In at Denver... Forum

[zrcm18]

I did not and got in with 25k/yr. So I don't think they count it against you if you don't.

+1

[lwhee]

In via email!! Scholarship offer arrived about 2 minutes later, $20,000 a year!

[mrwarre85]

In with a full scholly. I'm floored.

Anyone know what the curve is at DU? My requirment is 3.0, which I plan on achieving but still I would feel more comfortable if that was top half and not top third.

I'm so happy right now.

[jayman6]

In with a full scholly. I'm floored.

Anyone know what the curve is at DU? My requirment is 3.0, which I plan on achieving but still I would feel more comfortable if that was top half and not top third.

I'm so happy right now.

I had the same question. According to the link below the curve is 3.0 so we'd have to stay in the top half.

http://law.du.edu/index.php/adjunct-fac ... reparation

By full scholarship what all do you mean? Full tuition? Or stipend too?

[IamAskier]

Just curious, but are u guys who are receiving decisions all Colorado residents? I'm wondering how they're working through the applications. I've been complete/ready for review since 12/1 now.

[deja]

Just curious, but are u guys who are receiving decisions all Colorado residents? I'm wondering how they're working through the applications. I've been complete/ready for review since 12/1 now.

I'm not a CO resident. I do live in the mountain west, though... maybe it's a regional thing

[mrwarre85]

No I'm not a Colorado resident. For all you considering applying I would recommend giving your PS an international focus. Must have really helped me out.

Scholly was tuition only.

Anyone else hear back really quickly? I applied on the 7th of December.

[IamAskier]

Just curious, but are u guys who are receiving decisions all Colorado residents? I'm wondering how they're working through the applications. I've been complete/ready for review since 12/1 now.

I'm not a CO resident. I do live in the mountain west, though... maybe it's a regional thing

Hm, I'm regional as well (Utah). Ah the anticipation is killing me, Denver is definitely one of my tops.

[jayman6]

I'm not a CO resident. I don't think they are considering the applications regionally. They probably deny outright anyone who has numbers way too low, accept anyone right away who are above their 75th percentiles, and probably just take extra time considering those who are right at or under the median. Seems like an efficient way to do things.

[Adrian Yale]

Wondering if anyone at Denver has had any luck in negotiating with the school to drop the scholly GPA requirement...

Gotta figure the stomach flu has to drop on someone the week before finals.

[mrwarre85]

Great point. Please let me know what you say when you call and negotiate its removal so I can say the same thing.

[lawlec48]

Hey everyone,

Congrats to those who got accepted to DU!!! I just finished my first semester at DU and can answer most questions everyone has on here... well besides whether the scholarship minimum can be removed, but I'm gonna guess it is not very likely. I was extremely active my first semester, SBA etc., so I can hopefully answer questions that some less involved students would not be able to answer.

[CanadianWolf]

@lawlec48:
Are you familiar with the Lawyering in Spanish program ? If so, is it alive & well since last year's departure of the law school dean ? Do many students take law classes in Spanish ?

[Gatorbull84]

lawlec48,
Thanks for answering questions. I got into DU a few weeks ago with a 20k per year scholarship that requires keeping just a 3.0. So far this is the best offer I have received so I am seriously looking at DU. I have two questions, one is stupid but basically how do you like living in Denver? I don't know why I am asking this because denver is awesome. My second question is more important, how is the IP law market out there? Im really interested in IP and want to make sure that I end up somewhere with a solid market. My other options are Chicago, DC, and NY

[Gatorbull84]

Also, how expensive is the cost of living(per year)?

[mrwarre85]

do people at Denver talk about how the scholarship kids are all crammed in one section? if so, I would be extra worried about the 3.0 stipulation.

[lawlec48]

@lawlec48:
Are you familiar with the Lawyering in Spanish program ? If so, is it alive & well since last year's departure of the law school dean ? Do many students take law classes in Spanish ?

The lawyering process is still a full go. Dean Beto actually is still with DU and taught CIV PRO this last semester and is still the head of the program. I am not in the lawyering in spanish, but I am on the board for the international law society and we've had some speaking events and Dean Beto was at one talking about the program as an option for an international law externship.

Regarding international law options, I was part of the faculty hiring committee for SBA and we interviewed a few different candidates for a new international law professor position they are looking to add for next year. It is likely that Prof. Ned Nanda will be retiring in the next couple years, so they are looking for an established Prof to expand the private international law options at DU, Nanda is very public focused, and eventually take over as the Int. Law Director when Nanda moves on.

[lawlec48]

do people at Denver talk about how the scholarship kids are all crammed in one section? if so, I would be extra worried about the 3.0 stipulation.

Scholarship kids are not stacked in one section, the admin equally separates the three sections and tries to have each sections GPA and LSAT averages be equal, as well as trying to equally separate the scholarships. Dean Katz addressed this during an SBA meeting, giving us the details. They use scholarships to bring in diversity and quality students, so he isn't going to do anything to lessen the effect of a DU scholarship.

[lawlec48]

lawlec48,
Thanks for answering questions. I got into DU a few weeks ago with a 20k per year scholarship that requires keeping just a 3.0. So far this is the best offer I have received so I am seriously looking at DU. I have two questions, one is stupid but basically how do you like living in Denver? I don't know why I am asking this because denver is awesome. My second question is more important, how is the IP law market out there? Im really interested in IP and want to make sure that I end up somewhere with a solid market. My other options are Chicago, DC, and NY

First, Denver is amazing and if you visit it is likely anyone will agree.

Second, the cost of living isn't horrid, more than where I am from (WI) but not horrid. Most students live around campus and pay between 600-800 a month, but that normally includes utilities. I live in LODO downtown so my rent is a bit higher (1200) but I have a working spouse who wanted to live near downtown. I just requested that when she picked the place, I be near the lightrail as there is a station at DU, which eliminated in needing a car for my 1L year. I would suggest living near DU, it will save you a lot of time in commuting to and from school. My commute is normally between 40 minutes to an hour, but I just listen to ESPN radio on my Iphone to take up the time, its also nice cus it gives me a time to relax and decompress after school.

I am not 100% familiar with DU or Denver regarding IP. Denver is not a huge market for IP but there are several firms that do a lot of IP work. I know a couple people who are doing IP in the denver market, but it is not going to matchup with DC or NY. There is an IP program, scholarships programs etc, but IP is not a main focus for DU now, and I do not remember it being part of the new strategic plan that Dean Katz introduced this year. The plan is online at DU Law and the admin is serious about implementing the new plan.

[mrwarre85]

do people at Denver talk about how the scholarship kids are all crammed in one section? if so, I would be extra worried about the 3.0 stipulation.

Scholarship kids are not stacked in one section, the admin equally separates the three sections and tries to have each sections GPA and LSAT averages be equal, as well as trying to equally separate the scholarships. Dean Katz addressed this during an SBA meeting, giving us the details. They use scholarships to bring in diversity and quality students, so he isn't going to do anything to lessen the effect of a DU scholarship.

Awesome news. Sounds like DU rocks. How do DU students look at CU though? Someone from DU told me that he figured he needed to be top 25% at DU to compete with top 50% at CU.

Both schools seem great, but I'd rather live in Denver.

[Gatorbull84]

Thanks a lot man. Im gonna look at the website for the "new plan".

[Aqualibrium]

do people at Denver talk about how the scholarship kids are all crammed in one section? if so, I would be extra worried about the 3.0 stipulation.

Scholarship kids are not stacked in one section, the admin equally separates the three sections and tries to have each sections GPA and LSAT averages be equal, as well as trying to equally separate the scholarships. Dean Katz addressed this during an SBA meeting, giving us the details. They use scholarships to bring in diversity and quality students, so he isn't going to do anything to lessen the effect of a DU scholarship.

Awesome news. Sounds like DU rocks. How do DU students look at CU though? Someone from DU told me that he figured he needed to be top 25% at DU to compete with top 50% at CU.

Both schools seem great, but I'd rather live in Denver.

I don't know if that calculation is correct, but after reading what CU 3L's had to say in the CU thread, I don't think that calculation matters at all anyway. They paint a pretty grim picture with regards to Biglaw/Midlaw/Regional firms.

[lawlec48]

do people at Denver talk about how the scholarship kids are all crammed in one section? if so, I would be extra worried about the 3.0 stipulation.

Scholarship kids are not stacked in one section, the admin equally separates the three sections and tries to have each sections GPA and LSAT averages be equal, as well as trying to equally separate the scholarships. Dean Katz addressed this during an SBA meeting, giving us the details. They use scholarships to bring in diversity and quality students, so he isn't going to do anything to lessen the effect of a DU scholarship.

Awesome news. Sounds like DU rocks. How do DU students look at CU though? Someone from DU told me that he figured he needed to be top 25% at DU to compete with top 50% at CU.

Both schools seem great, but I'd rather live in Denver.

As a first year student I haven't gained too much information about the current legal market in Denver to the level of a 3L, but the market took a hit, although I've heard it wasn't as drastic as some other markets. That being said, the one advantage that DU has over CU is how intermixed DU is in the Denver market. DU has hundreds of externship opportunities for both the summer and during the semesters. I believe it was 80% of DU students complete an externship before graduation, which helps get you into the market and network. Networking is huge in the Denver market, although obviously grades are obviously important. We have a ton of speakers from the Denver market come in and talk about getting jobs etc and some will straight up tell you they look at grades, where others only look at grades to differentiate between candidate A & B. Another nice networking aspect that DU has is a professional and peer mentoring programs. The peer mentoring program is where 2L/3Ls are matched up with 1Ls to help them with questions throughout the 1st year. The professional mentoring program is only to every 1L if they want it. Both DU alums and alums from other law schools who work in Denver volunteer to mentor DU 1L's and help them network and answer any questions they have about the market or lawyering in general. I was lucky enough to get matched with one of the top partners at Snell & Wilmer which is a bigger firm in Denver. Although it has been hard to schedule a meeting at times due to his schedule, it has been a great experience and I hope to be able to use the resource going forward as well.

Regarding CU and DU... I'd say that CU probably has some advantages to DU as it is ranked higher and is probably the regions best law school, but DU has several advantages that allow students who are willing to work and network a better chance of landing jobs for the summers and post-grad. Another positive, especially for night students, is that there is not a lot of opportunities for judges, lawyers, DA's etc to get additional jobs outside their main employment so many adjunct at DU because it is closer to downtown and a lot of people live near DU in the Cherry Creek and Wash Park areas. So there is a good chance you'd have the opportunity to study under some of the main movers and shakers in the Denver legal market, add that on to the fact that over 50% of the lawyers in Colorado are alumni of DU Law and there is a lot of people working to help you get places in your career.

[Aqualibrium]

Here are the posts I referenced earlier. As I said before, both guys are 3L's at CU. Even though they are answering questions about CU, I think they also paint a good picture of what Denver students can expect. Just thought It might be helpful to bring over the relevant parts...


This portion is by the user Rekopter:

What's your GPA/rank? How did OCI go? What did you for 1L and 2L summer employment? Do you have anything set for after graduation? Anecdotally, how about your classmates?

I'm not going to get into any personal details here, but I'll speak generally about OCI.

Denver biglaw is very difficult to get from CU. Most of the cutoffs are top 10 or top 20 percent and nearly every big firm prefers law review. It's very competitive.

A large majority of 3Ls don't have anything lined up for next year. Several have biglaw offers and several have clerkships, but I think about 75%+ don't have a clue.

Would you comment a little more on this? If 75% of the class doesn't have something lined up, what will the majority of them end up doing? If only the top 10-20% are looking at big law what are the other sorts of opportunities out there for CU grads? Do most stay in CO upon graduation? Is the cutoff for BigLaw where it is because of the small market or because Denver has many other T-14 grads coming in?

The universe of legal employers which hire a year in advance is relatively small: biglaw firms, big government agencies (DOJ Honors, for example), and the prestigious clerkships. At CU, I would guess that about 10, maybe 15 of us have clerkships and about the same with biglaw offers.

The bulk of the legal profession is made up by smaller and mid-size law firms and smaller govt positions (DA's, for example) and these employers generally hire as the need arises. DA's offices generally don't make any offers until bar admission. CU graduates generally mirror the attorney profession as a whole--the bulk of our graduates will end up in jobs from this paragraph; fewer in the previous paragraph. And CU does place many graduates in the less-competitive trial and podunk-area clerkships which won't hire until 2011.

The grade cutoffs are what they are because the big firms can afford to be choosy. The vast majority of law students at CU and elsewhere desperately want these high-paying jobs and there are few vacancies in the best of times and very few in times like this. Several of these vacancies are inevitably filled with t14 grads.

I'm not very familiar with the value Colorado companies/firms place on a UC-Boulder JD, but is it similar to that placed on UT JD's in Texas (good enough to compete with pretty much everybody save HYS)? Does its regional appeal extend to nearby states, like New Mexico, or is it primarily limited to Colorado?

(While we are the University of Colorado, the Boulder campus is known as "CU").

We are clearly the best school in CO but we don't have the reputation that Texas does. Several of the big firms here hire out of the t14 in about equal numbers while some tend to have a strong preference for CU, and to a lesser extent DU grads.

Which school(s) place well in Denver then??

CU >> Denver-- but the gap isn't as wide as you'd think by looking at the rankings. CU is also cheaper because you can get easily get in-state tuition after your first year, however if you can get into CU you can probably get $$ from DU.


This portion is by the user Puffer:

If 75% of the class doesn't have something lined up, what will the majority of them end up doing?

Last year's grads are working as trial court clerks, lawyers in small to midsize firms, small government lawyers, solo practitioners, public defenders, businesspeople, restaurant servers, and are going back to school to get a degree in an area people are hiring in (or at least to keep their loans from coming due). "Restaurant server" should probably be higher on that list if it were ranked in order of prevalence.

If you're going to law school at CU (or at any other law school ranked, oh, 20-80), you should be picturing your ideal career path as being a trial court clerk for a year, then networking your way into becoming a lawyer who writes up documents relating to small insurance settlement trust accounts, in a small-ish firm in a Denver suburb, making no more than $60k/yr (and probably closer to $50k) at the outset and working your way up the ladder with 50-60 hour weeks. You will be moderately dissatisfied with your life, living in a rented condo far from downtown, driving a used Corolla, Civic, or Focus (seriously, like 60% of the lawyers in CO drive one of those three vehicles), and drinking too much with other lawyers surprisingly frequently.

I will reiterate, that should not be your fallback option, it's more of a reasonable thing to strive for. Talking biglaw is a bit of a joke amongst the vast majority of law students in this country.

If only the top 10-20% are looking at big law what are the other sorts of opportunities out there for CU grads?

You don't get biglaw from CU, and the foregoing statement requires some explanation.

Maybe 8% of each class at CU has the credentials to get a legitimate biglaw interview (note that URM status is a credential). Maybe 4% have the credentials to get a summer clerkship with a biglaw firm in Denver. Maybe 2% have the lawyering and interpersonal skills necessary to get a permanent offer. In this economy, 0-1% will get such offers.

The 10-20% figure refers to the folks who have a chance to be hired by the larger firms in the Denver market. These firms will give you a biglaw-like paycheck, and require biglaw-like hours to be billed by you, but they won't be ranked on any biglaw list. In this economy, I'd guess that only 5-8% of the class has any particular chance at any such positions.

Do most stay in CO upon graduation?

Yes. If they don't stay in CO upon graduation, it's only to go to Montana, or New Mexico, or something like that. CU places well throughout the mountain west region, and only throughout the mountain west region. Of course, the only real legal market in the mountain west region is Denver.

Is the cutoff for BigLaw where it is because of the small market or because Denver has many other T-14 grads coming in?

Does it matter? The cutoff for biglaw is where it is because there aren't that many biglaw (or biglaw-lite) jobs out there that are attainable by CU grads upon graduation. The competition or the size of the market aren't going to change anytime soon, so they're largely irrelevant.

[bigbug007]

Great point. Please let me know what you say when you call and negotiate its removal so I can say the same thing.

Been trolling for a few months, but thought I would give a little insight to this issue.

Spoke with financial aid this morning, GPA requirement comes with a semester probation. Meaning if you bomb your first semester exams they still pay for the following semester and give you a chance to get your gpa back above 3.0. So basically you are guaranteed at least your first year regardless of gpa. After that it is cumulative GPA.

Im sure everyone plans on getting above 3.0 anyway, however if you have a bad first year and lose your scholarship you cannot get it back. All entrance scholarships given are for initial applications only so you would have to apply for one of the other 2L/3L scholarships.

Hope it helps calm a few nerves.