| Topic Name: |
This board is dangerous |
| Message Name: |
My admittedly inexperienced perspective |
| Date Posted: |
03/05/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
My main point is that many people write off their chances for getting a good job so easily. So you went to a 2nd tier. No you aren't screwed. Hell no. I have a friend who went to a 2nd tier school and he's pulling in $400,000/year minimum. And he doesn't even work full time - he does a lot of traveling. So go ahead and psych yourself out now, but it won't do much good. Status freaks don't come from the 2nd tier.....many people choose the 2nd tier over "better schools" for financial reasons, or to network in the area in which they want to practice. Regional schools often place very well. |
| Message: |
I'm not a practicing lawyer, and in fact am wading through the boards as an applicant to law schools right now. I must say that in the quest for "insider" information (more accurately, the information provided by those simply working as attorneys), one can be discouraged very easily by the opinions of a few who may very well be quite jaded. I'm lucky enough to have the numbers to be able to go to a Top 10 school, but if I didn't, I would be quite discouraged by those who say "if you can't go to the top 5 don't go," and who call schools "third tier toilets." I won't deny that a graduate of a better school will get a better job out of school provided that they do well in law school and have some other things going for them. However, I don't think that this necessarily means that anyone going to a school ranked below the first tier is "screwed" in any sense. In my limited anecdotal experience, graduates of lower-ranked law schools, including those in the fourth tier, are able to get decent jobs, make partner at smaller (but solid) firms, and do well on their own. This is especially true in a smaller city (e.g. under 400,000 people). I'm sure that one could find a few grads of fourth-tier schools who make partner at some large firms in big cities as well. This doens't mean that graduates of lower-ranked schools don't get low-paying state jobs sometimes, nor does it mean that everyone has a job right at graduation. In fact, it can be quite bad if one goes to a less prestigious school and, saddled with a bunch of debt, is unable to find a decent job. However, that doesn't mean that all graduates of a given school are somehow doomed.
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