Top Law Schools

.

If you absolutely want biglaw....

Your best option, by far, is to retake.
Your second to best option is to walk away.
Your worst option is to apply now.

wtrc wrote:If you absolutely want biglaw....

Your best option, by far, is to retake.
Your second to best option is to walk away.
Your worst option is to apply now.

I appreciate the straightforward bluntness. But I am also curious, what's the minimum score I should actually go forward with in your opinion?

Are you in undergrad? If so, take a year off and retake while getting work experience.

ETA: 169 is the new magic number.

Hitchensian wrote:

wtrc wrote:If you absolutely want biglaw....

Your best option, by far, is to retake.
Your second to best option is to walk away.
Your worst option is to apply now.

I appreciate the straightforward bluntness. But I am also curious, what's the minimum score I should actually go forward with in your opinion?

I'd suggest 169....that could get you some money at Cornell. But go for the 170s for more money.

.

.

Hitchensian wrote:

snagglepuss wrote:Are you in undergrad? If so, take a year off and retake while getting work experience.

ETA: 169 is the new magic number.

I've graduated and I've been working full-time since June. So if I matriculated in the fall, I'd be arriving with ~14months of real-world work experience.

Excellent. Keep working, keep saving, and keep studying then. I'd put the minimum tipping point for attending law school at 167 for you. This assumes that Cornell around sticker or a T25 with ~$75,000 is a worthwhile outcome. But things would really start to happen at 169 for you. Saddle up your pony and join up on the retake trail.

Also, share how you studied.

.

.

.

Hitchensian wrote:

wtrc wrote:If you absolutely want biglaw....

Your best option, by far, is to retake.
Your second to best option is to walk away.
Your worst option is to apply now.

I appreciate the straightforward bluntness. But I am also curious, what's the minimum score I should actually go forward with in your opinion?

Agreed with the other posters that the bottom T14 (particularly Cornell) are the starting point for biglaw, from what I've heard. It has been done from non-T14 schools, but not a risk that is ever worth taking.

So yeah, 169/170. If you are debt averse, hit that 171.

Amazing how 1 or 2 multiple choice answers really are the difference....

wtrc wrote:
Amazing how 1 or 2 multiple choice answers really are the difference....

Tell me about it!

Can you estimate how many hours you studied and what you spent those hours doing? "A TestMasters course and quite a lot of studying outside of class" is very vague.

Also, please do take all the comments you're getting here with a grain of salt. Most of the people responding to this thread are 0Ls. Talk to some practicing attorneys and you'll realize that the T14-or-bust mentality that's so prevalent on TLS is pretty dumb (not that you'd be ill-advised to do everything in your power to get into a T14 school).

iamgeorgebush wrote:Can you estimate how many hours you studied and what you spent those hours doing? "A TestMasters course and quite a lot of studying outside of class" is very vague.

Also, please do take all the comments you're getting here with a grain of salt. Most of the people responding to this thread are 0Ls. Talk to some practicing attorneys and you'll realize that the T14-or-bust mentality that's so prevalent on TLS is pretty dumb (not that you'd be ill-advised to do everything in your power to get into a T14 school).

I don't personally have that mentality. I just take the more general approach of 'Go as cheaply as possible to a school with at least respectable employment outcomes.', and the higher you score, the easier this is to obtain.

Otunga wrote:

iamgeorgebush wrote:Can you estimate how many hours you studied and what you spent those hours doing? "A TestMasters course and quite a lot of studying outside of class" is very vague.

Also, please do take all the comments you're getting here with a grain of salt. Most of the people responding to this thread are 0Ls. Talk to some practicing attorneys and you'll realize that the T14-or-bust mentality that's so prevalent on TLS is pretty dumb (not that you'd be ill-advised to do everything in your power to get into a T14 school).

I don't personally have that mentality. I just take the more general approach of 'Go as cheaply as possible to a school with at least respectable employment outcomes.', and the higher you score, the easier this is to obtain.

I can totally get on board with the debt-averse route, but OP said s/he was targeting a career in a "major American city" (the school list suggests NYC, D.C., Boston, and Atlanta). I can only take this to mean a biglaw/PI/government career track; hence, the T14 or bust (and T25 w/ money) advice.

Otunga wrote:

iamgeorgebush wrote:Can you estimate how many hours you studied and what you spent those hours doing? "A TestMasters course and quite a lot of studying outside of class" is very vague.

Also, please do take all the comments you're getting here with a grain of salt. Most of the people responding to this thread are 0Ls. Talk to some practicing attorneys and you'll realize that the T14-or-bust mentality that's so prevalent on TLS is pretty dumb (not that you'd be ill-advised to do everything in your power to get into a T14 school).

I don't personally have that mentality. I just take the more general approach of 'Go as cheaply as possible to a school with at least respectable employment outcomes.', and the higher you score, the easier this is to obtain.

Ok, that's pretty sensible, I think. I just would hate to see someone who actually really wants to be a lawyer pass up on LS completely because the best they could get into is a school like UT (for practice in Texas) or UCLA/USC (for practice in LA...or perhaps even Irvine for LA? Their LST numbers are impressive, although I'm of course skeptical because they're such a new school.)

http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=texas
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=ucla
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=usc
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=irvine

Moral of the story: if you can't make T14, check LST and other sources to research what you're getting yourself into. In fact, do that even if you do make it to a T14 school. Always good to do your research before investing six figures in something.

iamgeorgebush wrote:

Otunga wrote:

iamgeorgebush wrote:Can you estimate how many hours you studied and what you spent those hours doing? "A TestMasters course and quite a lot of studying outside of class" is very vague.

Also, please do take all the comments you're getting here with a grain of salt. Most of the people responding to this thread are 0Ls. Talk to some practicing attorneys and you'll realize that the T14-or-bust mentality that's so prevalent on TLS is pretty dumb (not that you'd be ill-advised to do everything in your power to get into a T14 school).

I don't personally have that mentality. I just take the more general approach of 'Go as cheaply as possible to a school with at least respectable employment outcomes.', and the higher you score, the easier this is to obtain.

Ok, that's pretty sensible, I think. I just would hate to see someone who actually really wants to be a lawyer pass up on LS completely because the best they could get into is a school like UT (for practice in Texas) or UCLA/USC (for practice in LA...or perhaps even Irvine for LA? Their LST numbers are impressive, although I'm of course skeptical because they're such a new school.)

http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=texas
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=ucla
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=usc
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=irvine

Moral of the story: if you can't make T14, check LST and other sources to research what you're getting yourself into. In fact, do that even if you do make it to a T14 school. Always good to do your research before investing six figures in something.

Isn't Irvine's stats based on a very small number in that class of 2012? I was initially really intrigued with that number until i remembered that.

Yeah they have a very small class. 60 for class of 2012, 83 for the class of 2013. They've been growing (126 for the class of 2016), but yes, the school is still in its infancy and it's hard to draw many conclusions from such a small sample size.

One interesting thing is that its faculty is really top notch. Looking at Leiter's rankings of LS faculties (based on how often their faculty is cited in law journals), UCI is in the top 10 (see: http://www.leiterrankings.com/new/2012_ ... pact.shtml). Dean Cheminerinsky is pretty famous among legal academics. He wrote a primer (I believe con law?) that is pretty widely used, and he's very widely cited. Of course, I don't think law firms care very much how often your profs are cited when they're choosing whether to hire you.