What was your score on the LSAT?

That will have a tiny little part with the decision of which law school accepts your application.

Then again, there is always a long and prosperous career teaching... typewriter maintenance at the Rocco Globbo School for Women.

Unfortunately, I don't see Obama's policies as getting us out of this slump.  I am not being political, I am just calling it as I see it.  Recovery of the economy will make things a lot better for young attorneys because right now they are competing with displaced attorneys that have a lot more experience than them ... and fewer student loans.



1.  [hielo]Is $80k "good money" where you come from? [/hielo]  

Seriously.  Think about how much debt you will be taking on, how much salary you will forego in three years ... and as I pointed out above, how you think the market will be doing in three years when you get out.  In this economy, you're not just competing with your peers, you are competing with people who have been in the industry for longer than you.  They are more valuable than you.  

2.  You really want to live in Detroit?  

As someone else already posted, the practice of law is very localized.  Nobody's heard of Wayne State, or cares that it's the "second best law school in Michigan" out here on the East Coast, which is where most of the big money is.  That $80k is more like $120-150k here.  Look hard at where your law school is, because unless you are at a nationally ranked/Ivy school you will be stuck in your local market.

You must be joking!?!? My Brother did his Masters work at USC C and they do not call it "The Mogue" as in Mogadishu Somalia for no reason.

I'm an alumnus of University of Michigan Law in Ann Arbor.  It's a fantastic school and offers a break on tuition to Michigan residents.  Employers nationwide come in for a job fair in August to hire, so any major city is a possibility.  If you can get in there, you'd be well served to go unless you can make it to Harvard, Stanford or Yale.

I would also strongly discourage anyone from applying to law school.  The market is dismal and is unlikely to recover for at least five years.  I have been doing the hiring for my firm at two of the top eight schools for 8 years now, and this was one was the pits.  We cut our callbacks by 50% and are only hiring total about 1/3 as many when compared to last year's class.

I teach part-time at a law school.  This is true:



2009 grads are competing for jobs with grads from 2006 to 2008 because of the big-firm layoffs.  Nothing indicates it will be better by 2013.  

Go be a paralegal for a few years, learn how to REALLY practice law, then go to law school when the economy brightens up.  You'll be a better lawyer for it.

UVA....good reputation and a gun-friendly state commonwealth

GPA means very little.  The two important tests in a legal career are the LSAT and the bar (with first year final exams being important for snagging clerkships/summer jobs).  Those are going away though, so first year grades may be a moot point.  

Which brings us to the job market.  Don't go unless you're already independantly wealthy or can get into one of the top five schools (whatever they are currently).  Again, without an excellent LSAT score you're hosed.  

Or,

Go to UND if you want to practice in that area.  ND has like a 4.9 percent unemployment rate now, so you could theoretically make a living in that area at a small firm.  But seriously, in three years ND may be in as bad shape as the rest of the country, so that's a gamble too.  

Actually, I just found out about someone who recently graduated high up from Berkeley. He has a job offer in the city that starts in Oct.  The firm actually offered him $60k to delay working for a year.



This dude is apparently very smart.

This is laughably bad advice written by somebody who knows nothing about the legal field.

1.  LSATs -  Important to get into law school, but unimportant for landing a job.  The National Association for Legal Placement, or NALP, has a system of hiring rules that all major US firms subscribe to in hiring.  One of those rules is that it is impermissible for a law firm to ask a candidate to reveal his or her LSAT score.

2.  The Bar - Generally the results for this exam comes months after you start work with a law firm.  Further, it's a pass/fail affair - grades are never given.  (In my firm, fail twice and get fired).

3.  First year grades - 90% of the hiring decision is made on a student's first year grades.

Good luck to you fellow UVA Law alum.  I have to say that your description of the brutality of big firm life sounds a little familiar... many of my friends who are still in BigLaw have told me how much they envy that I got out.  They, unfortunately, have the golden handcuffs...

To the OP - I have to agree that the legal market is in the toilet right now.  Be realistic about what you want to do with your law degree and the likelihood of being able to do it.  If you want to practice in a big firm environment, then law school ranking is usually very important (although there are some lower-ranked and less expensive schools that are feeders for certain regional markets).  If you're not concerned about working in a big, prestigious firm, then look for a school that is affordable and still respectable.  Many folks have already recommended VA schools - there are some good ones here.

Again, not so much anymore.  Most firms will be happy to hire a laid off big law firm associate instead of a shiny new 3L.  The only way out of this situation is to not practice or get into an ivy league school.

Back when firms were hiring, yes. 3 years ago I'd be looking at a job with Greenberg Traurig or some other equally massive firm. Now the only ones getting big firm jobs from my school are those who know someone who knows someone.

........

Nebraska-Lincoln sounds about right. Fairly good law school that meets your criteria.

*nice safe, non-ghetto area
Nebraska doesn't really have any real ghettos.

*good gun laws
We're working on improving the CCW laws, but everything else is great.

*decent home and necessity prices
Decent prices in Lincoln with prices getting lower the further away you are. Incredibly cheap rent should be available within an hours drive.

*predominately Caucasian people (though I really don't think this is a good thing to base your decision on)
Nebraska is one of the most segregated states. Hispanics for the most part are only in small towns with meat packing plants and blacks are primarily in tiny pockets in Omaha and Lincoln. Of course this level of segregation leads to low income and education levels for minorities, so you will have to work with a disproportional amount of minorities if you enter criminal defense.

Big firms are still hiring and it doesn't take a nepotistic connection to get in.  My firm will still hire 30-35 2Ls this year, even after the cutbacks.  It's just gotten very competitive.  The hiring calculus is simple.  To begin with, we only interview at the T14 schools.  There is a hard grade cutoff at a B+/A- level just to be considered.  Undergrad school and grades are also a factor.  Past experience can be helpful but is not essential.  Last, a subjectively good interview and fit is critical.

At the schools I covered, II called back 5 and 4 2L students, respectively.  Last year I called back about 10 from each school.  So far, 2 have gotten offers and 2 have been dinged, with the remainder still to come in for callbacks.

What's the payoff?   For starters, it's a $165K/year starting salary, which is not bad money to make for a 24 year old law grad.  Long term it can be much more.

Of course, <1% of all law students get this so-called "Biglaw" job every year.  The overwhelming majority end up doing something else.  Of the less than 1%, that penetrate Biglaw as a starting job, only about 3-5% will be left at the big firms to make partner 8-12 years later.

I've heard in some states you don't have to attend a brick and mortar law school, so just go for a distance learning school.   These states only require you to pass the bar exam.  Bruce Williams, talk show guy, knew someone in the military who did this.

Duquesne University Pittsburgh PA

What sort of productivity are such new hires expected to generate? What's the salary structure? Is it strictly based on billables or is there another metric? Curious.

Law school.  

Good idea if  you are blonde,  hawt and want to land a job on Fox.


Otherwise, you need to rethink your plan for life.

The $160k figure for starting salaries may no longer be the norm.  This was the market standard for offices of large firms in markets like DC, NY, etc. as of 2007.  Prior to 2006, this figure was typically $125k - $135k, but a large wage war erupted and no firm wanted to be outdone... so many migrated to the $160k figure.  At less competitive firms or in branch offices in smaller markets, the salary range never reached $160k.  In addition to the mass layoffs over the past year, a number of firms have also cut associate salaries so that newly-minted law grad pay has gone down a bit (most that cut salaries put them back into the $140s).  

The pay structure over recent years has largely been "lock step," meaning that a first year made $160k, a second year made $170k, third year made $180k, and so on and so forth.  To receive this salary, associates are expected to bill a certain minimum number of hours.  Falling significantly below that requirement could lead to termination.  With the wage war, firms increased these hours expectations.  Now, I would guess that the top firm average is probably on the order of 2,100 - 2,200 hours per year as the expectation.  Failing to bill at least 1,800 might net a bad performance review.  2,100 hours a year may not sound like much, but consider that not every hour in a day is billable.  With three weeks of vacation and a 2,100 hour requirement, you are looking at 43 billable hours per week.  That might translate into a 55 hour week on average.  One additional slow week requires significant catching up to maintain pace.  

If you hit hours expectations, firms typically also throw a bonus at you.  The amounts of these bonuses can vary greatly by firm.  

Now, some firms are moving away from "lock step" pay and strict hours-based bonus structures.  Not sure how it will play out.

The lockstep still hasn't been broken (and won't be) at any of the V25 firms.  It's only been under attack in the tiers below that.

Productivity for the 165K is in many cases based on nothing and in others purely based on hours worked.

I'm a senior associate at a BigLaw firm in Texas.  For our new hires, they are judged based on hours billed and "realization".  Realization is how much of the time you wrote down ends up on a bill to the client.  Our minimum level to get a normal bonus is 2000 hours a year.  You should also have above 90% realization.

As you get more senior as an associate, you will be judged more on "fees received."  Fees received is solely concerned with how much money made it in the door due to your work or clients.  Hours still play a part, but you'd damn well better be profitable in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range per year.

Want to make partner?  It will take billing about 2300-2400 per year for your 7-9th years, with $600k-800k fees received per year.  That's the real problem, since you're judged on whether a client pays or not, yet it's not your client and you seldom get to control what you work on.  I've got a lost partnership year because a client stiffed the firm on the bill, leaving me short a few hundred grand in fees received.

BigLaw truly is a set of golden handcuffs.  The money is great, but the jobs normally suck.  Billing time adds enormous stress for most people.  Not the actual writing down of what you do, but knowing that you have to be productive all the time.  Nothing to do this week because it's slow?  You'll have to work in another 40 billable hours somewhere later in the year.  Plus, there's the stress of bringing in business.  And being "on call" all the time, waiting for the Blackberry to blink.  

To the OP: I would rethink whether you really want to go to law school.  While a JD can open a lot of doors, it's a significant investment in time and money for a payoff that may or may not happen.  You might do great on your first year exams, end up on law review, and go to a well-paying job.  Or, you might not, leading to a much more limited set of options.  

There are a shitload of lawyers that are unemployed or underemployed right now.  The underemployed end up doing "contract work."  You know what contract work is for lawyers?  That's where a firm takes 20+ lawyers and puts them in one room together in front of computers.  They look at documents all day, may be allowed to talk, and make ~$20-30 an hour.  (Used to be $60+/hour a few years ago.)

If you are dead-set on going to law school, bust your ass the first year.  Law school grades are based on a single final exam for each class.  Nothing during the semester.  Your grades the first year will determine your summer job for your second summer, and that's where permanent offers come from.

My wife works for a "prominent" firm in her niche. (she made partner earlier this year)

Billable for associates is 2100 hrs a year.

If you don't achieve that, you're not eligible for a bonus;  there's no penalty per se, except that you'll probably never make partner if you're not hitting 2250+ hours/year.

If you're good, you'll get your 2100 because more senior attorneys will want you on their cases. If you suck, you won't get your hours.... but not necessarily by *your* choice.

I don't know what 1st year associates make....it's probably around $150k or so....but you're not going to get an interview unless you went to a "T14" school plus maybe 5 other schools, OR if you have an undergrad engineering degree from a top program plus a law degree from a top 25 law school.

Take a look at Indiana University.  I personally hate Bloomington, it would fit your specifications and I've heard good things about their program.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=929466



Something to think about.  Plan for worst case.  There no way to ensure you will be a top-5%er.  95% find that out the hard way.

<<<––––––––––––––––––––––-  Bloomington

I'm a white male. Even with my good gpa I would need to get at least a 175 on my lsat to get accepted. I will apply there and hope for the best.

That about sums it up, but you forgot to mention the prevalence of partners who act abusively simply because they can...

anyone considering law school needs to spend significant time on bitterlawyer.com first.

That is the same sort of pay structure at one of the firms that offered me a job at the conclusion of my clerkship. That's simply not for me. It is a little comfort to know that I could have chosen more poorly for myself.

That was "in the past few years".  Last year, a large number of grads from my school got "deferred" from the jobs they had been offered.  Only half the usual number of 1L's got paying positions last summer (and a lot of those had prior connections with the firms they went to);  the externship program (unpaid jobs in courts and prosecutors' offices) got overwhelmed.  Next summer is looking really grim.

You consider Wayne State to be a "pretty good school"?  It's a tier-3.  Go do some digging for the NALP employment survey to see how they did as far as placements.  Also, I thought you wrote that you wanted out of Michigan.

Until you take the LSAT, it's pointless to suggest which schools you should apply to.  If you get into any of the "top 14", go there.  If you don't, think long and hard about whether you want to bury yourself under another $100K to $200K of student loan debt, especially because if you go to a tier-3 schoo like Wayne State, you probably aren't going to make anywhere near that $80K when you graduate.

Basic advice is that (except for the "T14" schools) you should go to school wherever you intend to practice law, because odds are that's the only area you'll be able to get an entry-level job in.  Law is a field in which your pedigree matters to a ridiculous degree;  go to a top-ranked school and you can work anywhere;  go to a low-ranked school and you'll struggle to find a job (unless your daddy is a partner, of course).

Disclaimer: this is all based on hearsay and rumor and innuendo and gossip.

To BigLaw in Texas, I hear your misery.  I only want to say that I got through my similar trial-by-fire to make it to partner in one of the top global firms so don't give it up for dead yet.

Creighton