Top Law Schools

A bit of background:

Current School: Wisconsin, Tuition: 9k per year (and tuition is frozen for the next 2 years)
Career Hopes: I want to do biglaw if I can get it. Preferably in the Midwest (Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Madison) but I could also see doing NYC for a few years.

Obviously Mich has much better job prospects. But I will end up paying 80k more in tuition (COL is probably roughly the same). My biggest fear would be striking out at Michigan and taking on the extra debt while being stuck with midlaw. I'd have much more manageable debt in midlaw out of Madison. So, what does TLS think?

It would be helpful to know your current class rank, but if you want biglaw, and especially if you are open to NYC, you should probably transfer.

Is there a risk that you pay an extra 80k and not get biglaw? Of course there is, but I think if you genuinely want to work in biglaw then you should leave Wisconsin because your odds at biglaw from there are abysmally small, especially compared to UM.

What would be your total indebtedness at Michigan versus Wisconsin.

Obviously you will need to transfer for a decent shot at big law, Michigan has a great LRAP so even if you got midlaw you wouldn't be screwed I'm assuming.

Without knowing the debt figures and your gpa my advice would be if you really want biglaw I think Michigan would be worth the risk with the realization that you might not get it but will still have the LRAP and a T14 degree/ connections to fall back on.

bk187 wrote:It would be helpful to know your current class rank, but if you want biglaw, and especially if you are open to NYC, you should probably transfer.

Is there a risk that you pay an extra 80k and not get biglaw? Of course there is, but I think if you genuinely want to work in biglaw then you should leave Wisconsin because your odds at biglaw from there are abysmally small, especially compared to UM.

I was just outside the top 15%, by like .01. I had to put top 20% on my resume, however.

Anonymous User wrote:

bk187 wrote:It would be helpful to know your current class rank, but if you want biglaw, and especially if you are open to NYC, you should probably transfer.

Is there a risk that you pay an extra 80k and not get biglaw? Of course there is, but I think if you genuinely want to work in biglaw then you should leave Wisconsin because your odds at biglaw from there are abysmally small, especially compared to UM.

I was just outside the top 15%, by like .01. I had to put top 20% on my resume, however.

That, to me, makes this pretty much a slam dunk.

muskies970 wrote:What would be your total indebtedness at Michigan versus Wisconsin.

Obviously you will need to transfer for a decent shot at big law, Michigan has a great LRAP so even if you got midlaw you wouldn't be screwed I'm assuming.

Without knowing the debt figures and your gpa my advice would be if you really want biglaw I think Michigan would be worth the risk with the realization that you might not get it but will still have the LRAP and a T14 degree/ connections to fall back on.

Roughly 75k at Wisconsin and 155k at Michigan (assuming I don't pay anything back from a 2L summer job and that Ann Arbor is roughly similar to Madison's COL).

I think graduated from Wisconsin, you do not have to take the bar exam for Wisconsin. Not sure how much of an impact that is, but you did say you would be willing to work in Madison or Milwaukee

kyle010723 wrote:I think graduated from Wisconsin, you do not have to take the bar exam for Wisconsin. Not sure how much of an impact that is, but you did say you would be willing to work in Madison or Milwaukee

That is true, but not really factoring into my decision. I'm more concerned about balancing the costs vs. job prospects.

bk187 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

bk187 wrote:It would be helpful to know your current class rank, but if you want biglaw, and especially if you are open to NYC, you should probably transfer.

Is there a risk that you pay an extra 80k and not get biglaw? Of course there is, but I think if you genuinely want to work in biglaw then you should leave Wisconsin because your odds at biglaw from there are abysmally small, especially compared to UM.

I was just outside the top 15%, by like .01. I had to put top 20% on my resume, however.

That, to me, makes this pretty much a slam dunk.

I'm assuming by slam dunk, you are referring to transferring to Michigan?

Yes.