Top Law Schools

Stats:
Lower T20 (east coast IP school.... just trying not to say the name on here for searching reasons)
Top ~5-10%
Should make LR
Moot/ADR
Going into IP/Patent Lit
3.5 years work experience in Computer Engineering
Current school's OCI does not do a lottery, so I should get my pick of screener interviews. (I realize this is not indestructible.)
Want to end up in California/Bay Area, and current school is not in CA.
My school is notorious for not negotiating with [law student] terrorists

[Edit] Currently receiving only $10k/year (total COA ~68K/year).
[Edit2] Scholarship has been upped to $23k/year

Applied to:
Stanford- I know it's a long shot, but have a pretty awesome SA in the area so I figured why not give it a try.
Harvard- Another long shot, but with WE I am hoping they at least give me a look.
Berkeley- Feeling more confident about this one, albeit still not a lock by any means

Questions:
Any wild guesses at my chances at any of the three?
How long should it take to start hearing back once transcripts are in hand? (I've seen a huge range- mid June to late August)
Should I go??? (poll)

Need more info. What is your current COA? Getting any scholly money currently? The school you're at now, along with your WE/class rank/LR, should give you pretty good reach to IP firms in CA. Obviously a CA school like Berk or S will be a lot better, but if you're getting some good money then it might not be worth giving up your scholarship, class rank, and LR.

Edited to include scholarship / COA

Bump. Any helpful comments would be helpful.

Bump. (Not a ton of transfer traffic happening)

Any comments behind the votes? (It should be said I am a regular TLSer!)

Thanks guys!

I'd say apply. Since you have an SA and should get one for next summer staying is probably a good option. What are your reasons for transferring? With your background you're probably not going to get a significant amount of need aid. Are you sure your school won't negotiate?. Losing someone like you is not something they want.

OP Here-

I'm not so much worried about my 2L summer or first job... Ultimately the prospects look extremely similar in the short term. However, I am considering a clerkship or even academia at some point and the prestige would help in those respects. I figure there isn't a ton of point in making a decision until I see what is on the table.

Apps are all in and went complete last week, so fingers crossed.

Anonymous User wrote:OP Here-

I'm not so much worried about my 2L summer or first job... Ultimately the prospects look extremely similar in the short term. However, I am considering a clerkship or even academia at some point and the prestige would help in those respects. I figure there isn't a ton of point in making a decision until I see what is on the table.

Apps are all in and went complete last week, so fingers crossed.

Since you want a clerkship/academia being on LR is going to matter. Boalt, I could be wrong so check this out, is the only one that does a transfer write on for LR.

jbiresq wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:OP Here-

I'm not so much worried about my 2L summer or first job... Ultimately the prospects look extremely similar in the short term. However, I am considering a clerkship or even academia at some point and the prestige would help in those respects. I figure there isn't a ton of point in making a decision until I see what is on the table.

Apps are all in and went complete last week, so fingers crossed.

Since you want a clerkship/academia being on LR is going to matter. Boalt, I could be wrong so check this out, is the only one that does a transfer write on for LR.

OP here- I did not participate in the HLS competition, as it was during my second week of SA and ultimately saw it as a long shot. I suppose I'll always be able to note "invited to join XYZ LR" but for clerkships I will need to find some way to get published in upper level writing.

It should also be noted that my current school finally decided to play ball and upped me to $23k/year, making Berkeley nearly $60,000 more expensive over the final 2 years.

I'd stick around then. Having a strong IP background should help you punch above your weight for clerkships (at least on the district level.) There's a demand for IP people because a lot of judges couldn't read a patent if their life depended on it.

Do you really want the name/prestige? Not having LR will hurt but you can join a good secondary at SLS or HLS to mitigate it. You'll most likely be paying sticker or close to it at both those schools though.

Honestly you're going to have a good dilemma.

jbiresq wrote:I'd stick around then. Having a strong IP background should help you punch above your weight for clerkships (at least on the district level.) There's a demand for IP people because a lot of judges couldn't read a patent if their life depended on it.

Do you really want the name/prestige? Not having LR will hurt but you can join a good secondary at SLS or HLS to mitigate it. You'll most likely be paying sticker or close to it at both those schools though.

Honestly you're going to have a good dilemma.

They give need based aid.

Hmmmmmmm

Danger Zone wrote:

jbiresq wrote:I'd stick around then. Having a strong IP background should help you punch above your weight for clerkships (at least on the district level.) There's a demand for IP people because a lot of judges couldn't read a patent if their life depended on it.

Do you really want the name/prestige? Not having LR will hurt but you can join a good secondary at SLS or HLS to mitigate it. You'll most likely be paying sticker or close to it at both those schools though.

Honestly you're going to have a good dilemma.

They give need based aid.

1L SA + Past Work Experience would hit the amount pretty significantly I'd think.

jbiresq wrote:

Danger Zone wrote:

jbiresq wrote:I'd stick around then. Having a strong IP background should help you punch above your weight for clerkships (at least on the district level.) There's a demand for IP people because a lot of judges couldn't read a patent if their life depended on it.

Do you really want the name/prestige? Not having LR will hurt but you can join a good secondary at SLS or HLS to mitigate it. You'll most likely be paying sticker or close to it at both those schools though.

Honestly you're going to have a good dilemma.

They give need based aid.

1L SA + Past Work Experience would hit the amount pretty significantly I'd think.

I agree... IF I were to get need based, I wouldn't expect more than $10-15k/year.

Bump.

lol your poll is bad.

Obviously people chose the broadest answer..

RodneyRuxin wrote:lol your poll is bad.

Obviously people chose the broadest answer..

Could you elaborate? I see the flaw in that "Only Harvard" is not an option and should be, but the "broadest" option includes 2 of the top 3, and the #1 IP school. I'm not following.

Anonymous User wrote:

RodneyRuxin wrote:lol your poll is bad.

Obviously people chose the broadest answer..

Could you elaborate? I see the flaw in that "Only Harvard" is not an option and should be, but the "broadest" option includes 2 of the top 3, and the #1 IP school. I'm not following.

Cancel that... I see he's a 0L who has no business in a transfer forum. Any other thoughts?

Number 1 school for IP means fucking jack shit. That's stupid shit 0L's focus on. You'll be competitive for damn near all IP firms or practice groups at GWU 5-10%.

Academia is a boomer flame. And you should already be in the running for clerkships, so why transfer and burn bridges.

You'll transfer and pay 23k more a year for virtually no gain.

Desert Fox wrote:Number 1 school for IP means fucking jack shit. That's stupid shit 0L's focus on. You'll be competitive for damn near all IP firms or practice groups at GWU 5-10%.

Academia is a boomer flame. And you should already be in the running for clerkships, so why transfer and burn bridges.

You'll transfer and pay 23k more a year for virtually no gain.

Nationwide I completely agree that the IP ranking means little to nothing. BUT... when it comes to OCI, the IP folks have considerably more bid slots at Boalt than several other T10's (same with GW, but there are still several V10 firms that simply don't show up there).

The only real benefit I see to Boalt is access to a handful of firms via OCI that I otherwise would have to direct write. (Cravath, Skadden, Sullivan, Weil)

Anonymous User wrote:(Cravath, Skadden, Sullivan, Weil)

Ah, so you're transferring for the PREFTIGE. Should have just made that clear from the get go duder.

Anonymous User wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:Number 1 school for IP means fucking jack shit. That's stupid shit 0L's focus on. You'll be competitive for damn near all IP firms or practice groups at GWU 5-10%.

Academia is a boomer flame. And you should already be in the running for clerkships, so why transfer and burn bridges.

You'll transfer and pay 23k more a year for virtually no gain.

Nationwide I completely agree that the IP ranking means little to nothing. BUT... when it comes to OCI, the IP folks have considerably more bid slots at Boalt than several other T10's (same with GW, but there are still several V10 firms that simply don't show up there).

The only real benefit I see to Boalt is access to a handful of firms via OCI that I otherwise would have to direct write. (Cravath, Skadden, Sullivan, Weil)

I think this post betrays your prestige whoring tendancies. Just don't focus on high vault firms that have a bit of IP. You want firms that are genuinely good at IP. There are many non V10 firms that blow these out of the water.

Skadden and Weil go to the Loyola patent fair that you should have signed up for, did you?

And I'm not really sure why anyone would aim for Cravath or SC for patent lit. If you have the grades for those firms, you'd be aiming for better IP firms.

I interviewed with 55 firms at Northwestern and Loyola. You don't need Boalt to get a lot of interviews.

Desert Fox wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:Number 1 school for IP means fucking jack shit. That's stupid shit 0L's focus on. You'll be competitive for damn near all IP firms or practice groups at GWU 5-10%.

Academia is a boomer flame. And you should already be in the running for clerkships, so why transfer and burn bridges.

You'll transfer and pay 23k more a year for virtually no gain.

Nationwide I completely agree that the IP ranking means little to nothing. BUT... when it comes to OCI, the IP folks have considerably more bid slots at Boalt than several other T10's (same with GW, but there are still several V10 firms that simply don't show up there).

The only real benefit I see to Boalt is access to a handful of firms via OCI that I otherwise would have to direct write. (Cravath, Skadden, Sullivan, Weil)

I think this post betrays your prestige whoring tendancies. Just don't focus on high vault firms that have a bit of IP. You want firms that are genuinely good at IP. There are many non V10 firms that blow these out of the water.

Skadden and Weil go to the Loyola patent fair that you should have signed up for, did you?

And I'm not really sure why anyone would aim for Cravath or SC for patent lit. If you have the grades for those firms, you'd be aiming for better IP firms.

I interviewed with 55 firms at Northwestern and Loyola. You don't need Boalt to get a lot of interviews.

All valid points, and well taken!

I have signed up for PLIP (and SFIPLA) and bid on every top IP firm out there. I also understand that V100 isn't the end all for IP folks (see Fish) and I think your point about my prestige whoring is spot on.

Is there any merit to the local presence of Berkeley/Stanford to these firms, rather than having to try to get people's attention from DC? Another issue I've seen is the GW OCI has somewhat limited CA offices, thus more direct mail required.

Anonymous User wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:Number 1 school for IP means fucking jack shit. That's stupid shit 0L's focus on. You'll be competitive for damn near all IP firms or practice groups at GWU 5-10%.

Academia is a boomer flame. And you should already be in the running for clerkships, so why transfer and burn bridges.

You'll transfer and pay 23k more a year for virtually no gain.

Nationwide I completely agree that the IP ranking means little to nothing. BUT... when it comes to OCI, the IP folks have considerably more bid slots at Boalt than several other T10's (same with GW, but there are still several V10 firms that simply don't show up there).

The only real benefit I see to Boalt is access to a handful of firms via OCI that I otherwise would have to direct write. (Cravath, Skadden, Sullivan, Weil)

I think this post betrays your prestige whoring tendancies. Just don't focus on high vault firms that have a bit of IP. You want firms that are genuinely good at IP. There are many non V10 firms that blow these out of the water.

Skadden and Weil go to the Loyola patent fair that you should have signed up for, did you?

And I'm not really sure why anyone would aim for Cravath or SC for patent lit. If you have the grades for those firms, you'd be aiming for better IP firms.

I interviewed with 55 firms at Northwestern and Loyola. You don't need Boalt to get a lot of interviews.

All valid points, and well taken!

I have signed up for PLIP (and SFIPLA) and bid on every top IP firm out there. I also understand that V100 isn't the end all for IP folks (see Fish) and I think your point about my prestige whoring is spot on.

Is there any merit to the local presence of Berkeley/Stanford to these firms, rather than having to try to get people's attention from DC? Another issue I've seen is the GW OCI has somewhat limited CA offices, thus more direct mail required.

Well, if you bid CA at Loyola and SFIPLA you probably should have covered virtually every significant CA firm that does IP. I'm sure GWU has worse CA bid options than Boalt, probably a significant amount. But Loyola and SFIPLA should significantly close that gap. At no cost difference, it might be worth an Xfer. But you are probably losing 50k+ to Xfer. And why?

What CA firms didn't you get to bid on at Loyola and SFIPLA? If the list is huge, MAYBE it's worth a transfer, but you'd have to post the firms you didn't get to bid on, that are available at Boalt.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:
Could you elaborate? I see the flaw in that "Only Harvard" is not an option and should be, but the "broadest" option includes 2 of the top 3, and the #1 IP school. I'm not following.

Cancel that... I see he's a 0L who has no business in a transfer forum. Any other thoughts?

Not a 0L.

People are going to choose the fourth option because it encompasses the first three. People will have the tendency to answer the broadest question because it requires no real mental effort on their part. Anyone who thinks H is the best, but that S/B would be okay too are going to choose this option, while if you made them pick a school they would choose H (which would give you a clearer idea of what school is the best choice). Make sense?

If this were a poll in a research project, you couldn't come to any solid conclusions about people's preference, all you could say is that most people think it's one of those three.