Texas Tech University School of Law Forum

[TLS_user]

Law School Programs >> Texas Law Schools

law.ttu.edu
Texas Tech University School of Law is located in Lubbock, TX.

Please "post a reply" and add any comments you have about the Texas Tech University School of Law. Many generations of prospective law students will benefit by the information you share.

[mmribail]

Incoming transfer student. Can anyone on here (preferably a current student) let me know how the school is like. Particularly regarding the following:

1) Employment in the following cities: Houston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso
I am hoping for Biglaw, but if not I will likely want re-enter the military and do the JAG thing
for the next 4 to 8 years.

2) Is there anything to do there? I mean there are bars in Lubbock right?

3) How is the campus like and the law school facilities?

Note: Coming from Thurgood Marshall Law school...I am thrilled with the prospect of getting out of there!

[texas man]

Incoming transfer student. Can anyone on here (preferably a current student) let me know how the school is like. Particularly regarding the following:

1) Employment in the following cities: Houston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso
I am hoping for Biglaw, but if not I will likely want re-enter the military and do the JAG thing
for the next 4 to 8 years.

2) Is there anything to do there? I mean there are bars in Lubbock right?

3) How is the campus like and the law school facilities?

Note: Coming from Thurgood Marshall Law school...I am thrilled with the prospect of getting out of there!

Hello,

I'm starting in the fall, and I've done a lot of research on all of the law schools in Texas - I recommend reading through my posts - I have posted links to stats from the Texas Bar regarding employment in various areas in Texas. For employment, Texas Tech places the highest percentage of its graduates in the Dallas area, followed by Lubbock, and then Austin.

As far as Biglaw, Tech places ~8% in Biglaw, however, close to 60% end up working for law firms within 9 months of graduation. Also, from their reported data, 94% of graduates are employed within 9 months. Another nice statistic is that Tech placed first for bar passage in the last two administrations.

One thing you're probably aware of is that you will have to re-take the legal practice classes (3 hours each semester); maybe I'll see you there.

And yes, there are things to do in Lubbock - several bars, really good restaurants, etc.

I was very impressed with the campus and law school facilities, especially the new Lanier Center.

If you are on Facebook, there are also a number of pages of Texas Tech law groups - many 2L's and 3L's have offered advice for incoming students.

Congratulations - see you in a few weeks...

[mmribail]

Yeah, I'll be in Lubbock the 17th. They told me I have to take this two credit class called alternative dispute resolution to cover the LP class that I did not take my first year. Yeah, hit me up though. I don't know anyone in Lubbock. And thanxs for the info.

[texas man]

Yeah, I'll be in Lubbock the 17th. They told me I have to take this two credit class called alternative dispute resolution to cover the LP class that I did not take my first year. Yeah, hit me up though. I don't know anyone in Lubbock. And thanxs for the info.

That's interesting that you have the option to take the alternative dispute resolution class - I know a 3L who transferred and had to retake the LP classes (this also came up in discussions with admissions).

I think the 17th is the first day of Library Orientation, and I'll be there. Also feel free to pm me - see you then.

[zanzbar]

I am a current Undergrad at Tech so I am not really sure if you want my opinion, I haven't spent much time in the law school just have done a walk through once or twice my Freshmen year, it seemed pretty nice from the parts I saw. As far as drinks (I'm only 20 so I haven't been able to fully enjoy this aspect of Lubbock) Cactus Courtyard I would avoid since its full of Frat guys pretty much all the time. Chimy's seems to be a favorite of a lot of people, but that could be due to the fact its within walking distance of memorial circle. A majority of the bars and entertainment is located in the depot district so I would just recommend doing a Google search of that to find a nice relaxing place to have a drink after class. As far as dancing and clubs Wild West is a very popular hang out spot its got a lot of people dressed up as cowboys and cowgirls, but its not really mandatory to do that if you don't want to. Probably the biggest form of entertainment is the football games if you have any free time this year I would recommend trying to get tickets to the UT vs Tech game at the very least you might meet some of your future clients if you go criminal defense. Also on a side note you picked a good time to come to Lubbock because less then 18 months ago the county went wet so now you don't have to drive 10 miles outside of town just to buy some beer. Its not a metropolis by any means, but you get a nice mixture of the urban environment without having to be crammed together all the time. Where did you guys decide to live?

[happy187]

Incoming transfer student. Can anyone on here (preferably a current student) let me know how the school is like. Particularly regarding the following:

1) Employment in the following cities: Houston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso
I am hoping for Biglaw, but if not I will likely want re-enter the military and do the JAG thing
for the next 4 to 8 years.

2) Is there anything to do there? I mean there are bars in Lubbock right?

3) How is the campus like and the law school facilities?

Note: Coming from Thurgood Marshall Law school...I am thrilled with the prospect of getting out of there!

Congrats on getting out of TSU, I am shocked they still are accredited.

[sophia.olive]

Wait Texas Tech is accredited?

[texas man]

Wait Texas Tech is accredited?

You're interested in Texas Tech School of Law? I never would have thought it...

[mmribail]

Yeah, I actually did LP my 1L year, but didn't do the whole 6 credits they require at Tech. Someone from admissions told me to register for that class to cover the part I did not cover at my last law school. And I live at the courtyard apartments (Went to Lubbock Monday and left today). It is across from a lake, which is pretty sweet (I saw people in boats this morning on the lake). I will be at that library thing too.

Really it went wet!!?? About damn time! I hate religious people always trying to attempt to tell people (and in this case force people) how to live their lives. If I want a damn drink I am a adult; let me have one!!

Yeah I cannot believe TSU is still accredited. They constantly scoring under 70% on the bar exam each year...enough is enough. I just feel for some of my friends that were not able to get out of TSU.

[texas man]

For any prospective, current, or former Texas Tech Law students, here is a presentation Mark Lanier made at Harvard Law for a torts class - If you have some extra time on your hands, it's pretty entertaining (I think there are 9 parts):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifU89T8_Wo

[merc280]

I hope to get in for Fall 2011 admission. Mark Lanier's firm in Houston is less than a mile from my house.

[cartercl]

Yeah, I saw this too. It was awesome. He's one of the few reasons Tech is on my list.

[texas man]

Yeah, I saw this too. It was awesome. He's one of the few reasons Tech is on my list.

This is really a great law school. Besides Mark Lanier, if you want to work in Texas, there are more than a few reasons Tech could be on your list.

[BeautifulSW]

I practiced in Eastern New Mexico for a few years some time back. Texas Tech grads were everywhere and generally well thought of. Those guys in those days weren't doing just the usual small law small town stuff, either. Texas Tech supplied a lot of lawyers for the oil and gas industry in the Permian Basin and they made a ton of cash doing it, too. There were more than a few millionaires made in those days and some of them were lawyers.

One nice thing about Tech was that it was cheap for Texas residents. I suppose that it still is cheap, relatively speaking, but oil and gas goes through a boom bust cycle and the Permian Basin is getting old and depleted. I don't know what sort of "legs" a Tech J.D. has.

There is still work for lawyers out there, even though the boom is long past. But I don't know if anyone is getting rich anymore.

As a New Mexican, I should not admit this, but I always liked Lubbock. Flat as an absolute pancake, not a tree for a hundred miles, and dry as the bottom of an empty canteen on a hot day but the city itself has a lot to offer if you are willing to look and not too judgmental. That country can grow on you.

[horsethief80]

Being that they're a state school and pretty cheap anyway, I didn't figure they gave much in the way of scholarship money. Does anybody know? I checked lawschoolnumbers, and many of the folks on there didn't indicate they'd received much money. I was just curious if anybody knew otherwise....

[cartercl]

Whoa... so Texas Tech is requiring freaking evaluations? How stupid. I have zero evaluations and I'm not about to go hassle my recommenders just to satisfy one school's requirements. Texas Tech... scratched from the list.

[texas man]

Whoa... so Texas Tech is requiring freaking evaluations? How stupid. I have zero evaluations and I'm not about to go hassle my recommenders just to satisfy one school's requirements. Texas Tech... scratched from the list.

I think you might be misinterpreting the "evaluations." All applicants to almost all law schools are required to use LSAC's services to submit recommendations; LSAC also makes it convenient to submit the remaining portions of your application using its services. This year, LSAC has added an evaluation service to its recommendation service for submitting credentials. It's basically just a short online questionnaire for your recommender/evaluator to rate certain skills related to the legal profession and success in law school. If your recommender is willing to take the time to write a quality recommendation for you, I wouldn't think they would consider this an inconvenience — if they did, this probably isn't a good person to get a recommendation from.

Deciding not to go to Texas Tech because there is an additional evaluation requirement for the recommender/evaluator (that is recommended by LSAC) is definitely not a good reason for making that decision. Quality of education, total cost of education, bar passage rate, and graduate employment rate are good reasons for making that decision.

[texas man]

Being that they're a state school and pretty cheap anyway, I didn't figure they gave much in the way of scholarship money. Does anybody know? I checked lawschoolnumbers, and many of the folks on there didn't indicate they'd received much money. I was just curious if anybody knew otherwise....

LSN has a very small sample of applicants for Texas Tech. There is scholarship money available for incoming students—it is offered based on the student's LSAT score and GPA. If these numbers are above the 75th percentile, it's safe to expect a pretty good scholarship offer. As the numbers go down, the prospective offer goes down. I don't know the percentage of students receiving scholarships, but I know many who are receiving them (generally, they had at least one metric—usually LSAT score—above the 75th percentile and another at least above the 50th percentile).

Keep in mind, as future applicant pools become more competitive, the sliding scale may change disproportionately compared with the numbers from previous years.

[texas man]

I practiced in Eastern New Mexico for a few years some time back. Texas Tech grads were everywhere and generally well thought of. Those guys in those days weren't doing just the usual small law small town stuff, either. Texas Tech supplied a lot of lawyers for the oil and gas industry in the Permian Basin and they made a ton of cash doing it, too. There were more than a few millionaires made in those days and some of them were lawyers.

One nice thing about Tech was that it was cheap for Texas residents. I suppose that it still is cheap, relatively speaking, but oil and gas goes through a boom bust cycle and the Permian Basin is getting old and depleted. I don't know what sort of "legs" a Tech J.D. has.

There is still work for lawyers out there, even though the boom is long past. But I don't know if anyone is getting rich anymore.

As a New Mexican, I should not admit this, but I always liked Lubbock. Flat as an absolute pancake, not a tree for a hundred miles, and dry as the bottom of an empty canteen on a hot day but the city itself has a lot to offer if you are willing to look and not too judgmental. That country can grow on you.

Thanks for the post. It reaffirms what a lot of the law students at Texas Tech have heard about the reputation and portability of a Tech J.D.; hopefully, it also dispels rumors to the contrary. Also, from what I've seen, the "legs" are pretty strong in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

I don't know if I should admit this, but as an Austinite, I really like Lubbock. I've got just one thing to add: there are plenty of trees here now—not as many as in Austin—but there are more than a few within a hundred miles. My apartment complex is surrounded by pine trees. I don't see many of those in Austin! This place has definitely grown on me.

[cartercl]

Whoa... so Texas Tech is requiring freaking evaluations? How stupid. I have zero evaluations and I'm not about to go hassle my recommenders just to satisfy one school's requirements. Texas Tech... scratched from the list.

I think you might be misinterpreting the "evaluations." All applicants to almost all law schools are required to use LSAC's services to submit recommendations; LSAC also makes it convenient to submit the remaining portions of your application using its services. This year, LSAC has added an evaluation service to its recommendation service for submitting credentials. It's basically just a short online questionnaire for your recommender/evaluator to rate certain skills related to the legal profession and success in law school. If your recommender is willing to take the time to write a quality recommendation for you, I wouldn't think they would consider this an inconvenience — if they did, this probably isn't a good person to get a recommendation from.

Deciding not to go to Texas Tech because there is an additional evaluation requirement for the recommender/evaluator (that is recommended by LSAC) is definitely not a good reason for making that decision. Quality of education, total cost of education, bar passage rate, and graduate employment rate are good reasons for making that decision.

Thanks, but I actually do know the difference between an evaluation and a letter of recommendation, and Texas Tech is requiring the former and not accepting the latter. I called the school yesterday to confirm this and this is exactly what admissions told me. LSAC won't even let you submit the application without two evaluations. No other school I am applying to is doing this.

So, deciding not to apply to Texas Tech because there is a requirement for something that was supposed to be fairly experimental this cycle is a valid reason, IMO. It places an unnecessary stress on 1) Applicants who are applying to 10-20 other schools, none of which require evaluations, and 2) Those recommenders who put in the time and effort to write LORs in the first place. Had this been on their website for months, I would have known about it before applications became available on LSAC and I probably would have done it. But alas, it was not; they just updated their website last week to include this information. It turns me off because I cannot believe a law school did not have the foresight to recognize the issues this would cause for applicants.

I'm not about to go through the trouble for Texas Tech and my guess would be, many other applicants aren't either unless Texas Tech is in their backyard. There are better schools on my list all with better quality of education, bar passage rates, and graduate employment rates (not after 9 months), which don't require these ridiculous evaluations. I'll be okay not applying there. Trust me.

[kalvano]

Tech is actually requiring you to do that?

That's funny. You'd think they would want to encourage people to go there.

[texas man]

Thanks, but I actually do know the difference between an evaluation and a letter of recommendation, and Texas Tech is requiring the former and not accepting the latter.

I understand that the evaluations are required (as I previously mentioned), but letters of recommendation are not accepted? So they are only requiring that evaluators fill out the online questionnaire? That seems a little strange.

I think it's a valid criticism that when you started your LSAC account this wasn't required, and now it is. When I applied to law schools, I applied to 10 schools, and the schools all had variations in their requirements. Still, I only applied to those schools because I was genuinely interested in each of them, and their application requirements really didn't enter into my calculation of why I was applying to each school. I previously mentioned the reasons that did.

Also, when you are looking at the "better" schools on your list, the 9 month employment rates are standard (at-graduation employment rates aren't really telling), and when comparing bar passage rates, comparisons aren't really meaningful when looking at different states. It is meaningful to look at how a school does in relation to the other state schools taking the same bar. How you know what schools have a better quality of education compared to others, I don't know, but I had numerous sources (several of them attorneys at larger firms) tell me that Texas Tech really prepared their students for practice right out of school. I actually hadn't considered Texas Tech until I heard this. After investigating the school a little more, visiting, and talking to professors, it quickly became one of my top choices. As a side note, I think visiting a school is essential to really get an idea of what the school is like.

If someone doesn't want to work in or around Texas, maybe Tech isn't a great choice - that's fine. Hopefully people are deciding where to apply based on what school is best for them. Good luck with your cycle.

[texas man]

Tech is actually requiring you to do that?

That's funny. You'd think they would want to encourage people to go there.

It's funny when I see you jumping in the Texas Tech threads. Keeping busy over there at SMU?

[cartercl]

I understand that the evaluations are required (as I previously mentioned), but letters of recommendation are not accepted? So they are only requiring that evaluators fill out the online questionnaire? That seems a little strange.

I think it's a valid criticism that when you started your LSAC account this wasn't required, and now it is. When I applied to law schools, I applied to 10 schools, and the schools all had variations in their requirements. Still, I only applied to those schools because I was genuinely interested in each of them, and their application requirements really didn't enter into my calculation of why I was applying to each school. I previously mentioned the reasons that did.

Also, when you are looking at the "better" schools on your list, the 9 month employment rates are standard (at-graduation employment rates aren't really telling), and when comparing bar passage rates, comparisons aren't really meaningful when looking at different states. It is meaningful to look at how a school does in relation to the other state schools taking the same bar. How you know what schools have a better quality of education compared to others, I don't know, but I had numerous sources (several of them attorneys at larger firms) tell me that Texas Tech really prepared their students for practice right out of school. I actually hadn't considered Texas Tech until I heard this. After investigating the school a little more, visiting, and talking to professors, it quickly became one of my top choices. As a side note, I think visiting a school is essential to really get an idea of what the school is like.

If someone doesn't want to work in or around Texas, maybe Tech isn't a great choice - that's fine. Hopefully people are deciding where to apply based on what school is best for them. Good luck with your cycle.

I understand that you may have a dog in this fight. That's fine; I'm not trying to bash Texas Tech. I also understand your methodology behind your selection of schools to apply to (during your cycle). That's fine as well; however, I choose schools based on those standards you mentioned, as well as some you did not. Do I want to cast a wide net to see which schools will offer the most money so that I can minimize my debt? Yes, I do. Are there some schools on that list that I would attend only if I was offered money? Yes; Tech happens to be one of those schools. However, our differences in what we look for in a school does not make my reasoning any less sound.

But you opened the door for the comparison of law schools when you mentioned the status of Texas Tech's quality of education, etc, etc... Is it then so wrong for me to justify my decision not to apply there by saying that I think other schools provide all the things you mentioned about Tech, but at a higher level? You're right (sort of); I cannot tell you with absolute certainty which schools have a better quality of education than others. That's because quality of education is subjective. You say it should be a factor when choosing a law school. So if I think SMU has a better quality of education than Tech (which I do) then SMU will probably be higher on my list if it beats out Tech on all the other factors (which it does). The point is not whether I am actually correct -- of course I'm placing a value on something that is unmeasurable -- but rather what I think.

I do want to work in or around Texas. I'm from Louisiana and I would love to stay in the area. I don't know what you saw that caused you to come to the conclusion that I don't want to live or work in Texas or the surrounding area. Perhaps this is because I'm not applying to Tech. Well, there are other schools that give me a much better opportunity to achieve this goal (see: UT, SMU, Houston, and even South Texas). Tech may not be a bad school, but it is not the best school to go to in order to break into one of the larger markets in Texas. But thanks for the good luck and I hope your 1L goes well.