ack where to apply? Forum

[bretby]

[LET'S GET IT]

I'd apply to the entire T14. You are going to get into some great schools with $ with your current numbers. I don't know what your goals are, but if your retake yields a few more points, H could be in play for sure which could potentially be life changing.

As far as your softs (PhD, teaching, etc.) it won't matter much. LSAT and undergrad GPA are 90% of what matters, with everything else comprising the rest. Matters slightly more at Y and S, but still need the hard numbers.

Even without a retake, you are going to have some great options available to you. Good luck.

[arklaw13]

If you already have a PhD why do you want to go to law school? Do you know how many current lawyers would give anything to be in academia instead of being a slave to the billable hour at a biglaw firm?

[Br3v]

Why do you want to go to law school?

[Kratos]

Great info ab your chances here

[bretby]

I love teaching, but my field straddles theory and practice, and I'd like to move from the former to the latter. A law degree is a prerequisite for this move.

[bretby]

If you already have a PhD why do you want to go to law school? Do you know how many current lawyers would give anything to be in academia instead of being a slave to the billable hour at a biglaw firm?

Maybe the grass is always greener. Do you know how many academics would like the geographic flexibility of a law degree?

[arklaw13]

If you already have a PhD why do you want to go to law school? Do you know how many current lawyers would give anything to be in academia instead of being a slave to the billable hour at a biglaw firm?

Maybe the grass is always greener. Do you know how many academics would like the geographic flexibility of a law degree?

Not really. Even among the T14 half or more end up going to NYC because that's where the jobs are.

I'm skeptical that an Ivy PhD limits one geographically compared to a law degree. With a T14 law degree you are basically limited to NYC unless you have good grades, at which point you can live in a handful of major cities that have firms paying a salary high enough to service your loans. Or you can work in NYC for 2-3 years and lateral to a different market. You can go NYC to pretty much any other market, but once you leave NYC, you have a good chance of being stuck in the city you lateralled to, so you better choose wisely.

Or you go to a strong regional school and are severely geographically limited from the get go.

One of my undergrad professors actually went to law school. Was a tenure track professor for a couple years, taught various philosophy courses but focused on philosophy of law, and then went to Columbia law. Did he end up back in academia? Nope. He is now a litigation associate a biglaw firm in NYC like 75% of his class. Granted, he didn't have an Ivy PhD. But it doesn't seem like his Ivy law degree has helped him get back into academia at a better university like he thought it would.

[A. Nony Mouse]

arklaw, academics would kill for the geographic flexibility of lawyers. PhDs are SUPER limited geographically, way way more than biglaw.

[arklaw13]

arklaw, academics would kill for the geographic flexibility of lawyers. PhDs are SUPER limited geographically, way way more than biglaw.

You must know something I don't I guess. Do you mean academics are limited to college towns? Because if you're median or below at your T14 law school, you have a very good chance of being geographically limited to NYC for at least a couple years. Then you can try and lateral to a different city, but your geographic flexibility drops substantially after you leave NYC, and more each move thereafter.

[Hand]

arklaw, academics would kill for the geographic flexibility of lawyers. PhDs are SUPER limited geographically, way way more than biglaw.

This. The academic job market is so incredibly crap (at least in the humanities - cannot attest to other fields), one should be lucky to find any kind of non-temporary employment - even at the very top schools in most fields, a sizable minority finds either no permanent position, or does so only after several years of stringing together post-docs, visiting positions, and/or adjunct gigs. And when they do, that job is in a deadly boring small college town in a state (or country) you would never even think about visiting otherwise, let alone move to. And then, as a winner or sorts, your prize is that you get to teach the same intro classes to a bunch of disinterested teenagers for thirty years.

[Hand]

arklaw, academics would kill for the geographic flexibility of lawyers. PhDs are SUPER limited geographically, way way more than biglaw.

You must know something I don't I guess. Do you mean academics are limited to college towns? Because if you're median or below at your T14 law school, you have a very good chance of being geographically limited to NYC for at least a couple years. Then you can try and lateral to a different city, but your geographic flexibility drops substantially after you leave NYC, and more each move thereafter.

Imagine that the only job interview you get after six years of grad school is in Stillwater, Oklahoma. You will teach five courses per semester, and earn 40K for the honor. This is the only job you will ever get. Sound good?

[arklaw13]

arklaw, academics would kill for the geographic flexibility of lawyers. PhDs are SUPER limited geographically, way way more than biglaw.

This. The academic job market is so incredibly crap (at least in the humanities - cannot attest to other fields), one should be lucky to find any kind of non-temporary employment - even at the very top schools in most fields, a sizable minority finds either no permanent position, or does so only after several years of stringing together post-docs, visiting positions, and/or adjunct gigs. And when they do, that job is in a deadly boring small college town in a state (or country) you would never even think about visiting otherwise, let alone move to. And then, as a winner or sorts, your prize is that you get to teach the same intro classes to a bunch of disinterested teenagers for thirty years.

So it isn't really geographic flexibility per se, it's that the academic job market sucks. Doesn't sound much worse than being a litigation associate. At least in the above situation you end up in a chill job with decent security. Go into lit in biglaw and the goal is to not get fired before your loans are paid off. Maybe you find another job, maybe you get ITE-pwned and end up at a doc review firm. I don't think having more control over where you live is worth the risk and debt that law school requires, but to each his own I suppose.

[bretby]

arklaw, academics would kill for the geographic flexibility of lawyers. PhDs are SUPER limited geographically, way way more than biglaw.

You must know something I don't I guess. Do you mean academics are limited to college towns? Because if you're median or below at your T14 law school, you have a very good chance of being geographically limited to NYC for at least a couple years. Then you can try and lateral to a different city, but your geographic flexibility drops substantially after you leave NYC, and more each move thereafter.

Imagine that the only job interview you get after six years of grad school is in Stillwater, Oklahoma. You will teach five courses per semester, and earn 40K for the honor. This is the only job you will ever get. Sound good?

All so true - and it is even tougher to land a good academic job with job security in a major city in the Northeast corridor, which is where I want to be. So being "stuck" in NYC is not a problem.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yes. Basically, academics are limited to somewhere that has a college/university. Depending how broadly you define someone's field, generally a given university will only need one person in a particular field (I don't mean one political scientist, but one person who does US elections/Latin American independence movements/whatever). If the schools in that town have someone in your field, there are no openings. Too bad so sad.

To put it another way: I can't tell you how many academics would KILL to be in NYC, but the only tenure-track job they get is in rural Maine, or Oklahoma. And then there are the few people who get jobs in NYC but want to be in rural Maine or wherever. What job you get - if any, because at least in the humanities/social sciences I regularly see stats that only 1 in 4 will get a tenure-track job - is determined entirely by what schools happen to have openings when you're applying, something you can neither predict nor control.

Or you can live in NYC and work as an adjunct teaching 150 students a semester at 3 different schools and make $24k a year teaching intro to [insert your field here].

Whatever complaints people have about law, there are still lots more options than academia. (Keep in mind that in academia you're dealing with the rough equivalent of people who get good grades in law school, too - PhD programs winnow people out in the application stage rather than after 1L grades.) And academia isn't necessarily chill or secure.

Seriously, arklaw, don't compare the 2 things. I also think your view of lawyers' flexibility is really rigid. Real life isn't always what people on TLS portray - people in law change jobs a lot.

/soapbox.

[bretby]

So it isn't really geographic flexibility per se, it's that the academic job market sucks. Doesn't sound much worse than being a litigation associate. At least in the above situation you end up in a chill job with decent security. Go into lit in biglaw and the goal is to not get fired before your loans are paid off. Maybe you find another job, maybe you get ITE-pwned and end up at a doc review firm. I don't think having more control over where you live is worth the risk and debt that law school requires, but to each his own I suppose.[/quote]

Oh my - sorry - still gasping for air over here after that laugh. As you say, different fields have different strengths and weaknesses, but chill, in my experience, academia is not. That being said, I know there are a lot of disadvantages to law, too, which is why this is such a tricky decision, and why I am grateful for all the input I can get.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

Academic job market is much, much worse than legal market
The "winners" move to a town they would never want to live in to make $55k
Many more people are "losers": making $20-40k for years before being fired or finally throwing in the towel
Anyone who says that academic life is great why would you give that up has no experience with it

[banjo]

I'd blanket the T14. Maybe consider NU ED, since it comes with a 150k scholarship: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/admissi ... ision.html. Your softs should help.

I started a phd program and quit after a while. Never thought I'd say this, but law school is so, so much better.