Sunday, October 7, 2012

The 50 Best Law Schools in America

In an oversaturated market where countless lawyers are unemployed or underemployed, choosing the right law school makes all the difference.

The right school puts you on track to a competitive corporate or public sector job. The wrong school may be a waste of three years and $250,000.

We held a survey to determine what real professionals consider the best law schools. They have determined that this school is Harvard Law School.

More than 650 of our readers responded, of which 60 percent had J.D.s. and 69 percent had hiring experience. Thirty-six percent of the respondents work in legal fields, 23 percent work in finance, 10 percent work in technology, 6 percent are current law students, and 6 percent work in consulting.
A full 40 percent of the respondents said that law school is NOT worth attending if you don't get into a top-tier school, while 32.9 percent said that it depends on factors like your financial background, the cost of attending, the school's alumni network and connections, the type of law you want to practice and the specialty of the school, whether you intend to practice in the state you attend school, and personal connections. Read more....

6 comments:

  1. its not the school ,it is the idea that you follow or you will not be hired

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    Replies
    1. That's the problem. Schools today aren't teaching, all they are doing is promoting ideas.

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  2. The name of the school is everything. Outside of UT you are always, always better going to HYS. The problem is if you dip down past the top tenth or so at anything outside of the top 15 law schools you could wind up with no job at all. UT and the top schools let you get at least top half. HYS is pretty much a guarantee of something no matter what you finish.

    However the jobs that actually let you pay off your student loans, even at HYS you need to be in the top tenth or so at worst, and at the rest of the schools you have to be top 1% and interview really well on top of that. For the most part those jobs are however soul crushingly awful, with the type of work you have to do and the people around you.

    Law is driven entirely by greed, surprisingly even moreso than business is. Pure greed and avarice tends to attract a certain type of person, because they are the only type of people that behave in a way that allows them to thrive in those environments.

    I went to a crappy law school that isn't listed above, although I got admitted to several of the lower ranked schools in the top 50. I didn't want to pay sticker because I didn't want to be in debt. Turns out even with scholarships you are still in massive debt and it's hard to pay off because law is so bi-modal. Actually tri-modal I suppose, either you have something that pays well, something that doesn't pay well, or pretty much nothing. It isn't distributed evenly throughout a range and opportunities are very much lacking.

    People just don't understand or want to understand what a scam education is and how badly the youth of this country have been suckered. Personally I do however blame myself in a way, the same way I blame all the Madoff ponzi victims and victims of all types of fraud. I should have just avoided it all and accepted that my life really had no future and someone like me should simply not expect to have a decent job no matter how hard I worked or how intelligent I thought I was, because it just wasn't enough.

    But in our society we generally tell people to be confident and positive, and we criticize them from being realistic. We tell them it is giving up, and then pressure them into buying useless things or wasting their energy on fruitless endeavors. You will see the market correct itself with less people going to school going forward, and more people buying things like physical gold. There is no faith in the system anymore because the system refused to protect people.

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  3. I have a friend my age (69) who is a self-employed lawyer. If it wasn't for various inheritances, she would be homeless, because she hasn't been able to earn enough money to pay all her bills plus all the expenses demanded by the legal profession (bar dues, money for classes to keep current, malpractice and health insurance, books, etc.). Things have gotten so bad she is now on food stamps.

    If you are not at the top of the class and don't get a job at a top law firm, you are pretty much screwed.

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    Replies
    1. Maybe it's time for her to find another profession. I've dealt with many so-called lawyers and I'm not impressed. As a matter of fact, I've wondered how they ever passed law school.

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  4. A lawyer on food stamps is sweet justice. One less vampire on the loose.

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