Top Law Schools

Unfortunately, my grades are not the best. I graduated well below median at a school in the 20-25ish range but want to work in the nyc/nj/philly area in that order. I have a job in nyc/nj but nothing prestigious. Any chance of getting into a top LLM (for tax) program?

The top LLM programs that you speak of?



As for you chances? Well, I don't know. Just figured I'd get the ball rolling with the worthwhile programs.

OP here: Specifically NYU or GTown...which ever can give me some leverage up in the mid-atlantic job market. I'm wondering if their admissions process is less competitive than the jd programs. Also, do they take urm into account?

Many LLM Tax programs require graduating in the top 50% of your law school class. Some require top 25% & a few also review tax law courses grades earned in your JD program.

It's not that hard to get into the NYU or GULC tax LLM programs. What is hard is getting a job afterward. Even the NYU tax LLM only employs, generously, maybe 20% of its graduating full-time class in biglaw (and many of those had the grades/school to go straight into biglaw from law school or else actually worked in biglaw and left to do the LLM full-time).

Bottom half at a T30 is not going to get you employed post-LLM unless you do extraordinarily well in the LLM program.

OP: Check the admissions requirements for the LLM-Tax programs at NYU & Georgetown.
Seems as if both programs no longer require graduating in a certain % range. This must be a recent change.

P.S. Although NYU & Georgetown may no longer have set minimums, Florida recommends top 25% & some other LLM Tax programs (e.g., Emory) require graduating in the top 50% of one's JD class.

Anonymous User wrote:It's not that hard to get into the NYU or GULC tax LLM programs. What is hard is getting a job afterward. Even the NYU tax LLM only employs, generously, maybe 20% of its graduating full-time class in biglaw (and many of those had the grades/school to go straight into biglaw from law school or else actually worked in biglaw and left to do the LLM full-time).

Bottom half at a T30 is not going to get you employed post-LLM unless you do extraordinarily well in the LLM program.

I understand. But my point here is being that I went to an out of region school and want to make myself more marketable in one of the regions that I stipulated. I suppose that an LLM at one of those schools would not hurt (albeit it would financially). I'm just wondering if the bottom half of a t20-t25 can actually get into one of these programs. Would urm help at all in this regard?

I'm currently in the JD/LLM program at GULC. Honestly the bar does not seem too high for getting into the program (both the joint degree and the post JD LLM program). I would warn against just blindly applying to this program as the TIP program (the NYU/GULC tax LLM hiring program) kind of seems like a joke. Plus there are tons of people in the LLM program that either went to a T10 and just have an interest in tax or people that finished in the top 5% of a lower T1 or T2-and I think that whatever jobs come out of TIP probably go to those people. I may be wrong on that as I'm just going off what I've heard.

I would say that if you have a genuine interest in tax to take whatever job you can find in the tax world. Work for a small tax shop, intern at IRS for free, do pro bono tax work-- just do whatever you can. Firms do need to fill tax spots on occasion and if they open up you have to be in a position to be competitive.

Best of luck, if you want to PM me I can give you some more specific info.