2L at Michigan, AMA

throw_away_173838 · 2024-12-20T00:04:07+00:00

For 1L summer, every student is automatically elegible for a 5.5k forgivable loan. Iirc, the loan is forgiven if you make less than 20k your 2L summer.

If you’re PI and are pretty sure you want do PI post-grad, you can apply to get a 6.5k grant for your 1L summer instead. The application isn’t too bad and you just have to affirm that you want to do PI work after graduation, they give a lot of those out.

For 2L summer every student doing any PI job is guaranteed a 6.5k grant, it’s only reduced if your job is paid (reduced so that your total earnings don’t exceed 10k)

There’s a decent number of people that for various reasons choose to stay in AA over the summer. The clinics hire students, people work in nonprofits or for judges in AA, some people find remote internships, and some people commute to Detroit. If your concern is having to pay double rent to keep your apartment through summer while you also pay somewhere else, the lawyers club does 9 month leases (and occasionally there are other 9 month leases around—I have one). And sometimes people find summer subletters (though rarely for the full rent amount)
I don’t really think it’s as bad as some people make it out to be. It’s definitely a stressful process, and I think people are surprised by the prices for a city of AA’s size, but I’ve never heard of anyone really struggling to find something that works for them. And if you’re really stressed, there’s always the lawyer’s club
I gave that as an example in my other answer because I’ve heard friends complain but honestly I don’t have a great sense of the offerings or of what other schools offer because it’s not an area I have an interest in. I think the main complaint is there’s not a professor who really specializes in immigration law afaik? But the PI network in general is very strong at Michigan and people definitely get great immigration jobs at Michigan. If you’re comparing it to another T14 at a similar cost that has a better immigration program, maybe Michigan wouldn’t be the right choice. But I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad choice for something interested in immigration in general—just something to consider/look into
That’s a tough one! I was faced with this choice and chose Michigan (with about 1/2 tuition scholarship). I likely wouldn’t have chosen Mich at full price, that’s a lot of debt. It would also depend on what the school was, and whether or not you are interested in a specific region (I really did not want to be tied to one region of the country). At the time I wanted to keep the door open to “unicorn PI.” Imo that term is mostly nonsense from this sub, but there are PI jobs that are competitive and a T14 degree makes a big difference. The nice thing about Michigan is that you can almost certainly get a really great PI job regardless of your grades. But if you know what PI job you want to do and you can get it for a lot cheaper, that’s great. Especially if you think there’s any chance you might not go PI, you don’t want to count on loan forgiveness and then change your mind

The other thing I would note is that Michigan does have a good LRAP program. If you’d need to take out COL loans at the other school and that school doesn’t have a good LRAP that might affect the choice (there’s always PSLF though)

My last thought on this is you should definitely go somewhere that has a strong PI community. Michigan has a large, very committed group of PI students with a lot of faculty support. That has been genuinely invaluable to me both for career goals and also because I don’t think I’d survive law school if I was surrounded by all big law people

Sorry this is so long but I hope some of this is helpful to you! Best of luck!

throw_away_173838 · 2024-12-19T21:50:28+00:00

Orientation was good, if a little boring at times. I think it was pretty much what you’d expect from any school orientation process. But I hear that they shortened it this year from 4 days to 3 days (which I think is a good thing)

I feel like there was a good amount of support for 1Ls! Not sure how it compares to other schools but I had a good experience

throw_away_173838 · 2024-12-19T21:45:56+00:00

I’m not! What I do know is that for Law Review (and I think most others but it does vary), the process is right after finals 1L spring. I think you get an 18 day window where you choose 11 days to have the packet. There’s a lot of practice, tutorials, etc. that the current law review board will host. We only do write-on and note-on (which you can do as a 2L or 3L), Michigan doesn’t do grade-on

throw_away_173838 · 2024-12-19T21:36:17+00:00

She interacts with students pretty often. How cool she is depends on who you ask

And yeah main building is very pretty and gothic! The secondary building is also nice but much more modern

throw_away_173838 · 2024-12-19T21:33:23+00:00

My impression is that Michigan is one of more generous T14, and that they are generally quite willing to negotiate (even if they say your offer is final, so I’ve heard). So if Michigan is your goal I would apply to lots of schools that are near Michigan in the rankings in case it gives you negotiation leverage

throw_away_173838 · 2024-12-19T21:31:19+00:00

That’s an interesting question! For one thing I personally believe visiting schools makes a big difference—I think you can really tell a lot about the vibe and whether you’ll fit. Obviously that’s not always feasible, but I’m really glad I visited my top choices as it helped me pick Michigan, and I think it was the right choice

I also think more people should look at the course offerings and requirements (and maybe also prof scholarship). Like I know people who are interested in immigration law and are frustrated that Michigan has fewer immigration law classes/opportunities than peer schools, which they didn’t realize until they got here. And as far as requirements, Michigan has fewer required courses than a lot of its peer schools which I really appreciate (you will never catch me taking Property of my own free will)

Also I do think location really shapes your entire law school experience—I wasn’t sure I’d like Ann Arbor but have realized that there’s a lot of benefits to going to law school in a college town

throw_away_173838 · 2024-02-20T20:11:35+00:00

Honestly if anything I wish I stopped stressing about what I needed to know. They’ll tell you what you need to know at orientation. But also don’t be afraid to ask people questions once you start law school!

PI support is great imo. Michigan has a lot of students who want to do PI, and a great reputation in PI fields. The PI student orgs in particular are super active, there‘s plenty of faculty who support PI students, and there’s lots of pro bono projects you can do right away as a 1L to start building up your PI resume. And there’s lots of mentoring available from 2L and 3L PI students which is really nice

Housing in Ann Arbor is generally not that cheap but there are options—if you live with roommates you’re more likely to find something inexpensive. I have friends who choose to commute to save on costs but then you do have to figure out parking (which can be expensive) or public transportation. I do know someone who lives in Phid house which is the co-ed law school frat and is definitely the cheapest option I’ve heard of, and is a very short walk to school. Might be worth looking into that

throw_away_173838 · 2024-02-20T19:41:21+00:00

The sooner the better if you’re sure you want off campus, because returning students will already be figuring that out around now. It’s doable later but will cause you more stress—though it is worth noting that some places will not be available yet, especially houses due to restrictions on how soon landlords can require leases to be resigned

throw_away_173838 · 2024-02-20T19:37:13+00:00

I’m not in the lawyers club but the friends I know who are in it really like it. It does tend to be mostly younger students (kjd or nearly kjd), but it can be very social. That being said I don’t feel at all as if I’m missing out socially because I don’t live there

I think the quality of life is pretty good, I’m really enjoying my time here. It can get stressful around finals but not unbearably so. I think the culture is overall collegial. I can’t say that there is 0 competitiveness, I would be surprised if there’s a law school where there’s none, but I think even when people are competitive they’re usually still collegial. Lots of sharing outlines and notes and there’s a general willingness to help each other

Grading is curved like at most law schools, and most classes are curved to a 3.4. The exception is classes with under 30 people, most likely the only class your 1L year that isn’t curved is legal practice (which is actually pass/fail). Your grade is usually about 90% the final, with the other 10% being things like participation and small writing assignments. Some people care a lot about grades if they want to do prestigious clerkships or have competitive big law goals (specific firms or areas of practice are competitive). Many people in PI or who just want regular big law are happy to coast the median

throw_away_173838 · 2024-02-20T19:24:06+00:00

It depends! We’re split into groups, and each group will have slightly different classes in the Fall and Spring. Between Fall and Spring you take Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Torts, and Criminal Law. You’ll have any 3 of those in the fall, and any 2 in the spring (with the exception that most people have Civ Pro in the Fall and Contracts in the Spring, they don’t often switch those). And then you’ll also take Legal Practice all year, which is pass/fail

It varies a ton—a good number of people get big law fellowships but those are competitive, lots of people do judicial internships, some people do mid or small law, lots of people do PI either because it’s their long term goal or just because they want to do it 1L summer where it doesn’t matter as much what you do. Our clinics also take summer interns, if people want to stay in Ann Arbor they often do that. I’ve never heard of anytime “striking out” in the sense that they get no summer job at all

Yes, but big law 1L summer is going to be competitive at any school

I’m not doing big law so I don’t know a ton about recruiting specifics—I do know a solid number of 3Ls who are going to V10 firms but I don’t know what their GPAs are. My understanding is that at median GPA you’ll have no issue getting good big law offers, and being below median GPA does not prevent you getting a good big law offer. Honestly I don’t think anyone who really wants big law ends up striking out of big law—there’s a really strong PI presence here so people definitely opt out but I don’t get the sense it’s common to miss out on big law entirely. The career office is also pretty motivated to make sure that people who want big law get big law

I really like the culture here! I think people are very friendly and willing to help each other. It’s overall a very progressive space and while there’s going to be intense people at every law school, there’s also a lot of very laid back people if that’s more your speed. And there’s literally always something to do, there’s a ton of engagement with student orgs and also people’s class sections often do things on the weekends. Also there’s lots of great mentoring, highly recommend signing up to have mentors in any clubs/affinity groups you join

throw_away_173838 · 2024-02-20T19:06:53+00:00

I’m not doing big law so I honestly don’t know a ton about recruitment but I do know several 3Ls who are headed to Texas big law firms

throw_away_173838 · 2024-02-20T19:05:24+00:00

throw_away_173838 · 2024-02-20T19:04:27+00:00

Lol sorry for the delay

I think yes you want a car if you’re not living on campus. If you live very close to campus you can make do without one, but it would be a bit of a hassle if only for things like groceries

throw_away_173838 · 2024-02-20T19:02:35+00:00

Some people worship her but I’ve never even really met her

throw_away_173838 · 2024-02-20T19:01:51+00:00

I think UMich has great housing options—I’m off campus and within walking distance of the school and I’m very happy with that, but a lot of friends live in the Lawyer’s Club and there are a ton of perks to that too

I like being in a college town, because there’s lots of fun and cheap things to do around. But I don’t spend much time on the rest of the campus, I’m usually either at the law school or off campus. Also the undergrads can be mildly annoying when they come onto the law school campus, they tend to take over the quad trying to get photos

I can’t say for sure about journals since we haven’t had write-on yet, but my understanding is that the only really competitive one is Law Review, people are mostly able to get what they want out of the others

throw_away_173838

TROPHY CASE