Brown Boy Goes to Law School

I know I know, you’re probably thinking Why the FREAK are you going to freaking MIDDLE OF NOWHERE OHIO for law school?? Well, if you’re really patient and you want to know every detail behind why I picked the school I did, feel free to read the entire thing. If you’re impatient and you just want a summary, just scroll down to the end you lazy punk!! =) =)

Picking a law school is not an easy, straightforward process. It’s hard to give one, single reason in a single blog entry why I decided to go with Akron. This process is a very lengthy and complex process with many twists and turns. You do research, talk to lawyers, talk to professors, talk to friends, and read articles, and each time you do this, you stumble upon new bits of information which shape your ultimate decision. My final decision was based on a great mixture of information I collected through various means over the past several months. So get ready for some crazyness.

The Top 14 Schools

First of all, I think we should understand the law school hierarchy system. Some of you might know by now that there are almost 200 law schools in the country, divided into 4 Tiers, each Tier consisting of about 50 schools. Within the Tier 1, there are the Top 14 schools. These are the national reach schools. From my research, I’ve come to the conclusion that a student who gains acceptance into a Top 14 school should not be deterred from attending due to the costs, even if it means paying full-price (that is, even if the school offered you no money) and taking out a $160k+ loan. These schools are in a league of their own. Assuming good performance, a law degree from A Top 14 school like Yale, Stanford or Chicago will provide you access to the top six-figure legal jobs in literally any job market in the United States. This PDF of Employment Outcome data for law grads confirms this. Some professors argue that these rules apply to the Top 25 schools as well. Some students will argue that it applies to the Top 50 (all Tier 1) schools.

A popular article published in The National Law Journal in April 2008 by Professors William D. Henderson and Andrew P. Morris, who have a combined 21-years of experience on this very subject of choosing a law school, offer some more empirical data that make things a little more clear. Here’s what they have to say:

…Between schools No. 25 (William & Mary) and No. 5 (Columbia), NLJ 250 [the Top 250 firms in the country] employment rose from 21.9 percent to 54.5 percent, an increase of 32.6 percentage points …. Conversely, between schools No. 45 (Brigham Young) and No. 25, the increase in large-firm employment was only 8.4 percentage points, with fewer judicial clerkships. And between No. 65 (Louisville) and No. 45, the increase in large-firm employment is a mere 4.3 percentage points.

Below school No. 26 (Emory), a graduate has a less than one in five probability of starting his or her career at a large law firm. If 80 percent of law school applicants are convinced that they will make that 20 percent cutoff, three out of four are destined to be disappointed. With these numbers, does it really make economic sense to go to the highest-ranked school one can get into? In many cases, the answer is no.

This makes it pretty clear that Top 14 schools are truly in a league of their own. The difference in job prospects between a #25 school and a #5 school is VERY VERY substantial, which probably makes it worth the extra cost. But here’s where it gets interesting. The difference in employment prospects for the top law jobs between a #45 school and #25 school are not at all substantial. Further, the difference between a #65 and #45 is even smaller. As Professor Henderson puts it in the Wall Street Journal article “How to Cut Debt, Boost Job Prospects From Law School” (October 30, 2007), “If you go to a school ranked 35th or 40th over one that’s ranked 70th or 80th, you are by no means substantially increasing your chances of landing a high-paying job.” So, if your qualifications landed you a seat at a Top 14 school, then by all means, I advise you to go that school regardless of the debt. The potential job opportunities with good performance will outweigh the cost. However, for people such as myself who did not have the priveledge of gaining admittance into a Top 14 school, is it worth spending the extra tens of thousands in debt to go to a higher-ranked school like Wake or American or Penn State, in order to receive an increase in your chances at the top law jobs in the country by just a few percentage points? I decided it was not.

The Non-Elite Schools: Outside the Top 14/Top 25

Outside the Top 14 (25?), however, debt is a whole different animal. It isn’t really that extraordinary to state that a student from a Top 14 law school like Georgetown with $160k in debt, versus a student from a Tier 2 school like Seton Hall with $160k in debt, will have a different set of career opportunities after graduation. Again, from Professors Henderson and Morriss:

At a high-rank [Top 14] law school, a recent graduate can pay off that debt with a job at a large law firm — though he or she may not enjoy the work or the hours. But an even worse scenario is high debt — because the graduate enrolled in the highest-ranked school he or she was able to get into — and limited job prospects at a nonelite [non-Top 14] school.

Going to a school oustide #26 Emory, your chances at the top law job in the country making six-figures is 1 in 5, or 20%. If you miss out on that biglaw job, what does $160k in debt mean to you when the average salary of a lawyer is below $65k? You have to look at it from every perspective.

What type of law are you interested in? What are your goals and values?

I think it should be made clear that all the above talk about finding a “top law job” was based on finding a biglaw job. We’re talking about the top firms in the country, the highest paying, most prestigious, the ones with hundreds of lawyers and offices in most cities around the world. Hopefully it doesn’t surprise you that the vast majority of lawyers do not work in biglaw or corporate law, nor do most lawyers make six figures. Nope. Again, the average lawyer makes under $65k. And so, this is where you need to take a deeper look into your own personal goals and values. In Guerilla Tactics for Getting the Legal Job of Your Dreams, Ann Skalaski of University of Florida Law School says, “…if your family is important to you and it’s a high priority for you to spend a lot of time with them, don’t go to a large firm–quality family time and 100-hour workweeds are not compatible!”

If you have your sights set on the top and your goal is to work for the highest-paying, most prestigious law firms in the country, then by all means, go to the best school you can get into. Period. Your school’s prestige is a HUGE factor in these bigger, higher-profile, more lucrative circles. If this is your goal, debt should be of secondary importance. You gotta pay to play. If this is not the case, if you are shooting for a more modest public interest job, a job at a small firm, a lower-paying public-sector job, or perhaps you know that 100-hour workweeks at a biglaw job would not be compatible will the lifestyle you want to live, or whatever it may be, then going to the highest-ranked school you get into is probably unwise. You need to take other factors into consideration.

Here’s another excerpt from Professors Henderson and Morriss:

What does it take to become a successful lawyer? A degree from an elite law school may get one’s foot in the door at a big firm, but the prestige and money are no guarantee of happiness. Most young lawyers who start at big firms leave within a few years. But regardless of the pedigree of one’s degree, every lawyer’s long-term success depends upon the development of key professional skills: time management, interpersonal skills, teamwork, excellent written and oral communication, emotional intelligence and the elusive intangible of “judgment.”

Based on our experience with many extremely successful alumni, all of these qualities can be developed (sometimes better and faster) in smaller firms, state court clerkships, government practice or public interest jobs. Yet the key is avoiding the financial vise of excessive law school tuition.

My Decision

Look, people go to law school for different reasons. Each person is motivated by different things in life. Each person has a different set of values, goals and priorities, and it’s up to YOU to sit down and have (almost like a type of a soul-searching session) to find out exactly what is most important to you. Based on what was important to me, I made the decision not to pursue biglaw or corporate law, for several reasons. Intellectually, it simply did not interest me at all. From a personal standpoint, biglaw certainly comes with big-time compensation, but it also requires big-time time commitments. And when it comes to my priorities, family is at the VERY top of my list, and the thought of potentially sacrificing that just isn’t for me. Financially, it isn’t about the money, and it’s never been about the money for me. I’d be getting my MBA if it was about the money, and so the point is that the added compensation of a biglaw job was not of considerable significance to me. Personally, what was appealing to me was not working on mergers and acquisitions, or working for corporate clients, and raking in the cash, but to serve those individuals and families in society that truly need a lawyer but don’t have access to one. What I found appealing was helping someone get paid for work they’ve done and been exploited for, helping someone fight their slum landlord for repairs to an apartment, drafting a will, explaining the process for legal citizenship to an immigrant, and so on. In fact, in “Documenting the Justice Gap in America: The Current Unmet Civil legal Needs of Low-Income Americans,” a major study conducted by the Legal Services Corporation in 2004, it was found that that “at least 80 percent of the civil legal needs of low-income Americans are not being met.” So there’s a need out there. I discovered that a small or mid-sized firm was more suitable to what I wanted to accomplish in life and more compatible with the life I wanted to live.

I came to the conclusion that, for the field of law I intended to pursue, the prestige of my degree would probably have less significance than the debt I accrued out of law school. And so, during this lengthy decision process, picking a law school suddenly had less to do with “which law school can land me the best job prospects”, and more to do with “where can I graduate with the least amount of debt so I can afford to take that $35k job doing what I want to do?”

The National Law Journal says, “By focusing on price rather than rankings, [law school graduates] will have the financial freedom to pursue jobs that will build valuable professional skills and mentoring relationships or leave the law altogether, without debt, to pursue other life ambitions.”

And so, for me, it came down to choosing a Tier 1 school like Wake Forest, where I would graduate with $160k in debt, versus a Tier 3 school like Akron, where I was offered a full scholarship and would graduate with zero debt. I felt that, with my goals, Akron made more sense. Again, I will say that someone with a different set of goals would be justified in making a different decision. But I felt that graduating from a private school like Wake or American with loads of debt would put me in a position where I would be financially unable to take that $35k job doing what I wanted to do. Subsequently, I would have to take that higher-paying biglaw job for the sole purpose of paying off my debt, simply to be able to then go and afford to practice the law I wanted to practice in the first place. And so, after logging thousands of miles on the Subaru visiting law schools around the country, after grilling lawyer after lawyer in Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Ohio, Washington, Texas, New York, and beyond about career prospects, after speaking with scores of undergraduate and graduate professors, every law school admissions office out there, Akron Law grads, Wake grads, Campbell grads, American grads, an Akron Law grad with a UNCC degree, fellow law school applicants, a lawyer who finished first in his class, law school drop-outs, former employers, family members, pre-law advisors, friends in North Carolina, New Jersey, Virginia, Washington DC, and Africa, and most importantly, after talking to me, I decided that Akron School of Law is where I am headed.

So there you go. Wish me luck.

There’s lots of debate out there about law school rankings. US News & World Report probably maintains the most well-known list of rankings out there. But wouldn’t it be nice to rank schools based on things like clerkships at the Supreme Court, job placement, faculty quality, and educational quality? Then University of Chicago Professor Brian Leiter might be of some help to you…

http://www.leiterrankings.com/

A few links for you that I may have posted already, but these links are really helpful……

From Boston College’s website:

http://www.bc.edu/offices/careers/gradschool/law/lawlocator.html#the25

LSAC (I maybe have posted this already, but this is helpful)

http://officialguide.lsac.org/UGPASearch/LSATGPA.aspx?ref=inline&sidstring=

Law.com’s Employment Outcomes by Market

http://www.law.com/img/nlj/charts/composite.pdf

Law School Numbers…very helpful. Use this website big time:

www.lawschoolnumbers.com

If you’ve ever considered transferring to a higher-ranked school after a year, remember, it’s pretty much a golden rule NOT to go to ANY school with the sole intention of transferring after a year. Why? Because chances are you WON’T be able to. Generally, you have to finish in the top 10% or 20% of your class. And sure, that may have been a breeze in undergrad, but remember, everyone in law school had a 3.0+ GPA in law school, and most of them had 3.5+ GPAs. So let me emphasize it once again: do not not not go to a lower-ranked school with the sole intention of transferring to a higher-ranked school after a year, without understanding the unlikelihood of it happening. When you pick a school that may not be in the Top 25, understand that your degree will not have national reach at the big law firms. And so, go to that school if you can see yourself potentially practicing there afterwards with the employment prospects that school will give you.

If you are thinking about transferring, ever wonder what it’ll take to get into the school of your dreams? Top 5%? Top 10%? Do they look more at your first year grades, or your undergrad record? Is your LSAT a factor?

Well, then you might find this website very helpful.