Importance of choosing a school.

Comments

• Thank you JY Alum Member

  November 2022 328 karma

  Bump
• Thank you JY Alum Member

  November 2022 328 karma

  @"Cant Get Right" any input on this?
• Hal Incandenza Member

  November 2022 424 karma

  I think you’re right on the money at the end - hypotheticals aren’t much help here. A more usefully discussion would be a comparison between specific schools after you’ve been accepted and can see their financial aid pancakes.
• 2 Likes

  Cant Get Right Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor

  November 2022 27902 karma

  @LSAT_Athlete said:
  @"Cant Get Right" any input on this?

  I've definitely got some thoughts, lol.

  It sort of depends on how broadly or narrowly one defines specialization. Big Law is one very broad level of scope, and it does matter where you go to school. T14 schools offer well known advantages, but plenty of non-T-14s place as well or better, and you should really look at the placement stats of specific schools.

  Very narrow levels of scope also matter. If you are dead set on Space Law, for example, GTown is probably the place to be. At least, that was true as recently as several years ago. The terrain is constantly shifting and evolving, though, so that may have changed for all I know. But I remember talking to a Yale student who really regretted choosing Yale over Georgetown because of access to Space Law resources and opportunity. For these sorts of things, too, bigger schools typically offer an edge. The more faculty and students at a school, the more specific and niche areas of focus that can emerge. At tiny Yale, this guy was the only person interested in Space Law. At huge Northwestern, despite not having a robust Space Law program, there was a small but passionate group of folks interested in Space Law who were able to come together to bring in resources and create opportunity.

  Where very broad and very narrow scopes of interest may matter, most of the stuff in the middle matters much less. Within Big Law, for example, you'll likely have very little say in the types of cases you work on, and your employer will likely take limited interest, if any, in any "specialization" you may have pursued within law school.

  Perhaps most importantly though, at least in my experience, very few people are positioned to have well formed interests before law school. So unless you have a very good, well-informed idea of exactly what you want to do, don't prioritize specific specializations. Most don't really know the field and industry well enough to predict how their interests will develop. So much of it ultimately comes down to Professors that inspire you, subjects that you discover are fundamentally different from what you had thought, and the opportunities that present themselves.