3.3/155 Forum

[LillisKe]

1st post on the site! Where do I stand with these schools? My no.1 choice is Idaho due to geographic/family relevance.

UGPA: 3.3
LSAT: 155

Looking at :
U of Idaho
Gonzaga
Willamette
Seattle U
Creighton
Oregon
U Wash(Probably way out of reach)
Montana

Undergrad: Washington State University

I am hoping most of these are at least realistic; I'm also hoping I'm not wasting my time with applying.
Any help or suggestions for career preparations are greatly appreciated.

[BigZuck]

http://www.mylsn.info

How will you be paying for law school and what do you want to do with a law degree?

[LillisKe]

I will be applying for aid in one form or another. I intend to practice law in the Pacific Northwest with a law degree.

[transferror]

When Zuck says "what do you want to do with a law degree?", I think he's wanting to know what type of law you want to practice (or would at least be ok with). The idea is, if you go to Idaho or a comparable school, you better be ok working at a small firm or local government position, and it also means that you should be comfortable with practice areas like basic criminal law, divorce/family law, personal injury, professional liability (malpractice, medical or otherwise), insurance defense/subrogation, wills/estates/trusts, etc... and comfortable with the likely 35-55k salary. If that sounds good to you and your law school debt will be 40-50k or less, go for it. If not, it probably doesn't matter what your chances are at these schools since you won't be in a position to reach your goals.

[LillisKe]

I understand now. I'm looking at Idaho's Business Law and Entrepreneurship. I also have interests in Natural Resources and Environmental Law which Idaho also offers. I understand that my goals seem "small-time", but I'm okay with that. Many of the Attorneys/Lawyers I've met over the years are perfectly happy in the fields of law they practice within the region I'm interested in. Also, their take on salary immediately out of law school is that it naturally will be humble in stature, but grows quite well over time. Most of these practitioners are enjoying 6-figure incomes during the 2nd half of their careers.

I think that about covers what you're asking

[BigZuck]

How old are the attorneys/lawyers you've met over the years?

What kinds of jobs are you hoping to get in Business Law and Entrepreneurship/Natural Resources and Environmental Law? Can you link to some specific lawyers who do that in the regions you're gunning for or job openings in those fields?

What are your ties to Idaho? Were you born and raised there?

I personally think small-time goals are great, just gotta make sure your school/debt load can get you there

[LillisKe]

These lawyers are much older; 45+.. i.e., "2nd half of their careers".
Job openings in those fields of that specific region are not exactly easy to predict 3-4 years down the road. Handling disputes over intellectual property or potentially (in relation to environmental law) working to protect the confined aquifers below the wheat fields that occupy the Palouse region surrounding Moscow, ID are interesting to me.

Attending undergrad in Pullman, WA, roughly 10 miles from Moscow, ID. Fiance also lives here with me. We love the region and have lived here for some time. I have spent a considerable portion of my life here, and I'd like that to continue.

Some input on my chances at acceptance into the schools listed above would be appreciated. Thanks.

[BigZuck]

For chances I would check out the website http://www.mylsn.info. The humans here can't predict your chances nearly as well as Robby's Robot.

I would be careful about listening to Baby Boomers and question whether 2nd half of their careerers' experience is analogous to yours or whether they can offer you worthwhile advice based on their world vs yours.

I would also think a bit more critically about what you want out of law school and what it will take to get there. The fact that you can't find any job openings for the jobs you are thinking of is pretty telling imo, no matter how much you want to hide behind the future. Gotta make sure that the jobs you want exist and are attainable. And this says nothing about cost, which might be tough to keep down with your current numbers. Anything more than about 50ishK for these types of schools would be unconscionable in my opinion.

I would also tread carefully with where you go to school based on your ties. I took your answer to "were you born and raised in Idaho?" to be a "no." If Idaho and Washington have that cripple fight thing going on where people from their state are awesome and people from neighboring states are SPS then you might have problems. I have no idea how that works in the Idaho panhandle though, hopefully you have a good grasp on that.

[Robb]

Robby

... who've you been talking to...

[AReasonableMan]

I understand now. I'm looking at Idaho's Business Law and Entrepreneurship. I also have interests in Natural Resources and Environmental Law which Idaho also offers. I understand that my goals seem "small-time", but I'm okay with that. Many of the Attorneys/Lawyers I've met over the years are perfectly happy in the fields of law they practice within the region I'm interested in. Also, their take on salary immediately out of law school is that it naturally will be humble in stature, but grows quite well over time. Most of these practitioners are enjoying 6-figure incomes during the 2nd half of their careers.

I think that about covers what you're asking

these lawyers went to school with much less debt and much fewer lawyers to compete against for business. your chances at iowa are very low as you're below both medians, and seattle is a very difficult area to get from any school. the eastern part of the state is different, but attending schools while taking out two-hundred grand or even one-hundred in debt to work in eastern washington would be a very poor move. the jobs you would get would be about thirty-grand. with iowa grads struggling, it's unlikely that a TTT is going to get a position in iowa without being at the top of the class which you can't bank on.

it is likely going to be challenging to get even a thirty-grand a year a job due to your numbers limiting you to mostly TTT schools. it's below a fifty-fifty proposition, and even if you win you are likely in a worse starting point than had you not went to law school. it's a lose-lose proposition. this isn't a cynical perspective, but the reality. verification of what i am saying would be available by googling any of these schools. you should also bare in mind that such extensive literature exists on them being awful moves despite the trepidation most publishers would have about being accused of slander by a law school - they are essentially threatening the wallets of some of the most respect academics in the legal industry with encyclopedic level knowledge of the law. the very fact that any profitable publication would release an article stating that seattle university is setting students up for failure is evidence that it must really be a terrible school. it's much less dangerous to fuck with a car dealership than to fuck with a law school.

it's difficult to plan for the "second half" of your career now. there's no telling what the economy will be like in twenty-years or if most lawyers will be necessary. as technology improves, it's likely that people will stop hiring lawyers except for convoluted matters. clients could already access any statute, and if technology ever is able to apply a conclusion to facts then small law is essentially dead. this is a far fetched proposition, but westlaw was far fetched twenty years ago. setting yourself up with a poor outcome for hope of a better outcome in twenty-years from now is a bad idea.

there are currently a glut of attorneys, and you're going to be competing against everyone else within these twenty-years. you should prioritize going to a school that allows you to both earn a living and pay off your debt with a job you are likely to get in two years from now, not twenty. these schools don't do that.

[LillisKe]

This is very telling and eye-opening. Seriously, thanks for the perspective. The last thing I'd want to do is enter a job market in crippling debt that I couldn't, without some incredible luck, work my way out if the foreseeable future. I had a funny feeling I would get an enormous reality check on this site.

Well, at least I heard from people that know what they're talking about and have seen these issues with T3 grads in action. Luckily, I'll be nearly debt free after I finish my undergrad, so I have that going for me.

My parents (baby-boomers--go figure), were all too encouraging about applying and attending one of these low-tier schools. I think I was duped into believing in the regaled image of the lawyer with his enormous income and prestige. I've been finding out in the last year or so that this is just not true anymore (was it ever?).

Regardless, you've all given me a lot to think about. Thank you for this informative and thought-provoking discussion; I hadn't read/even heard of what was written about Seattle U until the above poster cited it above. Really, I do appreciate this. I think I have a better frame of mind to make the right decision, now.

Also, AReasonableMan, my chances at Iowa are irrelevant as I am not considering that school. You must have misread and thought I mean Iowa when it was actually Idaho. I hold a GPA and LSAT just above their median.

[luuma]

I would be careful about listening to Baby Boomers...

Agreed. The Baby Boomers I've spoken to have given me really idealistic advise on the legal profession and what schools to go to. One professor in undergrad suggested I go to Syracuse, and one Partner in big law told me to hurry on over to Fordham because he said waiting another year would be a waste of time/ money when I could make 3x the amount as an Associate.

[AReasonableMan]

This is ageism. Most baby boomers don't say go 200k in debt for a TTT. Most will say when they went it cost peanuts, and there weren't many attorneys per capita. The issue is generally the people using them as barometers for their own prospects - "A went to school B in 1975 and is successful. Therefore, if I go to school B then I will have the same result as A." This is not unlike the logic of "Kate Upton wore this dress and looked sexy. Therefore, if you wear this dress them you will also look sexy."

[baal hadad]

Great info ab your chances here