NYU v. CLS Thread # 8 Million (International Law) Forum

[hadokenstyle]

This is meant to supplement my last thread, I've decided I'm going to NYC. Thanks for everybody's feedback!

When I was about to say CLS, NYU sent me an acceptance. I get the feel that the opportunities are very similar and it just comes down to personal preference.

That said, I can reiterate:
-no interest in biglaw
-interest in public interest (international/human rights)/academia/clerkships/government

Here is what I gather:
-the choice is largely personal (which area do you like more?). That said, CLS is pretty. NYU is a cool place - I did a summer study right at the law school as an undergrad. So in that sense I've experienced a concentrated charge of the social aspect of the NYU area. I actually mostly hung out in other parts of the city. I love the Morningside Heights area. I like nature, parks, and nice views.
-NYU has more faculty for international law
-Columbia has a slightly higher rank and the name itself is more prestigious
-Cross-enrollment is possible so a lot of the differences in courses can be made up for
-Columbia is more expensive, but I am trying not to let that affect the decision too much. In the long run I want to do what is best for my career and what will make me happiest.
-NYU is reportedly "happier" and "friendlier." I don't know how much of this is true, though the NYU faculty I have been in touch with have been very warm. CLS has as well, though to be fair I have not contacted as many faculty.
-NYU has more clinics and more one-semester clinics which conflict less with year-long opportunities.

[kaiser]

"International law" largely doesn't even exist, and it is typically just a buzzword that schools use for marketing. Numerous lawyers confirmed to me that there is no such thing as international law, and that you could almost count on your hands the number of people graduating law school in a given year that will go into international human rights (and they typically come from Harvard or Yale). That being said, NYU is well-known for its "international law" programs, and they consider it one of their flagship specialties, alongside tax.

[bhan87]

This is meant to supplement my last thread, I've decided I'm going to NYC. Thanks for everybody's feedback!

When I was about to say CLS, NYU sent me an acceptance. I get the feel that the opportunities are very similar and it just comes down to personal preference.

That said, I can reiterate:
-no interest in biglaw
-interest in public interest (international/human rights)/academia/clerkships/government

I got the impression that NYU is at least slightly better for PI-minded folks. They have more summer funding for PI jobs and they host the PI employment fair. That said, your chances at PI are still good at CLS, but NYU has a few perks that CLS doesn't seem to offer.

Here is what I gather:
-the choice is largely personal (which area do you like more?). That said, CLS is pretty. NYU is a cool place - I did a summer study right at the law school as an undergrad. So in that sense I've experienced a concentrated charge of the social aspect of the NYU area. I actually mostly hung out in other parts of the city. I love the Morningside Heights area. I like nature, parks, and nice views.

This comes down to personal preference, but should play a role in your decision.

-NYU has more faculty for international law

Eh... I think this is a bit overblown. Both schools have great international law programs if that's what floats your boat.

-Columbia has a slightly higher rank and the name itself is more prestigious

This should play almost no role... Peer schools are peer schools are peers. You need to delve further and evaluate the individual school's strengths and weaknesses and match them to your goals.

-Cross-enrollment is possible so a lot of the differences in courses can be made up for

One note about this is NYU's law building is pretty far from the main campus, while Columbia's law building is across the street from the main campus. Columbia also seems very flexible about cross-enrollment.

-Columbia is more expensive, but I am trying not to let that affect the decision too much. In the long run I want to do what is best for my career and what will make me happiest.

This really depends on a lot of factors. If you just go by the estimated costs on the websites, then Columbia is more expensive, but CLS's estimates put a VERY generous portion to "personal expenses". You should note that CLS on-campus housing is usually a few hundred dollars cheaper per month than NYU's (CLS subsidizes their on-campus apartments), which adds to the COA pretty significantly

-NYU is reportedly "happier" and "friendlier." I don't know how much of this is true, though the NYU faculty I have been in touch with have been very warm. CLS has as well, though to be fair I have not contacted as many faculty.

The "happier" point seems pretty overblown too... Wherever you go to law school, you're going to go through hell your 1L year. No school can avoid that.

-NYU has more clinics and more one-semester clinics which conflict less with year-long opportunities.

This factor is something you should consider heavily if you want PI. I also got the impression that NYU's PI clinics were more diverse than Columbia's.

[birdlaw117]

This is meant to supplement my last thread, I've decided I'm going to NYC. Thanks for everybody's feedback!

When I was about to say CLS, NYU sent me an acceptance. I get the feel that the opportunities are very similar and it just comes down to personal preference.

That said, I can reiterate:
-no interest in biglaw
-interest in public interest (international/human rights)/academia/clerkships/government

I got the impression that NYU is at least slightly better for PI-minded folks. They have more summer funding for PI jobs and they host the PI employment fair. That said, your chances at PI are still good at CLS, but NYU has a few perks that CLS doesn't seem to offer.

Here is what I gather:
-the choice is largely personal (which area do you like more?). That said, CLS is pretty. NYU is a cool place - I did a summer study right at the law school as an undergrad. So in that sense I've experienced a concentrated charge of the social aspect of the NYU area. I actually mostly hung out in other parts of the city. I love the Morningside Heights area. I like nature, parks, and nice views.

This comes down to personal preference, but should play a role in your decision.

-NYU has more faculty for international law

Eh... I think this is a bit overblown. Both schools have great international law programs if that's what floats your boat.

-Columbia has a slightly higher rank and the name itself is more prestigious

This should play almost no role... Peer schools are peer schools are peers. You need to delve further and evaluate the individual school's strengths and weaknesses and match them to your goals.

-Cross-enrollment is possible so a lot of the differences in courses can be made up for

One note about this is NYU's law building is pretty far from the main campus, while Columbia's law building is across the street from the main campus. Columbia also seems very flexible about cross-enrollment.

-Columbia is more expensive, but I am trying not to let that affect the decision too much. In the long run I want to do what is best for my career and what will make me happiest.

This really depends on a lot of factors. If you just go by the estimated costs on the websites, then Columbia is more expensive, but CLS's estimates put a VERY generous portion to "personal expenses". You should note that CLS on-campus housing is usually a few hundred dollars cheaper per month than NYU's (CLS subsidizes their on-campus apartments), which adds to the COA pretty significantly

-NYU is reportedly "happier" and "friendlier." I don't know how much of this is true, though the NYU faculty I have been in touch with have been very warm. CLS has as well, though to be fair I have not contacted as many faculty.

The "happier" point seems pretty overblown too... Wherever you go to law school, you're going to go through hell your 1L year. No school can avoid that.

-NYU has more clinics and more one-semester clinics which conflict less with year-long opportunities.

This factor is something you should consider heavily if you want PI. I also got the impression that NYU's PI clinics were more diverse than Columbia's.

This analysis seems pretty solid, and sounded pretty unbiased to me.

I think it largely comes down personal preference when choosing between the two. Generally speaking, CLS is probably more solid for biglaw and NYU places a little better into "prestigious PI" positions. To me, it sounds like NYU is probably a better fit for you, but I don't think you would be making a bad decision by choosing CLS. Also, and this is based on memory so I might be way off, but I think CLS does a little better in academia. However, academia %s are so low across the board, the difference is probably negligible and connections/relationships with profs matter a lot more.

For full disclosure, I'm a 0L starting at NYU this fall, so if you think I'm biased toward NYU that might be why. I really do try to avoid personal preference when comparing the two for others (I was always going to choose NYU over CLS, but that's my own preferences). If you have any specific questions you want answered to try and compare the two, you could head over to the NYU Class of 2014 Thread, it's full of knowledgeable people that would be happy to help I'm sure. Also, I would guess the CLS thread would be equally helpful. Good luck with your decision. I hope to see you in the fall!

[vanwinkle]

"International law" largely doesn't even exist, and it is typically just a buzzword that schools use for marketing.

I want to emphasize this. It's true.

[keg411]

FYI, 0L's, you're in the transfer forum. I think OP already knows the misery of 1L .
OP, just pick one. If you're in NYC, just go over tomorrow and talk to them and then pick one.

[hadokenstyle]

"International law" largely doesn't even exist, and it is typically just a buzzword that schools use for marketing.

While all of the advice in this thread is pretty good, I want to emphasize this.

Seeing as I just spent my whole past summer working on federal appellate human rights litigation (with judges such as Posner speaking about norms of customary international law), I can say with 100% certainty either that 1) you are just flat-out wrong, or 2) I have been hallucinating during my years of my experience in a field that "doesn't exist."

Also, the overwhelming majority of scholars and practitioners I have encountered in the field are not necessarily from Harvard or Yale. In fact, Harvard's program is not as great as it is cut-out to be. If you look at the faculty at CLS and NYU, many of them actually left Harvard after many years there to teach in NYC.

I've lived in the Village for a couple months on a summer study, as mentioned. I have already visited CLS.

I read that with CLS apartments you cannot have overnight visitors? That would be pretty lame. But their housing is probably filled up by now so the point is moot.

I am interested in the ranking argument though. I always thought Columbia's "Ivy" status was a plus, but is this not true?

[birdlaw117]

FYI, 0L's, you're in the transfer forum. I think OP already knows the misery of 1L .
OP, just pick one. If you're in NYC, just go over tomorrow and talk to them and then pick one.

Totally didn't notice that...

Regardless, everything I said still applies.

[highviolet]

"International law" largely doesn't even exist, and it is typically just a buzzword that schools use for marketing.

While all of the advice in this thread is pretty good, I want to emphasize this.

Seeing as I just spent my whole past summer working on federal appellate human rights litigation (with judges such as Posner speaking about norms of customary international law), I can say with 100% certainty either that 1) you are just flat-out wrong, or 2) I have been hallucinating during my years of my experience in a field that "doesn't exist."

Also, the overwhelming majority of scholars and practitioners I have encountered in the field are not necessarily from Harvard or Yale. In fact, Harvard's program is not as great as it is cut-out to be. If you look at the faculty at CLS and NYU, many of them actually left Harvard after many years there to teach in NYC.

TITCR

are you going to get paid millions of dollars to zoom around the world in a private jet to do human rights work? um no. but there are hundreds of organizations, institutes, and think tanks devoted to international human rights law. human rights watch, human rights first, international rescue committee, amnesty international to name a few, and countless departments in the united nations (unhcr, icty, ictr, icc, unicef). you might have to work in private practice for a while or take advantage of your school's lrap for a while, but to say there's no such thing as international law is wrong.

[zanda]

bhan- NYU 3L here and just confused about when you said that NYU Law is far from the rest of the school. The medical and dental schools are far away, but the law school is right with the rest of the university.

[bhan87]

bhan- NYU 3L here and just confused about when you said that NYU Law is far from the rest of the school. The medical and dental schools are far away, but the law school is right with the rest of the university.

Is this the case? If so then I apologize because it just seemed further when I visited, but it's possible I got the distances mixed up. Scratch that comment I made.

[odiero]

Re: the existence of international law, I'm with highviolet and OP. (I'd point out that international law's also relevant to lots of for-profit entities and that NYU's also good in comparative law, which is relevant to work with all kinds of entities, both for-profit and nonprofit.)

Re: cross-enrollment, I assume OP is talking about the Columbia/NYU Exchange and would draw attention to page 17 of NYU's "2011-12 Year-Long Registration Guide," which reads, "Students are permitted to take one course at the other school during their academic career." Are there other ways to take courses at the other school that I'm not aware of?

Another thing to consider, OP, is that NYU and Oxford are currently the best places in the world to study (analytic) political philosophy, and many of the NYU profs who make that the case regularly teach courses in the law school: Dworkin, Nagel, Waldron, Scheffler, Murphy. I don't know if you're into the whole ethical theory thing, but I think it's super relevant to international public interest work.

[hadokenstyle]

Funnily enough, Dworkin may or may not be an active visiting faculty at the school that I am leaving. I have good friends pursuing Law and Philosophy.

And yes, I was referring to the exchange program between NYU and CLS. I saw the stipulation that only one course can be taken this way. I do not imagine there would be many more that one needs.

[vanwinkle]

Seeing as I just spent my whole past summer working on federal appellate human rights litigation (with judges such as Posner speaking about norms of customary international law), I can say with 100% certainty either that 1) you are just flat-out wrong, or 2) I have been hallucinating during my years of my experience in a field that "doesn't exist."

The poster I responded to said that it "largely doesn't exist". I'm not saying there are no jobs, but the kind of jobs you're speaking of are extremely rare and typically not available at all right out of law school.

I don't doubt that you spent your summer doing that kind of work, either. I'm sure you had a great time during your internship. But really, are you telling me there's a stable hiring market for "federal appellate human rights litigation"? At the organization you're working at, how many graduating law students do they make permanent job offers to each year? Do you think there are enough jobs there that it's reasonable for people to go to law school hoping to work there when they graduate?

People aren't saying there's literally no such concept as international law. They're saying that there isn't a "international law" field that provides actual jobs to law school graduates. Yes, you can do it in law school in (typically unpaid) summer or semester-long internships, but people shouldn't choose a professional degree program based on what unpaid work they can do while they're in school. They should choose it for where it will get them jobs when they graduate, and in terms of legal hiring, there really is no "international law" field worth considering. It really is more a marketing buzzword than an actual career path.

[hadokenstyle]

I think you're just backpedaling from wrongly endorsing a statement that the field "largely doesn't exist." It shouldn't take three paragraphs to explain your first post.

There are plenty of jobs under the umbrella of human rights. Whether they are glamorous or will quickly pay off loans is another story. But that is the same with any field of law.

I think discouraging students from pursuing the field because the pedigree, prestigious international law jobs are rare is based on flawed reasoning. That is akin to discouraging students from going to law school because getting a Supreme Court Clerkship is rare. Or because their chances of getting a top firm are slim.

Similarly, just because jobs at Amnesty, the UN, Tribunals, etc. are rare doesn't mean that students should be discouraged from entering the field. There are plenty of NGO's and think tanks in the market. Many schools offer generous loan repayment for this type of public interest work. That way students can enter the field, eventually pay off loans, and live modestly to comfortably while doing worthwhile work.

[$1.99]

what are you talking about you clown, there is not international law. you might as well try for intergalactic law or better yet, interdimensional law while chasing unicorns with peanut butter all over your body.

[GeePee]

I think you're just backpedaling from wrongly endorsing a statement that the field "largely doesn't exist." It shouldn't take three paragraphs to explain your first post.

There are plenty of jobs under the umbrella of human rights. Whether they are glamorous or will quickly pay off loans is another story. But that is the same with any field of law.

I think discouraging students from pursuing the field because the pedigree, prestigious international law jobs are rare is based on flawed reasoning. That is akin to discouraging students from going to law school because getting a Supreme Court Clerkship is rare. Or because their chances of getting a top firm are slim.

Similarly, just because jobs at Amnesty, the UN, Tribunals, etc. are rare doesn't mean that students should be discouraged from entering the field. There are plenty of NGO's and think tanks in the market. Many schools offer generous loan repayment for this type of public interest work. That way students can enter the field, eventually pay off loans, and live modestly to comfortably while doing worthwhile work.

"Plenty of NGO's" is a very generic and misleading statement. For individuals that want to use their JD and actually practice law, getting any of these jobs is still a long shot because there are comparatively quite few of them, and they are highly buzzed and quite competitive. The reality is that most of the NGO and "think tank" jobs of which you speak hardly require a JD, and the ones that really do test the mettle of an actual attorney are highly sought after. For what it's worth, no student should pursue a law degree because of a miniscule chance of clerking for the Supreme Court (or even a Court of Appeals) or working for Williams and Connolly, either, so I really don't know what you're getting at there.

This is not to say that human rights law doesn't exist; obviously it does. However, the type of public international law that most people describe under their general quest for "international law" offers extremely limited opportunities to a select few individuals. Even at CLS or NYU, the chances of getting a job that OP could not have obtained with solely his undergraduate degree should not heavily impact his choice of school.

[mrloblaw]

I think discouraging students from pursuing the field because the pedigree, prestigious international law jobs are rare is based on flawed reasoning. That is akin to discouraging students from going to law school because getting a Supreme Court Clerkship is rare. Or because their chances of getting a top firm are slim.

No one is telling you to drop out, and thus, no one is discouraging you from going to law school, whatever your initial goals may have been. It's actually more akin to discouraging people who have already committed to law school from deciding to transfer to a school based solely on the school's ability to place SCOTUS clerks. However, since you're deciding between two schools that are very close to equal, you might as well base the decision on whatever makes you most comfortable.

And I agree with the guy right above me; the sorts of jobs you're talking about sound like they don't require a JD at all. If that's the case, the only possible advantage I could see to transferring is WOWING PEOPLE WITH YOUR IVY LEAGUE DEGREE, which with Columbia, probably doesn't work.

Disclaimer: Transferring to NYU, dinged by CLS.

[TheKingintheNorth]

The limited and mostly nonexisistent nature of "International Law" is exactly why the OP should chose NYU. The professors at the school undisputedly dominate the field. It is a small field though, which is why you're gonna need to everything it takes + a whole lot of luck to land one of those jobs.


If you don't agree with that reasoning, then who knows. The enjoyment you'll get from either school, if you're a normal human being, is so dependent on unpredictable factors like who you meet that if the choice isn't obvious (like I think is, as I present in my first paragraph), then there's really no way you can be sure one way or the other.

Disclaimer: Accepted at both NYU and Columbia. NYU threw me way more money than my numbers predicted so my decision was made for me.