Any one have any info about transferring law schools after your 1st year?

gloriaurbina7

I want to know the pro's/ con's about transferring law schools after the 1st year. Is it a common practice? Is it difficult to do so? Any input would be appreciated!

Alex

@prevalent said:
I want to know the pro's/ con's about transferring law schools after the 1st year. Is it a common practice? Is it difficult to do so? Any input would be appreciated!

Common, no. At least not compared to undergrad/other grad schools.

Difficulty depends on where you're transferring. If you transfer to a lower ranked school, it's probably pretty simple I'd imagine. The hard part of it is that you need to be at the top of your class to transfer to a better school and usually are required to secure 2-3 LORs from law profs. This can be hard to do as a 1L when you haven't had time to build relationships with many of the profs in large 1L classes. Secondly, profs may be hesitant to write good letters because they may have an interest in you staying at their school. I'm not sure how prevalent this is, but for the purpose of rankings, you never know.

Pros: Hopefully transferring to a better school. Location/Ranking/$$$, etc.

Cons: It can be very hard to assimilate into the school's cultures and activities when you come in as a 2L. Many of the social aspects such as networking will be more challenging. You also may lose your scholarship and miss out on opportunities such as OCI/EIP.

It really comes down to which school you are transferring from and which school you are transferring to. There's so many moving parts that it's hard to make many general statements about.

My input on the matter is to never attend a law school with any plan on transferring. Even a tentative one. Only attend a law school you will be 1000% happy with graduating from.

Leah M B

Don't know much but I have heard that it is much harder to get scholarship money as a transfer. As someone who transferred undergrad, boy do I believe it. I got screwed for not really knowing where I wanted to be my first year, and transfers generally aren't eligible for the largest scholarships. I don't know for sure that is the case, but it would be something to look into if scholarship money is important to you.