Top Law Schools

I am a 1L at a TTT with a full ride, but am slowly realizing just how big of a scam this school, and I'm sure other TTT's are. I finished really well first semester, top 1%, and got a internship with a legal-aid type organization in a pretty big regional city. However, I did not get it through career services at my school, and I have found them to be highly highly unrealistic. I applied to over 50 regional firms and got 1 interview. I do not want to go into BigLaw and actually plan on working back home in my small home-town when I graduate and have a fair amount of connections and lawyers who have told me to come to them when I need a job. However, I am in the minority and for some reason career services and many many 1L students think they are going to work in a big law firm, and I just don't get it. I don't get why my school and other TTT's don't realize they cant compete with top schools and instead focus on being a "regional" school and putting out good lawyers to help in the rural and poorer areas around the school that truly need legal aid. For some reason career services only posts BigLaw internships and constantly pushes me to go down the BigLaw path instead, even though there are no jobs for BigLaw at this school, no matter your rank, unless you know someone there. I know this and don't aspire to do that kind of work, but are career services really that dishonest and do students really buy what they say? I can honestly say I have heard of less than 10% of the students that have an internship, and the rest just "decided" to do summer school since none of the internships posted on BigLaw panned out. I'm sorry for the venting but this whole process has been very eye opening, and I was just wondering if my expereince is especially bad or if this is all common at TTT's?

They probably want you to apply to big firms so they can proudly say that they have grads working in big firms

I agree, and I hate how they are more concerned with that and seeming like they have connections at these law firms and federal agencies rather than looking for jobs that students and graduates have a much more realistic chance of getting. They have this stigma with non BigLaw jobs that I would expect at a T14 school but not at a TTT. In this economy that's what you get if you go to a TTT. Luckily that's what I want so debt was my main concern

As a recent graduate of a low-ranked law school and looking for any job I can find, I will say that career services at my school is completely worthless.

I don't know why law schools even have career services. There's nothing they can do. Nowadays every single legal employer has far too many applicants for every single job out there. There are countless resources for legal jobs online and, I assume, at schools (that don't require CSO's). It's just egregious that any non-top school focuses on biglaw when ~5% of grads will get it.

Career services at my T25 are also bloated and need to be streamlined. Way too many administrative staff first of all....