Tips on Finding a Law School #2: School Specifics

Here's the second installment on how to pick a law school if you want to do more than resort to U.S. News. This piece focuses on things to look for at specific schools.

Others in the series:
#1 Choosing a Location
#3 Career and Finances

Talk to practicing attorneys. Find out what they look for in new hires, how much they like their jobs, what the real time investment is. This is also a great way to find out what schools may not be highly-ranked in U.S. News, but still have a strong reputation in the area. When I was applying, there were three schools in one 500-mile radius that I considered. Two were lower Tier 1, and the third was mid-Tier 2. The Tier Two school had the best reputation among practicing lawyers. One Tier 1 had an excellent reputation for litigation and the other was viewed as a ‘decent’ school, but nothing special. Interestingly enough, the ‘decent’ school charged almost twice the tuition. When I did the research I discovered that the ‘decent’ school had recently cut their entering class size to less than half of the Tier Two school in order to have more competitive admissions and up their stats for U.S. News. The other Tier 1 offered a fall, winter, and spring admissions cycle. Not surprisingly their standards for Fall admission were much more stringent than winter or spring. Law schools will play with their numbers in order to make themselves more attractive to the non-discerning applicant.

Go to law school fairs. LSAC offers several law fairs starting in the summer. In addition, many college campuses have a law fair during application season. You can pick up brochures and information, but the best part is meeting each individual law school's recruiter. The law school picks the recruiter as a representative of their school. That says a lot. Some will gush all over you. Others will be courteous and provide pertinent info. And some will act like they're doing you a favor just by talking to you. And they'll be that way without knowing your LSAT, GPA, or anything else about your life. I was able to cut, as well as add, a few schools based on the recruiter. I particularly remember one guy from a NYC school who seemed to have a step-child mentality when it came to NYU and Columbia. The school’s brochure was doused with one grad who got a job at mega-firm and the recruiter became defensive when I asked what percentage of their grads practiced outside of New York. He got really huffy and basically said, “What idiot would leave New York?”

Gee, I would think that someone who wanted to be on par with other schools in the area would actively be trying to get students from other parts of the country and send them back to outlying states. I wasn't asking the question because I questioned the school's credentials. Rather, I just wanted to know how hard it would be for me to find a job outside of New York. End in the end, I didn’t apply there. A recruiter from a different school was so informed and answered tough questions about location and hiring so honestly that it became one of my top choices.

When visiting potential schools, talk to the students. How do they like it? What do they say about the professors and other students? Do they seem like the kind of people you would be friends with? I know a lot of us think we can suck it up for three years in order to get where we want to be, but three years can be a really long time if you’re miserable. I love where I go to school. There is a huge mix of students and while we are all internally competitive, most of us don’t actively compete with each other. Sure, you’re always going to have your gunners, but they’re limited at my school. During my first year, students left their supplements sitting out on their desks so that others could borrow them. If I missed a class, someone noticed and emailed me notes without my even having to ask.

Some schools with loony tuitions have scholarship programs that provide for a few students with disadvantaged or diverse backgrounds, but the low tuition at my school allows space for all of them. We’ve got rich kids with strong roots in the city and we’ve got kids who grew up in the ghetto and are the first in their family to graduate from college, much less law school. Kids from the Ivies, kids from Big State, kids from other-university (small liberal arts with a strong science bent) and kids from City College. Socio-economically, it’s a pretty diverse group –and it makes for a richer experience.

Talk to the professors and sit through a class. Though I may not agree with all of my professors, I feel like every single one so far has had the student’s best interest at heart. And I’m not just casually tossing that out there. I really mean it, and it’s a big deal to me. I once emailed the academic dean and he emailed me back within a few hours. I feel like the faculty is as invested in my future as I am. I also don’t feel a big push from them to get the highest paying job that I can find. They seem much more interested in the student taking the time and introspection to find what is right for the student. Litigation was never something I considered until a prof pulled me aside and told me why they thought I’d be good at it. In the same conversation, Prof encouraged me to keep writing. I’m not under the impression that the profs at my school make a ton of money. I would surmise that most of them are here because they love this city and they love what they do. Can I just say, it shows.

Another resource I used extensively was LSAC. They've got a law school guide on their site with lots of facts and figures. One thing I found especially helpful were the applicant stats from prior years. You can look at median scores on U.S. News, but it doesn't say much. And for me personally, I was a 'splitter,' meaning that my LSAT score was in the Top 25% for almost all schools and my GPA in the bottom 25% for almost all schools. The info sheets helped me realize which schools were favorable to people like me and which schools would toss my application aside without a second glance based on GPA. For example, here's Cardozo's stats. If you scroll to the bottom of the page and look at the grid, you'll see that the higher your LSAT score, the more forgiving they are in reference to GPA.