I wouldn't say that I'm applying nationwide. I am applying within the region in which I hope to establish my career i.e. the Southeast. Whether I'm in Georgia or Virginia or the Carolinas or Louisiana doesn't necessarily matter, as long as I am studying in the general part of the country in which I aim to build my career.

[cavalier1138]

I wouldn't say that I'm applying nationwide. I am applying within the region in which I hope to establish my career i.e. the Southeast. Whether I'm in Georgia or Virginia or the Carolinas or Louisiana doesn't necessarily matter, as long as I am studying in the general part of the country in which I aim to build my career.

Except for the marked part, that may be true. But if you want to practice in Louisiana, you need to plan on staying in Louisiana for a long, long time. Louisiana is the only civil law jurisdiction in the US, so you seriously limit your mobility if you practice at the state level there.

[UVA2B]

I wouldn't say that I'm applying nationwide. I am applying within the region in which I hope to establish my career i.e. the Southeast. Whether I'm in Georgia or Virginia or the Carolinas or Louisiana doesn't necessarily matter, as long as I am studying in the general part of the country in which I aim to build my career.

But this can potentially be a problem, even though it seems like you're being flexible. Legal careers can sometimes be a bit counterintuitive that way, especially because the legal profession values ties to the market so much more than other professions might. So while it seems good to say "as long as it's in the Southeast, I can build my career from there," the reality is that those markets can be pretty intensely insular, such that attending the local regional may not be enough if you're not also tied there long-term. So if you're from LA and you're considering Tulane and LSU, that's great. They have decent placement power there. But if you're also including Emory, UGA, Alabama, and UTK, you've probably expanded beyond the schools that will place you in LA with any amount of confidence.

And before you mention that you're happy to start your practice anywhere in the Southeast, as long as it gives you the opportunity to move around in the future if you'd like, just understand that the hurdles to employment outside of your first job/market aren't just getting hired. There is no guarantee your W&M degree and small law job in Richmond will give you any hiring power if you want to eventually move to Charlotte, even outside the obvious bar accreditation and business development issues involved in moving a legal practice to a different state.

When you're considering regional schools, you need to really focus on the specific markets that interest you, and if you're trying to make cautious professional decisions, you should assume you'll have little professional flexibility in moving outside those markets, because carrying your professional reputation into a new market when you're likely an attorney that at best developed a local reputation is a big ask. It's not impossible, but it's definitely against the grain of attorneys who begin their practice in one market and never move it elsewhere because of the sheer difficulty of moving a legal practice to new markets and firms.

This calculus changes some when we're talking about bigger firms that have name recognition in the entire region, but the likelihood of ending up at a firm with that type of regional/national presence in the Southeast is unlikely and can't be counted on in the schools you're likely considering.

I've probably went too far afield of the original question you've asked, but hopefully you'll consider what I've said. The Southeast is a big area, and there are a series of very insular markets in that area that will treat you differently depending on where you graduate from, even well after you graduate and develop your practice.