I got Biglaw from T2 AND YOU CAN TOO Forum

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Except the alternative is not 10% biglaw 90% fail. I came out of T3. I see what the alternatives are. Nobody I know not one person out of 100ish are struggling. It's not rainbows for all of them either but several are in govt making $100 monthly payments before that 10 year forgiveness. Others are working for $50k a year again with $100 monthly payments and 30 days of vacation a year. Others are working hard making 6 figures. Others have started their own firms that are becoming relatively stable in the low six figs. Others have already started a practice and sold it and lateraled into biglaw. The options are endless. This is from a T3. I am in almost $300k of debt with undergrad loans. Since 2009 I have paid $800 on my loans all tax deductible. 1/10 of the way into complete loan forgiveness. Not being a flame at all. You guys are talking from positions you know nothing about because you didn't go this route. Just because it is nondischargeable in theory doesn't mean you have to pay it all. You don't even have to default on your loans because you can just call the loan providers and ask for a month or 3 off. But even if that isn't an option, defaulting on debt is not that bad. So you aren't buying a house. Cool you weren't doing on that on starbucks money anyways.

This is a clusterfuck of bad reasoning, invalid assumptions and really questionable anecdotes, but I'm pretty sure you made our point better than we ever could have.

"Your credit will be so destroyed you can never own a house, and it'll take you five years to pay back even 10% of your loans. But hey, when the IRS comes to garnish your wages, you'll have so little they won't be able to take everything you owe! Visit http://www.uchastings.edu/ today!"

[Johann]

Except the alternative is not 10% biglaw 90% fail. I came out of T3. I see what the alternatives are. Nobody I know not one person out of 100ish are struggling. It's not rainbows for all of them either but several are in govt making $100 monthly payments before that 10 year forgiveness. Others are working for $50k a year again with $100 monthly payments and 30 days of vacation a year. Others are working hard making 6 figures. Others have started their own firms that are becoming relatively stable in the low six figs. Others have already started a practice and sold it and lateraled into biglaw. The options are endless. This is from a T3. I am in almost $300k of debt with undergrad loans. Since 2009 I have paid $800 on my loans all tax deductible. 1/10 of the way into complete loan forgiveness. Not being a flame at all. You guys are talking from positions you know nothing about because you didn't go this route. Just because it is nondischargeable in theory doesn't mean you have to pay it all. You don't even have to default on your loans because you can just call the loan providers and ask for a month or 3 off. But even if that isn't an option, defaulting on debt is not that bad. So you aren't buying a house. Cool you weren't doing on that on starbucks money anyways.

What the hell salary is someone making that they have $100 loan payments? Even on IBR, that is a really really low salary (or less debt, which removes them from the calculus we're talking about).

I think $45k puts you at $180 if you take the max IRA deduction on PAYE. Then you tell them hardship at xmas because plane tickets and get 3 months off. Then get another hardship in the summer for something else. $90 monthly. I told them I would be quitting my job 3 months before I did and I was saving my money and didn't have money for loans. They said okay. Also, if you ever have no income like right after law school/between jobs, skip your 6 month forbearance period and say 0 income and lock up 1 year of $0 monthly payments that actually count towards the 240 required. The person making the decision to let you forbear doesn't care, it's not their money.

[Johann]

Except the alternative is not 10% biglaw 90% fail. I came out of T3. I see what the alternatives are. Nobody I know not one person out of 100ish are struggling. It's not rainbows for all of them either but several are in govt making $100 monthly payments before that 10 year forgiveness. Others are working for $50k a year again with $100 monthly payments and 30 days of vacation a year. Others are working hard making 6 figures. Others have started their own firms that are becoming relatively stable in the low six figs. Others have already started a practice and sold it and lateraled into biglaw. The options are endless. This is from a T3. I am in almost $300k of debt with undergrad loans. Since 2009 I have paid $800 on my loans all tax deductible. 1/10 of the way into complete loan forgiveness. Not being a flame at all. You guys are talking from positions you know nothing about because you didn't go this route. Just because it is nondischargeable in theory doesn't mean you have to pay it all. You don't even have to default on your loans because you can just call the loan providers and ask for a month or 3 off. But even if that isn't an option, defaulting on debt is not that bad. So you aren't buying a house. Cool you weren't doing on that on starbucks money anyways.

This is a clusterfuck of bad reasoning, invalid assumptions and really questionable anecdotes, but I'm pretty sure you made our point better than we ever could have.

"Your credit will be so destroyed you can never own a house, and it'll take you five years to pay back even 10% of your loans. But hey, when the IRS comes to garnish your wages, you'll have so little they won't be able to take everything you owe! Visit http://www.uchastings.edu/ today!"

I mean I'll let you know when the negative effects come. I have a credit score over 700 and credit cards give me like 20-30k credit no problem. I'm pretty sure I could get a house loan without a huge problem right now. I don't think you guys are aware of how the world works. Everyone leverages themselves to the max. Apple has cash overseas and is borrowing billions while their cash overseas makes no return. They can't do anything with it. Again, if you have options, I would explore those before law. But if you have no options and youve actually exhausted them, studied for the lsat took it twice and topped out at 162 with a 2.4 ugpa, I'm gonna say go all in on whereever that's gonna take you. Bust your ass in law school and see where you end. Also, I don't know if the IRS can garnish wages without a judgment - sounds like something they can do, I know they can take tax refunds, but it's hard to get money out of broke people. Most companies give up and don't try.

[BigZuck]

I don't remember learning the elements of fraud my 1L year but I'm guessing that's what some of this stuff is, can anyone else confirm?

[Flips88]

But if you have no options and youve actually exhausted them, studied for the lsat took it twice and topped out at 162 with a 2.4 ugpa, I'm gonna say go all in on whereever that's gonna take you.

Just lol, dude. Not satisfied with your life? Just give up 3 years of income, live on $25k a year and accrue $250k of debt with incredibly bleak odds you'll get a job that can get you out of that debt.

[Johann]

For clarity, this is my viewpoint. This forum is made up of middle class and upper middle class or rich people. Everyone's background here dictates their opinion. And for these people, yes law school is a scam and a ripoff in most cases and your wisdom is absolutely right to buy the prep books and all that and just do compsci or nursing or engineering. I'm middle class as we'll but because my dad is dirt cheap I grew up in a poor area and all my friends and all my high school did what society told them to do - college. For the most part these people live the same neighborhood they grew up in despite college. They have no connections. They have no job other than a gas station clerk or best buy salesman or public school teacher (they make 28k where I'm from) or nature warden of public land. They have never had the advantage of buying prep books or taking classes or being able to take a year off and study. They worked 30 hours a week in college. They have credit card debt of 10k because of whatever life. They have student loan debt from college. Their undergrad gpas are set in stone at 2.5 or whatever because they worked and goofed off when they didn't work like most ppl can do because they don't work. For them to just give up and take this shit job is the most classist thing I've ever heard argued from a fairly liberal forum. If 10 of these people go to law school and one makes it big law that is huge. If 5 become lawyers and have a good life you're talking about changing someone's complete life trajectory. A chance to start a new life where you aren't living paycheck to paycheck never going on a vacation hoping to win the lottery with your dollar scratch off. Yeah you guys don't understand this is who goes to the schools ranked 50-150. And they absolutely should be. Telling them to keep living in their small town with whatever bs 30k job they have after a college degree (already in student debt) so they don't experience the torture of having a sum of money hang over their heads that affects their day to day lives way less than actual shit work. Yeah you guys are selfish as fuck or you just can't understand the target audience that absolutely benefits ( in the aggregate because at worst they are back to square 1) from these schools.

[BigZuck]

For clarity, this is my viewpoint. This forum is made up of middle class and upper middle class or rich people. Everyone's background here dictates their opinion. And for these people, yes law school is a scam and a ripoff in most cases and your wisdom is absolutely right to buy the prep books and all that and just do compsci or nursing or engineering. I'm middle class as we'll but because my dad is dirt cheap I grew up in a poor area and all my friends and all my high school did what society told them to do - college. For the most part these people live the same neighborhood they grew up in despite college. They have no connections. They have no job other than a gas station clerk or best buy salesman or public school teacher (they make 28k where I'm from) or nature warden of public land. They have never had the advantage of buying prep books or taking classes or being able to take a year off and study. They worked 30 hours a week in college. They have credit card debt of 10k because of whatever life. They have student loan debt from college. Their undergrad gpas are set in stone at 2.5 or whatever because they worked and goofed off when they didn't work like most ppl can do because they don't work. For them to just give up and take this shit job is the most classist thing I've ever heard argued from a fairly liberal forum. If 10 of these people go to law school and one makes it big law that is huge. If 5 become lawyers and have a good life you're talking about changing someone's complete life trajectory. A chance to start a new life where you aren't living paycheck to paycheck never going on a vacation hoping to win the lottery with your dollar scratch off. Yeah you guys don't understand this is who goes to the schools ranked 50-150. And they absolutely should be. Telling them to keep living in their small town with whatever bs 30k job they have after a college degree (already in student debt) so they don't experience the torture of having a sum of money hang over their heads that affects their day to day lives way less than actual shit work. Yeah you guys are selfish as fuck or you just can't understand the target audience that absolutely benefits ( in the aggregate because at worst they are back to square 1) from these schools.

I really don't know how to respond to this except to say "Wow."

Hopefully some kind soul will come along and strike it all out.

Just wow.

[hoos89]

What place are you from that is predominantly poor but most people still went to college? Also, I'd take a $28k teaching post over $200k of debt for a 25-50% chance at making $40k any day. I get it. That shit sucks. But terrible law schools prey on just that sort of person who is disadvantaged and sees law school--any law school--as a way out, and it's objectively awful.

[03152016]

i haven't read through the whole thread, so i might not have all the context here

but think about what you're advocating here

these people have to make payments on the debt, which may be burdensome even under paye/ibr
they forgo other opportunities while in law school, studying for the bar, and trying to find legal employment that may not come to fruition
getting the j.d. can actually make them less hirable
and, while you may not, many of them have a strong moral aversion to debt, especially the kind they know they can't repay
plus the tax bomb when the debt is finally forgiven (just in time to eat a hole in your nest egg)

also, the presumptions you make about this forum are shockingly offensive

[WhiskeynCoke]

Except the alternative is not 10% biglaw 90% fail. I came out of T3. I see what the alternatives are. Nobody I know not one person out of 100ish are struggling. It's not rainbows for all of them either but several are in govt making $100 monthly payments before that 10 year forgiveness. Others are working for $50k a year again with $100 monthly payments and 30 days of vacation a year. Others are working hard making 6 figures. Others have started their own firms that are becoming relatively stable in the low six figs. Others have already started a practice and sold it and lateraled into biglaw. The options are endless. This is from a T3. I am in almost $300k of debt with undergrad loans. Since 2009 I have paid $800 on my loans all tax deductible. 1/10 of the way into complete loan forgiveness. Not being a flame at all. You guys are talking from positions you know nothing about because you didn't go this route. Just because it is nondischargeable in theory doesn't mean you have to pay it all. You don't even have to default on your loans because you can just call the loan providers and ask for a month or 3 off. But even if that isn't an option, defaulting on debt is not that bad. So you aren't buying a house. Cool you weren't doing on that on starbucks money anyways.

1. Paragraphs. Employ them. This shouldn't be a new concept to you. I guess this is the sort of writers that TTTs produce?

2. Aw, you think this story of your eternal indebtedness and shit salary is HELPING your argument. That's cute.

3. You do realize that your plan depends entirely on you ALWAYS having a shit salary, right? You literally cannot afford to make more money. You'll never have any assets. This is so depressingly shortsighted and stupid, I just feel bad for you. Plus, us lucky taxpayers get to foot the bill for your "education."

You represent everything that's wrong with this fucked up law school scam of a system.

[rickgrimes69]

After 7 pages of bickering the only thing I took away from this thread is that OMLH suffers from self-serving bias, Johann might be an actual retarded person, and 0Ls are really bad with statistics.

[lawhopeful10]

[quote="pancakes3"]I think whoever gets in the top 10% should keep their head down and thank whatever flying spaghetti monster they subscribe to because there's no telling what flukey, lucky-as-fuck reason got them into the 10% and kept the poor bastard sitting at 11%.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is just a blissfully ignorant snowflake who thinks he/she willed his/her way to the top because goddamnit, he/she deserves it. A lucky, and potentially high earning snowflake but a snowflake just the same.

Hard, tiresome grinding and natural aptitude can boost someone into a range of percentiles but there's no way anyone can clearly say they deserve to be top 10%.

[quote="patogordo"]guys, debt is meaningless, you can always just kill yourself and they won't get a dime

risk: analyzed[/
Fuck you. From someone who finished top 3% at a T1 regional school this idea that I got lucky is fucking insulting. I worked to get good at law school exams and new going in my skill set was perfect for exams. My only low grade was legal writing which wasn't an exam. Luck had nothing to do with it and you seem salty as shit for thinking that's what it was.

[hoos89]

Fuck you. From someone who finished top 3% at a T1 regional school this idea that I got lucky is fucking insulting. I worked to get good at law school exams and new going in my skill set was perfect for exams. My only low grade was legal writing which wasn't an exam. Luck had nothing to do with it and you seem salty as shit for thinking that's what it was.

You're kind of missing the point. Nobody is arguing that law school grades are randomly assigned. You believed you had a skill set that was good for law school exams, but so did thousands of other law students. You were fortunate in that you turned out to be correct, but most people are not so lucky. Not many people go into law school thinking they will be bad at it; it really is difficult to know for certain whether you will be good at it or not. For every person (like you) who was correct, 10 were not.

Also, there's always some luck involved no matter how good your skill set. All it takes is ONE shitty professor to give you a C or ONE family member to fall ill or ONE untimely breakup or ONE serious illness to totally throw your shit off. IF you happen to have been among the relatively few people who correctly surmised that you were good at law school exams AND you don't have things beyond your control go wrong during the two semesters/exam periods that actually matter, then yeah I'd say you're fairly lucky. Of course there is more to the equation than blind luck, but to suggest that luck had NOTHING to do with it is just ridiculous.

Also, you are more or less insinuating that other people didn't work to get good at law school exams, which is also insulting. And I promise you that more than 0 people in here taking the opposing view point to you did well in law school. Chalking it up as sour grapes is misguided, and also insulting.

[Mal Reynolds]

Fuck you. From someone who finished top 3% at a T1 regional school this idea that I got lucky is fucking insulting. I worked to get good at law school exams and new going in my skill set was perfect for exams. My only low grade was legal writing which wasn't an exam. Luck had nothing to do with it and you seem salty as shit for thinking that's what it was.

Ironic you did poorly in the class most closely resembling actual law practice.

[WhiskeynCoke]

I think whoever gets in the top 10% should keep their head down and thank whatever flying spaghetti monster they subscribe to because there's no telling what flukey, lucky-as-fuck reason got them into the 10% and kept the poor bastard sitting at 11%.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is just a blissfully ignorant snowflake who thinks he/she willed his/her way to the top because goddamnit, he/she deserves it. A lucky, and potentially high earning snowflake but a snowflake just the same.

Hard, tiresome grinding and natural aptitude can boost someone into a range of percentiles but there's no way anyone can clearly say they deserve to be top 10%.

guys, debt is meaningless, you can always just kill yourself and they won't get a dime

risk: analyzed[/
Fuck you. From someone who finished top 3% at a T1 regional school this idea that I got lucky is fucking insulting. I worked to get good at law school exams and new going in my skill set was perfect for exams. My only low grade was legal writing which wasn't an exam. Luck had nothing to do with it and you seem salty as shit for thinking that's what it was.

Calm down. For someone who made top 3% (congrats), you seem pretty dense. You're failing to grasp the basic premise of the argument you are attacking. Straw man much?

No one is suggesting you didn't "earn" your grades. Of course you did. That's not the argument. No one is saying that each of your finals was a pure dice roll, and you just "lucked out" on each one.

Here is the argument, which is fucking logical:

1. MANY people work very hard in Law school. Way more than 10% of your classmates worked their asses off.
2. MANY people in law school are smart, and entered with the impression that they would be "good" at law school exams.
3. Before you get your grades, there is NO WAY for you to predict how well you'll do on the exams.

Here's where you got lucky:

Unlike many of your classmates, your hard work was rewarded with good grades. The combination of (1) the work you put in and (2) your innate ability to take this very peculiar sort of exam resulted in you being able to produce a document, under test conditions, that professors scored highly.

You are lucky because you had no way to predict that this would be the result beforehand. You can't "work your way" to being great at taking law school exams. I guarantee that many of your classmates with worse grades than you worked even harder than you.

Get over yourself.

Edit: Also, the notion that everyone in this thread is "jealous" of you ("salty as shit") and your T1 success is fucking laughable. Many of us are near the top of our classes at T14s.

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

After 7 pages of bickering the only thing I took away from this thread is that OMLH suffers from self-serving bias, Johann might be an actual retarded person, and 0Ls are really bad with statistics.

You know I never actually advocated going to a T1/T2 for the vast majority of students, right? The only position I ever took was to say "If you are very passionate about being a lawyer but didn't get into a t14, retaking is not an option and/or not going to help, and you are both fully informed of the risks involved and able to tolerate said risk, then it MIGHT make sense to go for 1 semester, but be prepared to drop out afterwards if you don't get the grades you need."

I never actually claimed that others would see my level of success. Seriously, look at all my posts - I never made that claim. I'm not the OP and I never used the phrase "and you can too!"

The characterization that I was advocating generally for students to spend 3 years at Hastings (or suggesting that my own success was somehow predictably replicable) was a total reading comp fail on the part of BigZuck. Again, seriously, look at my posts, most of the bickering is based on a strawman version of what I actually wrote.

[20141023]

.

[rickgrimes69]

After 7 pages of bickering the only thing I took away from this thread is that OMLH suffers from self-serving bias, Johann might be an actual retarded person, and 0Ls are really bad with statistics.

You know I never actually advocated going to a T1/T2 for the vast majority of students, right? The only position I ever took was to say "If you are very passionate about being a lawyer but didn't get into a t14, retaking is not an option and/or not going to help, and you are both fully informed of the risks involved and able to tolerate said risk, then it MIGHT make sense to go for 1 semester, but be prepared to drop out afterwards if you don't get the grades you need."

First of all, you'd need at least two semesters to know if you have any real shot at desirable employment, especially because many schools (mine included) make you pay for 2nd semester tuition before 1st semester grades come out. Also, basically nobody has the actual self-discipline to drop out after a year, a point which has been discussed elsewhere.

Separately, your statement here isn't all that controversial. It's markedly more tempered as compared to your assertion in page 2 that TLS conventional wisdom isn't always right and "sometimes large risks pay off." That's what I take issue with - the idea that just because you beat the odds, the odds are somehow wrong. That type of self-serving statement can be dangerous to special snowflake 0Ls who think that beating the odds is a realistic goal when it clearly isn't.

All that said, you're nowhere near as bad as Lawhopeful, who apparently believes 100% of his success can be attributed to his hard work and bootstrappin' attitude.

[pancakes3]

I think whoever gets in the top 10% should keep their head down and thank whatever flying spaghetti monster they subscribe to because there's no telling what flukey, lucky-as-fuck reason got them into the 10% and kept the poor bastard sitting at 11%.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is just a blissfully ignorant snowflake who thinks he/she willed his/her way to the top because goddamnit, he/she deserves it. A lucky, and potentially high earning snowflake but a snowflake just the same.

Hard, tiresome grinding and natural aptitude can boost someone into a range of percentiles but there's no way anyone can clearly say they deserve to be top 10%.

Fuck you. From someone who finished top 3% at a T1 regional school this idea that I got lucky is fucking insulting. I worked to get good at law school exams and new going in my skill set was perfect for exams. My only low grade was legal writing which wasn't an exam. Luck had nothing to do with it and you seem salty as shit for thinking that's what it was.

If you can't acknowledge the element of luck separating you from the guy a hundredth of a GPA point below you (or the guy a hundredth of a GPA point above you) then I guess there's no quelling your snowflake rage.

Also, to further the irony issue, you got your only low grade in the class that pays the highest dividends for work inputted.

[lawhopeful10]

Sorry I was actually really drunk when I posted that. Anyway yea I get and agree with most of what was posted above. But I looked at and practiced law exams the summer before I even went to law school. I know the idea of 0L prep is debated but I knew just by looking at them that my skill set was good for these exams and by good I mean better than comparatively smart people. Maybe it is very difficult to guess that but i don't think its impossible to get some idea.

Also yea if you have one very weird exam that can throw things off. As far as the real purpose of this topic I am completely on board with not spending more than the bare minimum to go to a non T-14.

[BigZuck]

Sorry I was actually really drunk when I posted that. Anyway yea I get and agree with most of what was posted above. But I looked at and practiced law exams the summer before I even went to law school. I know the idea of 0L prep is debated but I knew just by looking at them that my skill set was good for these exams and by good I mean better than comparatively smart people. Maybe it is very difficult to guess that but i don't think its impossible to get some idea.

Also yea if you have one very weird exam that can throw things off. As far as the real purpose of this topic I am completely on board with not spending more than the bare minimum to go to a non T-14.

Dude, there's no way you can accurately predict you'll be good at law school exams. And I assume you mean standard issue spotters, only 2/6 of my exams 1L were issue spotters. Even if I knew I was good at those going in, it would have only meant something for 1/3 of my 1L GPA.

But yeah, no one is saying your guys' hardwork is meaningless or that its pure luck. The "YOU DON'T KNOW ME" bootstraps striverdom refrain ITT is getting old.

[Anonymous User]

Sorry I was actually really drunk when I posted that. Anyway yea I get and agree with most of what was posted above. But I looked at and practiced law exams the summer before I even went to law school. I know the idea of 0L prep is debated but I knew just by looking at them that my skill set was good for these exams and by good I mean better than comparatively smart people. Maybe it is very difficult to guess that but i don't think its impossible to get some idea.

Also yea if you have one very weird exam that can throw things off. As far as the real purpose of this topic I am completely on board with not spending more than the bare minimum to go to a non T-14.

Dude, there's no way you can accurately predict you'll be good at law school exams. And I assume you mean standard issue spotters, only 2/6 of my exams 1L were issue spotters. Even if I knew I was good at those going in, it would have only meant something for 1/3 of my 1L GPA.

But yeah, no one is saying your guys' hardwork is meaningless or that its pure luck. The "YOU DON'T KNOW ME" bootstraps striverdom refrain ITT is getting old.

Low LSAT score here but ended up at near the top quarter t14.

[patogordo]

If you worked so hard and effectively to prepare yourself for law school why didn't you just retake the LSAT

[Johann]

Also there is a big difference between predicting success at a T2/T3 compared to a T14. The work ethic and aptitude at a T2 or T3 is far less consistent. Putting in a 40 hour week all but guarantees top 25% especially if your gpa or lsat is above the 75th.

[BigZuck]

Also there is a big difference between predicting success at a T2/T3 compared to a T14. The work ethic and aptitude at a T2 or T3 is far less consistent. Putting in a 40 hour week all but guarantees top 25% especially if your gpa or lsat is above the 75th.

Even if all that is true, if the goal is Biglaw from a T2 then I'm not sure that just being in the top 25% is going to do a whole lot for you. You'll probably still be left out in the cold unless you have some other factors really working in your favor.