If you don't have a huge geographic preference, the two things you should compare between the schools are 1) quaity of education, and 2) ease of finding a job.drdolittle wrote:Thanks for doing this. And thanks to all others who've made constructive comments.
What's your impression of Davis vs. SCU, or other similarly ranked specialized T2 schools for that matter, for intellectual property law? Would this be a field where going to a lower ranked IP school with $$ make some sense? How much sense?
BTW, I'm a biomed PhD and will target IP, but I like the idea of going to a place like Davis. It would probably end up being more expensive than a lower ranked IP specialist school like SCU, though I get the sense that the overall caliber of the profs and students, and therefore the educational experience, at Davis would be better. What do you think?
Also, I've spent many years living in SF and could not agree more with your, SoftBoiledLife's and even the venerable Ken's posts on the Davis/Hastings debate. As you all mentioned, people should simply visit the two campuses to make an informed, personal decision.
As far as the quality of your IP education goes, I will only say that our four main IP profs are graduates of: Yale, Yale, Stanford, and Columbia. And two of them had Circuit clerkships. Not that pedigree always equals quality teaching...but I would have a hard time believing anyone from SCU who says their IP professors are more qualified than ours.
Which school will you have an easier time finding an IP job from? I really don't know. SCU probably claims they have a lot of "alumni and networking opportunities" in Silicon Valley. In general, I'm not the biggest fan of using alumni and networking to find jobs. I just don't think an employer cares THAT MUCH about hiring a student from where he graduated. It's all very squishy to say that a school has a "broad alumni network." Ya, so what? I'd hire a Harvard kid over a Davis kid any day (other things equal). And alumni connections don't mean anything if the employer isn't even hiring.
What isn't squishy is that Davis OCI owns Santa Clara OCI, and therefore if you want a private firm job, your chances at Davis OCI will be pretty much mathematically better.
What makes this a moderately close call is the scholarship. Three years ago I turned down money at SCU for Davis. But the legal market is completely different now. It all depends on how much money they offered you, how your personal finances are, how much you care about having big loans. Also it's important to note that while you might've gotten scholarship at SCU, you might lose that money if you don't have a certain class rank after 1L. On the other hand, Davis gives considerable amounts of grants that aren't tied to your grades...in fact, a lot of people get MORE grants for 2L and 3L.
In sum - if you got at least 20k/yr scholarship from SCU that isn't tied to grades, and if you have a strong preference to live in Silicon Valley over Davis for three years, then it would make sense to pick SCU. Otherwise, no.
