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Which would you choose? Assume a difference in offer rate of 20% and in COL of $40k.

20% is very high. I'm too neurotic of a mess to be comfortable at a place that's only offering up to 80 % of summers. If it's more like they pick off a shitty summer here and there it's a bit different.

Assuming the offer rate is something like 4 out of 5 for the non-major market firm, then you should probably decide where you want to live.

If you don't know the answer to that question, then that's what you should spend some amount of time thinking about.

star fox wrote:20% is very high. I'm too neurotic of a mess to be comfortable at a place that's only offering up to 80 % of summers. If it's more like they pick off a shitty summer here and there it's a bit different.

I agree with this. Personally I think the dogmatic "100% offer" policy is idiotic, because there are some really really bad people once in a while and you need flexibility to have the summer mean something. But if the firm consistently no offers 20% of its summers, thats shittier, and it illustrates a lack of respect for what law students have to go through and the no offer stigma; it shouldn't be a structural policy.

Difference in cost of living doesn't matter if you don't end up with a job at the end of the summer. (If the 80% offer rate is where you just really want to be for other reasons, that would be one thing, but I wouldn't let COL determine this in a vacuum.)