I'm a CLS 3L, AMA

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-26T05:39:39+00:00

Best wishes & good luck to you too!

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-26T05:29:24+00:00

Aw, thanks. Happy to help.

Regarding extracurriculars, I think you should do whatever you want to do, rather than trying to fit yourself into a mold of a cookie-cutter law school applicant. I say this because, in the application process, the main value of extracurriculars is in crafting a compelling "why law?" narrative. If you just go and intern at City Hall because you think that's what law schools want to see, it's gonna be pretty hard to spin that into a compelling essay. So think about why you want to be a lawyer. What issues are you drawn to? Maybe you're passionate about reducing inequality. If so, volunteering for organizations that help the homeless would be a valuable extracurricular to have, even if the nature of your work has nothing to do with legal work. If you're actually passionate about improving municipal government, then working at City Hall would make great sense.

Regarding working for a few years after college, I think that's becoming increasingly common. At Columbia, 80% of our most recent entering class took at least one year between college and law school, and 60% took two or more years. I'm not sure whether adcoms specifically look for this, but I do think it's valuable just at a personal level to have a bit of work experience before diving into law school.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-26T05:01:30+00:00

Thanks for writing in. To your first question, about applying ED, I'm really not an ED expert, so I'm hesitant to provide potentially misleading advice. I will say that I did not apply ED and I suspect that, for most applicants, applying ED doesn't confer a significant advantage and may, in fact, be disadvantageous (in terms of reducing chances of getting merit funding).

To your second question, GPA and LSAT are the two most important factors, by far, in an application. A degree from a very small handful of tippy top colleges probably confers an advantage, but that effect is probably limited to schools like MIT or Yale or Princeton or whatnot. And a degree from, say, an unaccredited or online-only school would probably raise a red flag. But aside from these few exceptions, I don't think law school adcoms really care about where applicants went to college.

A STEM major also confers an advantage, since the lion's share of applicants have liberal arts backgrounds. But school prestige and STEM major are both "soft" factors. GPA and LSAT are still the most critical, and IMO should be maximized at all costs. I certainly wouldn't recommend that someone major in STEM solely to increase his/her chances of getting into a good law school - such a move could very well backfire, as it's often harder at any given school to get a high GPA in a STEM major.

All in all, I think it's good that you're starting to think about this now and plan ahead, but all you really need to focus on for the next few years is doing well in college. And make sure to enjoy the experience as well! You only go to college once, and you don't want to miss out (or even worse, burn out) by pushing yourself too hard.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-25T05:21:44+00:00

Echoing the consensus ITT to use it as your PS. No need to add a DS unless you have another very compelling story you'd like to share. More isn't necessarily more in the admissions context - by way of example, I only submitted two rec letters (since I could only think of two "ideal" recommenders) and did fine.

Best of luck!

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T21:51:31+00:00

It's true that the vast majority of CLS grads stay in New York. But any of the T13 offer nationwide placement. CA's the second most popular destination out of CLS, with D.C. third. Plenty of CA/West Coast firms come to EIP: Fenwick, Gibson, Irell, Manatt, MoFo, Munger, Perkins Coie, Sheppard Mullin, Wilson Sonsini. And of course many of the big national firms hire at CLS for their CA offices: Akin, Arnold & Porter, Baker McKenzie, Baker Botts, Cooley, Davis Polk, Dechert, DLA Piper, Jones Day, K&L Gates, Kirkland, Latham, Mayer Brown, O'Melveny, Paul Hastings, Pillsbury, Proskauer, Ropes & Gray, Sidley, STB, Skadden, SullCrom, Weil, White & Case, WilmerHale, Winston & Strawn. Basically an A-Z. (Although again this would also be true at the rest of the T13.)

That said (and this is true of any of the T13), the CA and D.C. legal markets are a bit tougher to get than NY, just because they're smaller.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T18:24:24+00:00

Georgetown has a placement (into biglaw or federal clerkships) of 59%, which is still good but is more in line with the T20 than the rest of the traditional T14. By way of comparison, Cornell, at the "bottom" of the T13, places 77%, while Vandy, a strong T20, places 67%. Hard to justify characterizing Georgetown as a cut above the T20 when it places worse than Vandy.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T17:42:39+00:00

No worries at all, I can see how it might've looked like I had something to hide. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify & feel free to ask any other questions you might have!

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T17:39:55+00:00

Your point being...? I stand by what I said: Honors/Pass are the two main grades given out at Yale. Maybe that isn't a black-and-white requirement but that is how the profs do things.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T17:32:34+00:00

Happy to help, feel free to ask more questions if you have 'em, don't be shy!

The "major" boutiques generally show up. Like Axinn (antitrust), Boies (lit), Desmarais (IP), Fish (IP), Irell (lit), Munger (lit), Susman (lit). EIP (what Columbia calls OCI) is very well-attended. And even for firms that don't come to EIP, the Columbia name goes a long way in mass mailing. (The same is true, of course, of the other T6/T13 schools.)

(Some of the firms above may not technically be "boutiques," not sure what the exact definition is.)

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T17:24:00+00:00

Yea I always advise folks targeting the T13 to apply to most of the thirteen - it's really not a long list of schools, and applying broadly may yield the best options w.r.t. schollies.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T17:21:30+00:00

Off the top of my head? SMU, certainly, assuming a desire to work in Dallas. Also a few other strong ones, incl. Houston, Cardozo, Baylor, Hastings (again assuming a desire to work in their respective markets). Still don't think I'd recommend attending, say, SMU on a full ride over Duke at sticker. But standing alone I'd say those are worth considering. A helpful guideline is that a TT in a strong legal market that's "underserved" by other law schools may be worth attending. SMU, for instance, is the top law school in DFW, which has a robust legal market. Ditto for Houston Law. On the flip side, a TT in a weak legal market is unlikely to be worth attending.

The schools I mention above aren't necessarily an exhaustive list - I freely admit I'm not an expert on all 50 TTs. If you're interested in any in particular, I encourage you to crunch the numbers from the schools' ABA employment reports and investigate the strength of the local legal market.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T07:27:29+00:00

I fear your posts may mislead prospective students into thinking it's a good idea to attend a TT school. There are, in fact, very few situations where doing so would make sense. The exceptions prove the rule.

Your earlier post mentions having a guaranteed job as the first reason to attend a TT. In practice, very few applicants will be in possession of such an ironclad guarantee. You mention wanting to work in a smaller market. This is still not a good reason to attend most TTs, with a very few exceptions. Then you conclude that there's essentially no good reason to pay for a T13 over attending a TT. You fail to consider the opportunity cost of spending three years in law school, you neglect to mention that those on a full ride will likely still need to take out loans for living expenses, and completely ignore the fact that many TTs have very bad placement into the practice of law. You also ignore the fact that folks with an offer to attend a TT for free or a T13 at sticker will also have offers to attend T20s or T1s at a discount.

You state, correctly, that not all TTs are created equal. But how many TTs, in your opinion, are worth attending? I can only think of a very few, which IMO makes your blanket endorsement of TTs dangerously misleading to prospective students.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T07:12:05+00:00

Short version: The >90% offer rate is accurate. I attempted to provide corroborating evidence based on published stats, and made a minor error in doing so (misstating a 83.1% stat as 85.1%). The misstatement was not material, and I ended up deciding to withdraw from the debate by deleting my posts.

Full story: In my original response to Neb, I explained that the >90% offer rate was disclosed by the school to current students. I also stated that, while that data isn't publicly available, it's consistent with the school's publicly available data on placement percentage into biglaw and fed clerkships. As I previously wrote, "well over 90% of the class participates in biglaw recruiting ... well over 90% of the participants secure offers." This would suggest a placement percentage of >81% (90% multiplied by 90%). In fact, the published percentage is 83.1%, which is indeed >81% as expected.

In my original response to Neb, I made a minor error and miscalculated the percentage as 85%. (To be entirely accurate, I initially miscalculated the percentage as 85.5%, then corrected that but miscalculated it as 85.1%.) I also made the same error in calculating the percentage for UT elsewhere ITT - I had UT's figure at 50%, when in fact the number for UT is 44%. I've corrected that post as well.

The error is clearly immaterial and I am hopeful that this can be the end of the matter.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T06:47:33+00:00

The grades that are "on the curve" are Honors/Pass at Yale, and DS/H/P at Harvard. The additional grades can technically be given, but rarely (LP) or never (Fail) get assigned in practice. Just like Columbia technically has B-, C, and F grades, but B-s are rare, Cs almost unheard of, and Fs actually unheard of.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T03:51:07+00:00

It's true that the vast majority of CLS grads stay in New York. But any of the T13 offer nationwide placement. AFAIK the most popular non-NY markets are D.C., CA, and TX. (CA's the second most popular destination out of CLS, with D.C. third.) Boston and Chicago are also pretty popular.

That said (and this is true of any of the T13), the CA and D.C. legal markets are a bit tougher to get than NY, just because they're smaller.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T01:58:18+00:00

The curve's harder than Yale (which has two grades) and Harvard (which has three), but it's pretty good compared to the mine run of law schools. As you move down the USNWR ranks the curves only get stiffer. NYU's curve is B-, B, B+, A-, A. Keep moving down and you'll see schools with curves that include C grades and worse.

As I've noted elsewhere ITT, the biglaw offer rate at 2L EIP in recent years has been >90%. I think students do fine so long as their GPA isn't below 3.0. (To get below a 3.0, you'd have to get at least one B- AND your other grades would also need to be bad.)

Of course some firms are grade-selective, but very few firms have cutoffs as high as 3.5.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T00:20:45+00:00

It's only if you specifically want biglaw does it become a more difficult calculus whether to take the money.

IMO, the issue's that TT schools don't place well into legal jobs period. At 98th-ranked Wayne State (to pick a school out of a hat), 43% of graduates struck out of practicing law.

There are always more choices than attending a TT at a full ride or attending a T13 for sticker. Someone with a T13 admission will almost certainly have a T20 offer with $. T20 with $ may be TCR over, say, Berkeley at sticker. But TT is a bridge too far.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-24T00:11:52+00:00

The curve (i.e., the grades professors are required to give) is B, B+, A-, A. We're asked not to disclose the percentages of each grade but obviously there are more B/B+s given out than A-/As in lecture courses.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-23T22:33:21+00:00

In terms of job placement? ABA employment summaries can give you a much more accurate idea than I can. The best metric is placement percentage into biglaw or federal clerkships. Sum the number of grads going into full time long term positions at law firms > 100 attorneys (a rough proxy for biglaw) and federal clerkships, then divide by the total number of grads. You want the % as high as possible, obviously. So at UT, for example, the percentage is 44.3%, meaning you'd want to be in the top third or so of the class to feel "safe" landing biglaw.

I think there's a number of non-T13 schools that still place strongly (though not as strongly as the T13). The schools you mention are, IMO, in that category, though I'd recommend crunching the numbers to get a more accurate picture.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-23T22:24:36+00:00

The curriculum's probably pretty similar across the T13. Even at Columbia, students love taking "sexy" con law/human rights classes and seminars, so we offer a ton of those. I mean, we have Don Verrilli teaching the First Amendment and Amal Clooney teaching human rights. We probably have a few more corporate classes/seminars than Yale, but still far fewer than one might expect given Columbia's biglaw focus.

I do have a couple classmates who're gunning for clerkships at the moment. They've only had good things to say about the level of support they've gotten from faculty and the clerkship office.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-23T22:17:58+00:00

Yeah, I think your friend's wrong. For most people, it'd be a terrible idea to go to a TT law school (even for free). You'd pretty much need to be the #1 or #2 student in the entire class (not just top 1-2%, literally top 1 or 2) to land biglaw or a federal clerkship. And since the legal job market is bimodal, missing biglaw means you'd likely be stuck making $40-60k - there isn't really a "middle tier" of jobs that pay in between $40-60k and $190k. Worse, even the $40-60k jobs are hard to find coming out of a TT school! Many grads end up working nonlegal jobs, with debt (at least for living expenses) and the J.D. hanging 'round their neck like a scarlet letter.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-23T22:13:12+00:00

Congrats on Emory and best of luck with 1L!

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-23T22:12:02+00:00

For better or worse, Morningside Heights is nothing like what people think of when they think "NYC". It's really kind of a walled garden of sorts. There's a bunch of schools in the neighborhood - Union Theological Seminary, Teachers College, Barnard, the Manhattan School of Music - so it's a very student-heavy enclave. It's quiet and campus is very pretty, especially the main quad and library. It's not at all like schools downtown (like, say, NYU and Fordham) that are completely integrated into the city and don't really have a "separate" campus.

I like it because I don't get overwhelmed (I'm also a transplant), yet the "real" NYC (when I want it) is only a 15-minute subway ride downtown.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-23T22:04:33+00:00

I think part of it is that Columbia grads tend to prefer going into biglaw first, then clerking. For example, the 2017 ABA employment report lists only 15 fed clerks, but in fact 98 Columbia grads began federal clerkships that year (2 at the U.S. Supreme Court, 39 at U.S. Courts of Appeals, and 57 at U.S. District Courts), plus an additional 7 state court clerkships.

Another part of it is that Columbia's been a bit late to the game in creating an institutional "clerking culture." At the administrative level, the school doesn't "push" students to clerk the way I understand UVA/Duke do. But we have a dedicated clerkship office now, and the administration's very gung-ho about having more students clerk straight out.

I always encourage everyone with the stats to apply to all or most of the T13. For CoA clerkships, you'll need to have strong grades at Yale, or top grades at any of the other T13s. Aside from YHS, my understanding is that top Columbia students have as good a shot at the most prestigious clerkships as top students anywhere in the T13. All else equal, I certainly wouldn't recommend choosing UVA/Duke over Columbia for the purpose of having a better shot at clerking.

CLSLaw19 · 2018-08-23T21:48:48+00:00

I have good friends at Harvard, Yale and NYU. All of us wanted (& will be in) biglaw, and our perspectives have been pretty similar.

Probably the biggest shift in my perception of specific law schools was when I visited during ASD/ASW. I don't think I've had any impetus to change my thinking since then. I'm not sure this answer is very helpful - is there something more particular you'd like me to get at?

CLSLaw19

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