What's the lowest ranked law school you would attend?

7sagelsatstudent180 · November 2015

Whats the lowest ranked law school you would attend and why?

LSATKingsman · November 2015

Dear lord this question is so subjective. Look, where do you plan to practice? What do you want to do? Where do you want to be? I can go on forever.

My thoughts on law school is that it's a bonus right now. A law degree is much better than a Masters and I can get it for next to nothing. If the market was strong I would be studying for the MKAT not the LSAT. If you are going to go sub 100 and pay full price that is not good however if you are going for free then why not? again it's 100% situational.

MrSamIam · November 2015

Curious about this too. Spoke with a family member who is a practicing attorney. He pretty much said what Kingsman said. Private practice/Corporate = Top tier only. Public sector = Doesn't matter too much, so long as it's ranked. Making partner = Forget about it.

Personally, I'm aiming for something in the T50. Ideally, I'd like to get into a T25, and would certainly lose sleep over not attending one of the top 25.

7sagelsatstudent180 · November 2015

Top 20 or close (think Emory)... I guess I would stick it out with corporate America if I couldn't get into a top school with scholarship money. Law school doesn't seem like a sure bet outside of the higher tiered schools. Of course I would network like crazy regardless but every leg up helps.

GordonBombay · November 2015

Some people on this forum might call for my head after I say this, but in complete honesty the lowest ranked school I would attend is South Texas College of Law in Houston, TX. The U.S. News ranking (2015) puts it at 146.

Why would I go to this law school despite its god awful ranking? A few of reasons:

(#1) I want to work in Texas once I graduate. I literally have zero desire to work anywhere else. (#2) It's located in the downtown area of a relatively large legal market (Houston, TX).
(#3) I should still be in line to receive some scholarship money from this school even if I drastically underperform on my Dec LSAT. (My GPA is currently at their 75th percentile)
(#4) I want to work in civil litigation once I graduate. South Texas College of Law has the #6 ranked trail advocacy program in the entire country, and a strong tradition with their moot court competition team.
(#5) It's a relatively old law school (founded in 1923; third oldest in the state) that has a large alumni network spread across Texas.
(#6) My parents are moving to the Houston area within the next 6 months and I could live with them while in school to avoid using student loans to pay for apartment rent.
(#7) I know 4 Texas civil litigators who are in their 40's and who attended this school. All of them have had relatively successful careers (by my standards) and are employed at respectable litigation boutiques in the Dallas area.
(#8) I already have a work relationship with a civil litigation boutique in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex and have reason to believe that they would allow me to intern with them during the summer breaks after my 1L and 2L years.

I'm sure many on this forum will disagree with my opinion, but I think that if you have no desire whatsoever to work corporate law, and especially if you want to work in litigation, then it is not career suicide to go to a law school that has a lower rank. As long as you aren't paying sticker price, can network effectively, and graduate mid to top of your class you'll probably be fine long-term.

0 L's who post on online forums (TLS especially) who haven't even gone to law school yet love to act like your life will be ruined by going to a school like this. However all the Texas lawyers I've met personally tell me the exact opposite. At the end of the day I'm going to base my law school/legal career decisions off of what actual lawyers tell me, and not the opinions of some person posting online who most likely hasn't had any real world legal/law school experiences outside of studying for the LSAT.

Pacifico · November 2015

^This is a person who has done what is called research folks. Try it sometime, it does wonders. This is a major life decision so it's worth putting at least a little effort into the process outside of LSAT prep. And there is a ton of free information out there for you to find. And if this very easy type of research scares you or bores you then you probably should take that as a sign you shouldn't be a lawyer. Happy hunting!

MrSamIam · November 2015

@GordonBombay I can attest to that. I interned at public service firm for around half a year. None of the attorneys that I worked with went to T25, or even T40 schools. Heck, most of them went to 2nd tier schools.
I also spoke with a PD who is pretty high up in his career. He laughed when I told him the news that most people agree that law school isn't worth the time and money, unless you get accepted into a T20 school. His response was something along the lines of "Slap whoever the 'F' told you that" -not an exact quote.
I myself don't want to exclude the possibility of corporate...but there's an 80% chance that I'll avoid it.

P.S. I was also informed that many of the judges who I came in contact with went to an unranked school. However, I can't confirm this, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Jonathan Wang · November 2015

"All of the lawyers I've met who went to this school are doing just fine" is completely meaningless. You're looking at a successful lawyer first, and then seeing where they went to school after the fact, when you SHOULD be screening for all of that school's graduates first and figuring out how many of them became successful lawyers second. If you start from a group of people who succeeded, of course everyone you talk to is going to be successful. It's a literal real life flaw questions - the combination of selection bias, "anecdotes are not data", and a little sprinkle of "because it's possible, therefore it'll happen to me" on the side (since the only way you can ignore a 40% un-/under-employment statistic is if you believe you're better than all those other folks who have your same academic profile).

It's also a completely different world than it was even 7 years ago, to say nothing of 20 or 30 years ago when those folks likely went to school and got their jobs. Times have changed drastically and I guarantee you those folks who are saying everything is gucci haven't kept up to date with admissions trends, to say nothing of employment trends. Would you ask that same person how they funded their legal education? How could they even give you an informed opinion if they went to school at a time when you could pay your way through by working part-time? If the person you're talking to hasn't been unemployed in the last half-decade or so, why are you listening to them? And even if they were, at least they had experience - how can they possibly know what it's like for someone with no experience when times have changed so radically?

I'm not exactly a law school hater (as evidenced by my job, which involves sending people to law school), but nor am I an apologist for diploma mills. Think long and hard about what kind of risk you're willing to take with that $200,000 you're about to spend, and don't let the rose-colored glasses blind you to the realities of legal employment today. Are all those people telling you that everything will be fine willing to put their job offers where their mouths are when the chips are down?

Pacifico · November 2015

I think it's also important to look at demographics when analyzing employment numbers. For the most part the employment numbers are a reflection of a school's predominantly K-JD makeup... And if you aren't K-JD I don't think those numbers really apply to you so much if you have spent your time becoming more marketable for other reasons. Employment numbers in my opinion are nothing more than a reflection of how well a law school prepares a young kid (who has never had a job) to get a job in the legal field.

Also I definitely agree with the analysis of the selection/confirmation biases above, but I still think reasons #1-6 and to a lesser extent 8 are valid reasons for considering a lower ranked school. Furthermore, I've never seen a ranked school (no matter how low the ranking) referred to as a diploma mill. I thought that term was reserved for the 50 bottom schools or so that never end up ranked... You know, the kind of schools that pay their students not to take the bar exam so as to keep their stats artificially inflated.

Jonathan Wang · November 2015

I think those are all reasons to go to law school in Houston or Texas generally, not specifically to go to South Texas. If nothing else, University of Houston is right there. That's like going to New York Law School because it's in the market you want and you can't get into CLS or NYU, completely ignoring that Cardozo and Brooklyn are still far superior choices even given that circumstance. Those options are almost exclusively reserved for people who can't hit the LSAT score. I understand being impatient, but that doesn't mean I agree with the actions that result.

It sounds to me like this guy's got employment lined up, which fixes an awful lot. I would venture to guess that this is rather rare. I would also be wary of a "reason to believe" that you'd be allowed to intern (which it seems like is being assumed means that you'll be employed with them out of law school), though without knowing more I obviously can't say.

I'm not using diploma mill as a technical term. I just don't know what else to call law schools with employment prospects that dismal.

GordonBombay · November 2015

@"Jonathan Wang" said:

"All of the lawyers I've met who went to this school are doing just fine" is completely meaningless. You're looking at a successful lawyer first, and then seeing where they went to school after the fact, when you SHOULD be screening for all of that school's graduates first and figuring out how many of them became successful lawyers second.

How would one go about screening ALL of a school's graduates and then figure out how many became successful? I've never heard of anyone doing this, but if possible would love to look at that data. I also never said that, "because it happened to them (lawyers I know who have been successful), therefore it'll happen to me." You're taking what I said completely out of context. All I was trying to do was make a point that TLS forum junkies who make blanket statements about how going to a lower ranked school is "career suicide" aren't necessarily correct.

@"Jonathan Wang" said:
If the person you're talking to hasn't been unemployed in the last half-decade or so, why are you listening to them?

I'm failing to see how unemployed law school graduates would give better advice than employed law school graduates.... Not every recent graduate is unemployed.

@"Jonathan Wang" said:
Think long and hard about what kind of risk you're willing to take with that $200,000 you're about to spend, and don't let the rose-colored glasses blind you to the realities of legal employment today.

Where did I mention spending $200,000? I literally said that I would go to South Texas College of Law because I would (most likely) get scholarship money from them, and live at my parents house to save money until I graduated. South Texas College of Law's tuition is $28,890 per year at sticker price. ($28,890 per year X 3 years = $86,670). When you consider the fact that I wouldn't be paying rent, and that I would most likely receive scholarship money to attend I don't see how I would be paying anywhere close to the $200,000 total cost of attending you mentioned.

@"Jonathan Wang" said:
I'm not exactly a law school hater (as evidenced by my job, which involves sending people to law school), but nor am I an apologist for diploma mills.

I realize @Pacifico already made this point, but If you're trying to imply that South Texas College of Law is a "diploma mill" then I think you're being a little bit harsh and over dramatic. I mean c'mon man the school is still ranked. I realize that you graduated from Columbia in 2010, which had to be one of the worst times to graduate law school ever given the state of the economy at that time. You truly do have the every right be pissed off and jaded about the legal market (which is how you're coming across in my opinion). Regardless I still respectfully disagree with a good amount of what you had to say.

Let me further clarify that I have zero desire to work corporate big law in New York City, Chicago, etc. I'm not trying to "make partner". I don't need 150k a year to feel like I have value as a human being. I just want to be a litigator and first chair as many trials as possible over the course of my career. I'm fully aware this will (most likely) not happen my first 3 or maybe even 5 years after I graduate. I'm okay with that. I know that I don't need a T14 or even a T25 law degree to do that. I've networked my ass off the past three years building personal relationships with lawyers who work in the same field that I want to work in (Recent grads and seasoned attorneys), and who work in my geographic market of choice (Texas). I've gotten my undergrad GPA as high as I possibly could. I've been studying for the LSAT for the past 8 months, and avg. out around 161-163 / BR 171-173. I'm not trying to cut corners or take the easy way out. I plan to go to a law school that will minimize my total cost of investment, but that will also prepare me to litigate in Texas. This was a topic about "what is the lowest ranked school that you would go to & why", not a "why everyone should just go to a low ranked school & why" topic. Everyone's situation is different, and I'm just trying to share mine in hopes that someone else can relate, and maybe even take something from it. I answered the guys question thoroughly and honestly.

LSATCRACKER · November 2015

prolly uva

Jonathan Wang · November 2015

@GordonBombay said:
How would one go about screening ALL of a school's graduates and then figure out how many became successful?

You probably can't, but that doesn't mean that doing it backward is any more valid as a result. It's also almost certainly a subset of the 9-month full-time employed statistic, so if that number is low odds are the number we're seeking is even lower.

@GordonBombay said:
I'm failing to see how unemployed law school graduates would give better advice than employed law school graduates.... Not every recent graduate is unemployed.

Almost every recent grad is unemployed as late as the start of their 2L year. The point is that they need to have been searching for a job in the new market to know what the new market is like, and even then it's not that great of an indicator since they have experience and you don't. Platitudes about how it's "not that bad" just don't do it for me when the people spouting them have no basis upon which to say that.

@GordonBombay said:
I realize @Pacifico already made this point, but If you're trying to imply that South Texas College of Law is a "diploma mill" then I think you're being a little bit harsh and over dramatic. I mean c'mon man the school is still ranked.

A lot of schools are ranked. A lot of those schools also have dismal employment statistics. The two are not mutually exclusive, and my argument does not rely on lack of ranking. I fail to see the relevance of US News' decision to cut off their rankings at a certain number. Schools ranked a lot higher than South Texas draw my ire as well.

@GordonBombay said:
Where did I mention spending $200,000? I literally said that I would go to South Texas College of Law because I would (most likely) get scholarship money from them, and live at my parents house to save money until I graduated.

That wasn't directed at you, I apologize if I was being unclear. It was meant as a general statement, for folks who aren't in your situation but might see your post and think that it applies to them as well. Tried to separate it by placing it after the "it sounds like you've already got employment lined up, but I don't think that's very common" comment and I guess it didn't have the intended effect.

@GordonBombay said:
You truly do have the every right be pissed off and jaded about the legal market (which is how you're coming across in my opinion).

You assume an awful lot. I'm not jaded or pissed off at the legal market; I'm actually very happy with the position I'm currently in. I'm just being realistic. It's not all doom and gloom like those TLSers want you to think, but it's not all sunshine and roses either. If you think I'm coming from the former, you're definitely coming off like the latter.

@GordonBombay said:
I'm not trying to cut corners or take the easy way out

Never meant to insinuate this. But I think that in your scoring range, South Texas really shouldn't be an option (as in, I think it should drop off the bottom of your list).

@GordonBombay said:
I plan to go to a law school that will minimize my total cost of investment, but that will also prepare me to litigate in Texas.

I suppose South Texas will do this, but with those numbers I find it hard to believe that you can't get a similar-percentage scholarship at a better school in the area. More in general, I was just trying to push back a bit on some of the (in my opinion) more problematic justifications provided. I'd say more on this, but...

@GordonBombay said:
This was a topic about "what is the lowest ranked school that you would go to & why", not a "why everyone should just go to a low ranked school & why" topic.

...you're ultimately right about this. It's your call. Even in attempting to address your reasons, at the end of the day it's your choice what your lowest acceptable school is, so this is the last I'll write on the subject. I sincerely wish you the best.

nicole.hopkins · November 2015

@GordonBombay said:
I'm sure many on this forum will disagree with my opinion, but I think that if you have no desire whatsoever to work corporate law, and especially if you want to work in litigation, then it is not career suicide to go to a law school that has a lower rank. As long as you aren't paying sticker price, can network effectively, and graduate mid to top of your class you'll probably be fine long-term.

Nah dude, I dig. Believe in you!

nicole.hopkins · November 2015

@GordonBombay said:
Where did I mention spending $200,000? I literally said that I would go to South Texas College of Law because I would (most likely) get scholarship money from them, and live at my parents house to save money until I graduated.

Great ideas!

With your numbers (depending on LSAT of course) you should apply to UT/SMU/Baylor/UH/STX, given likely free COL

I don't know how well Tech/St. Mary's/A&M grads do but my gut says ... nah

nicole.hopkins · November 2015

@GordonBombay said:
Let me further clarify that I have zero desire to work corporate big law in New York City, Chicago, etc. I'm not trying to "make partner". I don't need 150k a year to feel like I have value as a human being. I just want to be a litigator and first chair as many trials as possible over the course of my career. I'm fully aware this will (most likely) not happen my first 3 or maybe even 5 years after I graduate. I'm okay with that.

@GordonBombay said:
I plan to go to a law school that will minimize my total cost of investment, but that will also prepare me to litigate in Texas.

Don't forget about Baylor! Nice cheap COL in Waco and I bet they'd throw some money at you.

kennedybj · November 2015

USC south Carolina or maybe Campbell

gs556 · November 2015

Duke.

gs556 · November 2015

Forgot the why: It's the lowest ranked school I applied to and they accepted me within a matter of days.

7sagelsatstudent180 · November 2015

@gs556 thats the best reason in my opinion

schyler.cox · November 2015

I'm gonna get hate for this too, but the lowest ranked school I'd go to is U of Alabama. Honestly, since I want to practice in the South (Nashville/maybe B'ham) and am NOT interested in biglaw, UA seems one of my only options. Emery or Vanderbilt are potentials that I could probably get into, but I'm also not looking for over 150K in debt. I have residency/in-state for UA already, which puts law tuition down to 20K/year plus hopefully they will throw me some money.

Granted, it is T25 but I'm getting the feeling, as I only made the decision to go to law school less than a year ago and never explored other options outside the South, that it's skipped over. I'm not bitter at all, it's going to work for what I want to do with my life, but I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on why. Location? The South? Limited range to large cities?

ttranc83 · November 2015

Any of them. For myself anyway. LOL. But seriously, it all depends on YOU. I really don't think that there is any shame if you attend a low ranked law school. Personally, after you graduate from wherever, you, yourself will be doing the hard work of creating a name for yourself, a reputation, and establishing/building rapport, etc. Sure, how the school is ranked or it's name has somewhat of an edge, but really, I believe it's the person who in the end will have to do all the walking and talking (no doubt). And to be accepted to any ABA approved law school is an achievement, in my opinion. Oh, and just for your f.y.i, and because I reside in California, I plan on applying to Whittier, La Verne and Western.

lsatings · November 2015

@GordonBombay said:
How would one go about screening ALL of a school's graduates and then figure out how many became successful? I've never heard of anyone doing this, but if possible would love to look at that data.

I've worked at law schools before and can tell you what I think about this. Call up the career/employment services office or alumni center and ask about statistics. Say you'd like to speak to alumni, or hear about where they are working. They should have that information on deck and if they don't give it to you then that's something you should be suspicious of. Having that information helps them significantly both in rankings and in helping out their own students. If they dont have it either they're hiding something, or theyre unbelievably disorganized and that is a glowing neon sign telling you to be careful.

@GordonBombay said:
I'm failing to see how unemployed law school graduates would give better advice than employed law school graduates.... Not every recent graduate is unemployed

Because they can tell you what 'didn't work' which is just as important to know as 'what did work.' They're going to the school you want to go to after all, and can probably shed some light on what to expect. Disclaimer: this isn't to say you aren't going to be successful: but it is to say that you should get an idea of what you're facing. I know when I was working at several different firms, we would often get applications from law students all over the city. There were two schools in particular whose applications were always tossed out simply because of the school they went to. no review, no call back, no second wasted. And these were schools ranked higher than the one you want to go to.

I'm not saying you won't get a job, but I am saying that despite all the networking you've done, be prepared for let downs. I worked with dozens of students who had said the same things you did: they made connections, networked their butts off, had all these attorney friends who would hire them, etc. Ultimately they all were brought on as unpaid interns and did bitch work, and in the end none of them were hired. Many of them had great scholarships, but by the time you graduate law school the one thing you want is a job lined up. If you don't have one, you're going to regret going to a lower tiered school because (and i've worked at top 14 law schools before) those students often get hired on the basis of their school name alone and many employers wont even review resumes/transcripts. Students who went to a top ranked school have it soooo much easier than the rest. I cannot stress enough the significant difference it makes. I worked at boutique law firms, I worked for public courts, and at big law. I also worked at three different law schools all ranking in different areas. I'm going to tell you something -- regardless of the workplace you're looking for/the career you're after, having a higher ranked school will make it easier for you because that is what these employers are looking for and it makes a much bigger difference for you to go to a higher ranked school than it does to have networked.

Again, it doesn't mean you're going to be unemployed, but approach your career prospects with a heavy dose of skepticism based off of the numbers, because they mean something to a lot of people who will be hiring law school grads. and if it means something to them, it should mean something to you.

GSU Hopeful · November 2015

Georgia State is a bargain to me. At a little over 16k a year, it would keep my debt down and would get me in where I live (population 100,000). I have no interest in Big Law nor do I have interest in 150k + in debt. GSU holds it's own in clerkships as well... being in the heart of Atlanta.

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What's the lowest ranked law school you would attend?

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