Post
by LAFALCON » Sun Apr 22, 2012 11:05 am
Impressions of both Diversity Reception and Law Day
Diversity Reception
If USC is one of the most diverse law schools in the nation I fear for the poor URMs all over the country. The leader of their Chicano group came up and asked me if I was Latino and acted like he'd found gold. (surprising considering USC's location) When I asked about minority representation he said "Look around"
Impressions of the School
I was impressed however with the 1L's. First of all they sent out a general invite so essentially anyone who wanted free beer during finals studying showed up. There was limited hard sell and honesty about some positives, (Alumni network is real, people will generally share good outlines and notes and forming study groups is relatively painless) and some negatives (a push toward BigLaw if you want to work outside Southern California, that in a tough economy even a great alumni network struggles, and that 1L is daunting no matter how nice your classmates are.
Law Day (Please be advised Wall of Text incoming, please PM im happy to provide more info.
Morning Reception was pretty standard congrats and pick USC cause we forcus on interdicplinary thinking, a great film school for entertainment law and Great Weather
Teach Panel: Again pretty standard they talked about their research and again stressed the joy of thinking about law in an interdisplinary way.
The first panel I went to was On the Biz Law and Entertainment law Certificates
Think of it like declaring a major, you can do both, and the Biz law one gives u access to MBA classes, seemed interesting.
Secon Panel was about clinical programs. If anything sold me on USC it was this they let you first chair someone's parole hearing
or imigration case or in the case of IP prepare a presentation for a regulatory board on Fair Use as it relates to copying DVDs
Then we did a mock class with prof Ackerman. He was awesome if only all profs were as good as he is then 1L might be remembered much more fondly.
Third Panel was Jornals and Honors Programs
Basically everyone here knows get good 1L grades and the world becomes your oyster. I saw a lot of cross registering between those in leadership on an honors society who also did clinical programs and were also leaders in student orgs
Then there was a student orgs fair. We have all been to these and nothing has changed.
Then there was a final reception which I skipped because the key for me was really to get as many current student opinions as possible and I figured id just get a pitch and I was sort of all FUNed out.
Final Thoughts
Before I went I was apprehensive because of the whole University of Spoiled Children thing, but it doesnt appear to hold through law school and I was very impressed. I could easily see that students appeared more friendly then at other schools even when they didnt realize I was a prospective student. (Im a little older and dont scream prospective 1L). So, essentially, if u wanna work in SoCal, don't like hyper competitive and perfer the resources of a small private vs the veriety of a larger school USC is perhaps a good choice. One warning I got repeatendly is that programs are limited in scope because of the small class and therfore smaller faculty. So research it but it did seem like they werent gonna start new programs simply due to lack of faculty interest to head a project so if USC doesnt already have a program your interested in that may be a red flag.
