Top Law Schools

I go to a T20 school and I'm wondering what are my prospects for transferring to a lower tier school in NYC? The reason why I want to transfer to a lower tier school in NYC is because my family is in NYC and this is ultimately where I would like to practice. The school I go to now is great but its a fairly regional school and I'm worried about my job prospects as well when I want to return to NYC to work. I've been heavily considering Fordham, however, because of a family situation and outside circumstances, my first semester 1L gpa suffered a bit. How important is 1L ranking when transferring down? I know I can bring my grades up this semester, but on the chance that I don't end up in the top 30% of my class, will it affect my ability to transfer to a school like Fordham even if I go to a higher ranking school right now?

It looks like Fordham's median transfer gpa last year was 3.47 with most students coming from t2/t3 schools. You may get a little gpa bump because your gpa comes from a t20, but I still wouldn't bank on getting in with a gpa shy of 3.7, which is around their transfer 75th percentile.

Anecdata - someone last transfer cycle had a cumulative 3.5 or so GPA at a lower ranked school and made it into NYU. The reason why this is relevant? They did really well their first semester in law school (think top 5%) then had a big family issue and GPA went into the toilet second semester. NYU bought the explanation. If I recall correctly so did Northwestern.

Perhaps you can do the flip of this - bad first semester and great second semester? I would still give Columbia and NYU a shot and try to pull second semester up as much as possible. You may have less than ideal odds at NYU and Columbia, but for $200 in app fees why not try? You have a good story and that seems to matter to the schools.

TL;DR - try to kill it second semester and apply up the tier as well as down, it's worth the extra cash.