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I could use some help on this very tough decision. I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should transfer from Wisconsin to Michigan. At Wisconsin, I have law review and guaranteed money (teaching assistant positions cover it all and pay a stipend). Michigan would give me a better chance at legal academia (also, law review is still a possibility at Michigan since I've completed the write-on) and would spare me the chore of taking the next year of law school off to study for prelims for my PhD program at Wisconsin (something I don't even know if I want to finish if I can do the law prof thing). However, to get all that, I'll have to take out about 100k in loans to cover it.

I've already sent in the deposit and signed up for the lawyer's club, so I'd be out over 7k if I backed out, but maybe it's worth it.

Let me know if there is a clear answer here that I'm just not seeing. Thanks!

I don't think you should back out at this point. Who knows what repercussions that could have.

I wouldn't go banking on legal academia... but I would go.

As much as I love Michigan, a recent study/blog (see below) might make me think twice if I were you. Personally, I think you'll do great whether you stay or leave. As far as academia goes, I think the most important thing--far more than what school you come from--is that you make connections with faculty and publish one or two articles before you go on the market.

Good luck!

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/30/new ... raight-as/

tamlyric wrote:As much as I love Michigan, a recent study/blog (see below) might make me think twice if I were you. Personally, I think you'll do great whether you stay or leave. As far as academia goes, I think the most important thing--far more than what school you come from--is that you make connections with faculty and publish one or two articles before you go on the market.

Good luck!

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/30/new ... raight-as/

THAT ARTICLE IS SO FUCKING RETARDED.

/RAGE

The vast majority of transfer students do well at the transferee school. OP, I went Wisconsin->Chicago. I dominated Chicago. Wisconsin is an OK school, and you really can't be banking on Academia out of Michigan (ever, but particularly if you don't make law review). That said... yeah, job prospects.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:

tamlyric wrote:As much as I love Michigan, a recent study/blog (see below) might make me think twice if I were you. Personally, I think you'll do great whether you stay or leave. As far as academia goes, I think the most important thing--far more than what school you come from--is that you make connections with faculty and publish one or two articles before you go on the market.

Good luck!

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/30/new ... raight-as/

THAT ARTICLE IS SO FUCKING RETARDED.

/RAGE

+1

ToTransferOrNot wrote:

tamlyric wrote:As much as I love Michigan, a recent study/blog (see below) might make me think twice if I were you. Personally, I think you'll do great whether you stay or leave. As far as academia goes, I think the most important thing--far more than what school you come from--is that you make connections with faculty and publish one or two articles before you go on the market.

Good luck!

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/30/new ... raight-as/

THAT ARTICLE IS SO FUCKING RETARDED.

/RAGE

The vast majority of transfer students do well at the transferee school. OP, I went Wisconsin->Chicago. I dominated Chicago. Wisconsin is an OK school, and you really can't be banking on Academia out of Michigan (ever, but particularly if you don't make law review). That said... yeah, job prospects.

OP need not assume--as the article may well assume--that she (or he) will do worse at Michigan than she (or he) has done at Wisconsin. But that is surely a risk, no? Perhaps the risk is mitigated by the fact that 1L is over, and upper-year classes are graded on a much different rubric (see question below). Nonetheless, the question for OP is whether the risk is worth taking, and the article suggests that the answer may well be no (even if transfer students very often do well at their transfer school).

Question: How do schools generally handle the class rank of transfer students? Do 1L grades count for anything?

Well, the way Michigan handles it (and I'm pretty sure this is near universal) is that they wipe your slate clean. You start at 0.0, but you're also taking easier classes and specializing to some extent, so what I'm hearing from people is that this usually translates into almost an unfair advantage for transfers. I know I could use a reprieve on a couple of grades.

Overall, I'm not terribly worried about my GPA going down, as cataclysmic collapses seem to be pretty rare. So for the purposes of deciding, I'm just assuming I'll keep my class rank and maybe even improve it, especially since I won't have to dedicate a whole bunch of time to being a teaching assistant anymore.

Oh yeah, secured transactions, bankruptcy, federal regulation of securities, federal jurisdiction... these are all easier classes than torts

Yes, we start over at ground one. The fact that we can't grade on to law review is all the "punishment" we deserve for our "unfair advantage," thanks.

The article is retarded. Period. And it is also completely irrelevant, because the sample stopped at 2002. The relevant question here: what firms are even going to be interviewing at Wisconsin OCI next year? Are *any* Chicago biglaw firms going to be there? If they are, how many people do you honestly think they're planning on hiring? Is Q&B restarting its summer program? Are you willing to take a risk on Foley being the only "quality" firm (and I use that term loosely, because Foley has really, REALLY serious problems going on) at your OCI?

Don't base anything on that article, lol.

Look, I love Wisconsin. You probably know several very close (now rising-3L) friends of mine who decided to stick around. But honestly, the difference between Wisconsin and Michigan is just vast.

tamlyric wrote:As much as I love Michigan, a recent study/blog (see below) might make me think twice if I were you. Personally, I think you'll do great whether you stay or leave. As far as academia goes, I think the most important thing--far more than what school you come from--is that you make connections with faculty and publish one or two articles before you go on the market.

Good luck!

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/30/new ... raight-as/

"But is it true? In a new paper, UCLA law professor Richard Sander and Brooklyn law professor Jane Yakowitz argue no. “Eliteness” of the school you attended matters much less, they found, than your GPA."

Never let the bitterness of not teaching at a T14 flow into your research.

.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:

tamlyric wrote:As much as I love Michigan, a recent study/blog (see below) might make me think twice if I were you. Personally, I think you'll do great whether you stay or leave. As far as academia goes, I think the most important thing--far more than what school you come from--is that you make connections with faculty and publish one or two articles before you go on the market.

Good luck!

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/30/new ... raight-as/

THAT ARTICLE IS SO FUCKING RETARDED.

/RAGE

The vast majority of transfer students do well at the transferee school. OP, I went Wisconsin->Chicago. I dominated Chicago. Wisconsin is an OK school, and you really can't be banking on Academia out of [any law school that isn't Yale] (ever, but particularly if you don't make law review). That said... yeah, job prospects.

+1 (after the edit).

Your edit is wrong. At my 1L school, there was a Yale grad doing a "fellowship"--basically TAing--and he hasn't found a teaching gig yet. He's 6 years out.

bwv812 wrote:

pandacot wrote:

tamlyric wrote:As much as I love Michigan, a recent study/blog (see below) might make me think twice if I were you. Personally, I think you'll do great whether you stay or leave. As far as academia goes, I think the most important thing--far more than what school you come from--is that you make connections with faculty and publish one or two articles before you go on the market.

Good luck!

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/30/new ... raight-as/

"But is it true? In a new paper, UCLA law professor Richard Sander and Brooklyn law professor Jane Yakowitz argue no. “Eliteness” of the school you attended matters much less, they found, than your GPA."

Never let the bitterness of not teaching at a T14 flow into your research.

Their paper may be problematic, but not nearly as problematic as this post. Yakowitz has a Yale JD, while Sander has one from NU, and their stances on AA are more responsible for this piece than any bitterness over their station.

Point taken. Unfortunately, tone is not conveyed on internet boards. My post was intended to be less than serious, and not an astute analysis of the reasoning behind their foray into absurd research.