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Related Discussions
Why Cali?
OverRatedUnderAchiever
Member
Why do more people seem to want to attend school in California? Its literally like watching the East coast and West coast battle over more schools in the top rankings. I'm just curious if others are currently living in a warmer area, and are dying to get out? I live in South Florida, and can't imagine spending my Law school career in the same state. I may be missing a bigger picture such as costs, acceptance, scholarships, etc. I'm just wondering as to why so many of those, whom already reside in Cali want to stay?
Comments
I am born/raised So Cal and have done a lot of traveling to the East coast for sports. For me, I couldn't honestly be okay with living long term in an area that gets pretty cold. Maybe it's because of the way I was raised or because I'm a weather wimp... but anything below like 60 is too cold for me.
The qualities of So Cal that I love are specific things that I don't feel comfortable sacrificing... neighborhoods, weather, atmosphere, nature (I love mountains and running on trails). That being said, from the vast number of attorneys I've spoken with, it's way easier going to LS in California and going out of state to practice than vice versa.
Weather. Also california has diverse opportunities for law in the following fields: healthcare, entertainment, tech, environmental, public interest. It is a big state with hubs in all these sectors can be a source of great work or competition for lawyers.
Probably the climate. I don't think many coastal states see people hanging out at beach during the winter season, and there's something magical about being able to course one's way through the year without spending money on earmuffs and whatnot.
Living in California most definitely has its perks. You're a drive away from either the desert, the snow, or the beach. While I love the east coast vibe, I most certainly couldn't live there.
Agreed. Location, location, location! California has several excellent schools and if you plan on practicing there (like I do) it's a no-brainer. Obvious exceptions could be made for attending T-14 schools on the East Coast but it's still a hard sell for many people who know they'll be living in Cali.
It's, from having visited and having friends there, beautiful, interesting, and mellow there. And it has a ton of great schools with the UC system.
Most importantly because West Coast is truly the best coast
If you were to get offered a full ride, or a significant enough of money for attending law school on the East coast, or even Mid-west... would you? Or would you rather pay (for some of those) instate tuition, or in full because of the location?
I'm very interested that all of you guys who responded to this discussion gave a similar response. It's super intriguing for me to hear from people & their opinions/reasons!
I would love to stay in California and would be very happy to move from SoCal to NorCal. It’s entirely to do with climate + culture. Also why would I want to move to the complete opposite coast from where my friends and family are that’ll be lonely! I’m not tied at the hip to them but it would take some getting used to.
I’d rather not spend even a few years of law school getting acclimated to the complete opposite weather from what I’m used to. And I don’t want to have to buy a whole new wardrobe. I immigrated here from a freezing country and I may as well move back if I want to freeze my ass off and walk around with a million layers on.
There are personal reasons that I enjoy the liberal environment and I’m not sure how I would feel/how I would be treated in a more conservative area. ie Virginia/Michigan/North Carolina, idk what the culture is like there.
My interests are super Southern Californian, idk where else I can find commonality with most people in surfing yoga holistic healing vegan food.
&& Mexican food and sushi are not as good outside of SoCal I swear.
If next cycle I end up with a substantially better scholarship at a t12 on the opposite coast I’ll move and i’ll fake it til I make it by saying “it’s gonna be so great finally getting to experience seasons and a whole new environment/culture!”
I'm from the midwest and hoping to stay mainly for family and friends reasons, but I think most of us would agree that location is a fairly soft factor. If Berkeley calls and offers me a full ride, I'm commit tommorrow. However, assuming similar offers at comparable schools, I'd choose to stay near home vs the opposite side of the country. I assume the Californians and future Californians feel similarly, they wouldn't ignore a fabulous offer from snowy Cornell, but it would have to blow any cali offers out of the water
It would depend if I felt as if either 1) I could see myself living there potentially for the rest of my life or 2) felt like the LS/Alumni was good enough to come back to Cali. I wouldn't want to put myself in a situation that may prevent me from being able to attain a job in Cali afterwards, should I want to return. I'm waitlisted at Northwestern currently but idk in comparison to UCI... just because I know the quality of life that I would have in a very different, very cold environment. Also, I have $$ at UCI so that helps lol
If I can't picture myself there being happy long term, I'm not going to do it.. regardless of the rank.
This is actually a situation im facing because a midwest flagship offered me a decent sum of money, more than a california school that I'm strongly considering. I went to college in the East, so I understand and could tolerate the winters. Although I prefer to move back to California, I also wouldn't mind practicing in another state with harsher winters.
I'm actually dying to get out of California. It is a wonderful state, but more than a decade has passed since the last time I saw snow with my own eyes and and touched it. There's a fair chance I will complain about snow and seasonal variations if my wish does come true; but that's something my future self will have to deal with, not me.
You can go to Big Bear or Tahoe
It snowed close to the mountains where I live two winters ago.
I feel ya! I can not imagine living in South Fl anymore, its hot. I'm also a Jersey girl at my heart & soul, and truly miss my New York. Another reason why FL is not tempting is due to the lack of job security for lawyers. There are far too many of us, and most of them are ambulance chasers.
Blizzards over hurricanes ANY DAMN DAY. Snow over sun. City over country
How about you all?
Snow is beautiful until you have to live in it, in my opinion lol. I LOVED the idea of snow until this winter when I spent about a week in it. It gets so dirty and gross and complicates so many things! So obviously, sun over snow. Mountains over grassland. Earthquakes over tornadoes 10000%. I’ve lived here my entire life and honestly never felt an earthquake. That’s why I think it’s so funny when people who get tornados all the time tell me that they could never move to CA because of the earthquakes lol. However, I do like the country over the city. I am actually not fond of LA.
I'm from Cali mostly and I'm staying here because of my kids and house. That said, I did do grad school before on the East Coast. Even though I didn't wind up wanting to live there (9 months of Boston winter every year wore me down ultimately), I have to say I'm honestly glad I lived there for 10 years (grad school + some yrs of work afterwards). I like many things about the East Coast and having connections there and being familiar with it, especially when you are young (so many colleges in a small area) was awesome. Personally, I think the 3 years in law school is a great opportunity to try out living in another part of the country if you are okay with working there for a few years afterwards since your work connections will likely be there too.
Today I learned that my interests are super SoCal.
We would definitely be friends.
You can get amazing vegan food up here in New York!!! Not to mention we do make the best bagels, and have the best unfiltered water
trust me.
I'm just a vegan stuck in Boca Raton. H.E.L.P.
Do you have any receipes for a good vegan breakfast burrito. Trying to eat less meat for health purposes.
Come back to the dark side
you know ya miss the people in the East.
Totally!! Are you currently a vegan? I.got.you.
I think personality plays a large role in this discussion of where y'all want to go to law school. It makes sense that for those who want to stay in Cali, must also love the people/company. Because I personally am in the "LA" of Florida, I mainly want to leave because of the people. I haven't heard anyone mention this reasoning for wanting to attend school in California which is surprising. Do you guys really like the people there, and their lifestyles? Only asking because in Boca and Miami it's pretty vapid, and pretentious... "born with a silver spoon" type. Even though theres cases lile that everywhere, I'd definitely say the people up North are a bit more humble, no??
What sort of hellish place could people live in where they get tornadoes all the time? As far as I'm aware there are usually one or two threatening storm systems per year in most of the most hit areas and sometimes those are accompanied by a tornado watch. If they are and one is spotted, then there is a tornado warning. The tornado usually passes by harmlessly over head while people hide in their basements or interior bathrooms. Every once in a while one touches down on one person's house if they are really unlikely. Additionally, they almost all happen in the summer when law students probably wouldn't be there.
Earthquakes on the other hand tend to level whole cities or small countries instead of jusst hitting one or two houses. On the other hand, serious ones are more rare than tornadoes.
That said, I would rather have 50 tornadoes in my county at the same time than one big earthquake. They'll do less damage since they like to float up into the sky instead of shaking the ground we build our buildings on.
Yeah... one very large downfall of So Cal. I also feel like it's just something that kind of comes with the territory.. unfortunately. You've got the "glamorous" LA life, Malibu, etc. I guess I feel like it's sort of the price you pay for having the other really wonderful qualities. I've spent a lot of time in the Mid-West and people are MUCH nicer there. Even the people that I meet on the planes going from CA to that destination are so much nicer. BUT, you find your people and your own trade off...
I guess I'll have to get back to you when I actually experience a severe Earthquake lol. My sister actually slept through the Northridge earthquake which was a 6.7.... but maybe tornadoes are much scarier to those who have not lived in or around areas that actually get them, like myself.
At least you can cope with cold by putting on extra layers of cloth.
It could be the same with the earthquakes(I guess).
I really do not like the typical SoCal personality and that is why I am very happy that aiming for a t12 is gonna force me to get me out of SoCal. Even NorCal like the Bay Area/SF the people are totally different.
Where I’m from originally the culture is to be very straight forward and to not be nosy and to be more reserved. In SoCal a lot of people can be really fake and it’s hard to navigate socially if you don’t act the same.
I’m in OC and a lot of people would seriously rather (and really do in fact) go broke rather than move into a smaller place and give up their Mercedes lease. LA is very much everyone claims to be famous but they’re really just 30+ years old party promoters who work at Starbucks. I’m generalizing obviously there are lots of great down to earth people here too but it’s a really image oriented culture. Each city has its own culture like I think Long Beach is a gem of really chill people.
Tbh a big reason I want to be an attorney is bc it’s one of the few jobs in this country that don’t require you to have a big fake SoCal smile plastered on your face 24/7
A tornado & hiding in your basement sounds absolutely terrifying I can’t believe this doomsday convo lmao. Earthquakes over hurricanes and tornadoes any day. I’ve also never felt an earthquake except a handful of times in the decade+ I’ve lived here and it was just a one second of “did a big truck just drive by or was that an earthquake?” When we get to the point where “the big one” comes, I would imagine the rest of the country would be in some sort of crazy environmental chaos too.
Hahaha this thread got very interesting.
I grew up in the northwest where there are very few natural disasters that are particularly life threatening. Went to school in SoCal and it sure was weird getting used to earthquakes but now they don’t bother me so much. 99.9% of the time it’s just a few seconds of, “Whoa, what was that?” and then it’s gone. Only once did it seem like a bigger deal, but just because I was in a tall-ish office building and they sway a bunch in earthquakes (for safety! Less stress on the building if it sways) making it feel worse than it really is.
Anyway, I also think part of it is that if you want to ultimately practice in CA, I think it’s best to go to school in state. The CA bar is brutal and all the schools in CA tend to have much higher bar passages rates than out of state schools. Also, CA is just super dense. A lot of people, and a lot of big industries to work in. Entertainment, tech, aviation... there’s a ton of opportunity.
As for the culture, yeah it can be hit or miss. I lived in LA and there are a lot of people that I did not care for. But you end up finding your people one way or another and make connections. It doesn’t hurt that the weather is gorgeous and there’s so much to do all the time. And there are lower key areas in Orange County and San Diego. Most people I know who grew up there love it and have always planned to stay there. It’s a unique place, I think.
Which part of the OC are you from? I don't visit LA often but I did hear of stereotypes that you speak of. Especially in Newport beach, I saw people driving in McLarens, Porsches and ferraris
Y'all try having 'hurrication days', which also means no power. Humidity in SoFlo is insane, no power in the heat is as bad as it seems. NO FOOD.
At least when I was just in Jersey 2 weeks ago during the storm, we didn't have to throw out all our perishable foods w/o electricity. I was pretty okay with just putting the food in the garage or outside on ice. Trust me, hurricanes ruin everything.
BUT wait... this is BOCA! By the way did you guys know that 90210 was originally supposed to be 33432? Just an interesting fact I learned growing up here. And yes, these cars around south beach are completely unnecessary. I do like to look at the rare P1's if ever spotted..
On the other question I am oblivious to the answer for is: what are the locations in California that practice certain areas of law? It may make no sense to ask that, but I imagine certain parts of cali do of law regarding technology or corporate law (due to companies hq's being in the West?? Like I said, I could be totally wrong, just interested.
Entertainment law is found in both Norcal and Socal. A branch of entertainment law is video game law which you can find in both northern and southern california. SoCal and NorCal both have thriving housing markets which can be a source of legal work. The type of entertainment law that SoCal specializes in deals with celebrities, and copyright ( music industry/movies) especially with Hollywood nearby. Both SoCal and NorCal have many nursing homes, hospitals and other medical facilities that may need the help of a lawyer to deal with healthcare legal issues.
Just wanting to stay where I was born. Going to school in Cali helps me stay in Cali in the future because of jobs too.
Sigh....so many SoCal people here....I just have to chime in and say;
Sharks > Kings/Ducks
Giants > Dodgers/Angels
49ers > Rams/Chargers
Warriors/Kings > Lakers/Clippers
love your fellow (NorCal) Californian.
I loved reading everyone's comments on this thread! Just wanted to add my two cents to the discussion --
I'm currently living in the heart of Silicon Valley (not too far from Facebook, Oracle, and Google HQs). I have noticed a dramatic difference in the pace of life in this area since Silicon Valley crept northward to encompass a larger swath of the Peninsula. There's now a large influx of people, more construction, increased traffic, and rising housing costs. Many people I know (natives) are leaving the area in exchange for a lowered cost of living elsewhere. In fact, an upper management director at my last job moved his family to the Sacramento area (100+ mi away) and commutes to the Bay Area a few times a week. Of course, that is just one example but it gives you an idea on cost of living. Also, I recently toured a brand new 2bd/2ba apartment (for giggles) that was going for $7,000/mo. These rents are crae-crae for a majority of people who are not making "tech $". On the other hand, it's a beautiful area with high desirability and great law schools. You just have to weigh what is important to you + pros/cons when deciding whether to move here, or anywhere for that matter.
Also, I lived in Downtown LA while attending college which was a neat experience. I now have a taste of both areas of the state. LA is 'cheaper' in rents but the traffic is through the roof! And yes, I have experienced a few earthquakes (about 5) while living in the Bay Area. Gotta always be prepared!