Choosing A Law School

I'm reading Law School Confidential for tips on deciding where to apply to law school, and it's making me a little nervous. According to author Robert H. Miller, where you go to law school, geographically speaking, is crucial. The writers say "the most controversial thing in this book" is this piece of advice:

If your goal is to work for a firm, and you don't get into one of the top fifteen to twenty law schools, and you are not interested in practicing in the city, state, or region where that non-top-twenty law school is located, you're better off re-applying and trying again. (64)

I've heard things like this before, and realize it's true to some extent, but really, is it that hard to work in a region outside the region where you go to school? And what happens to this advice if, like me, you have no desire to work for a firm? For example, could I go to school in Illinois (and not at the University of Chicago, which is a top-twenty school), and still have a good shot of getting a good public interest job somewhere on the East Coast?

The question may be moot, since it looks less and less likely I'll be going to law school in Illinois. Instead, odds are currently on some school somewhere in the D.C. area, and that's probably a pretty good place for me to work after law school, so... Options include: American University, Georgetown (which would be a "reach" school), George Washington, and George Mason. (It appears that if you want to go to school in the D.C. area, your chances of attending a school with some variant of "george" in the name are quite high.) There's also the University of the District of Columbia law school, but... Anyway, if you have any tips, vignettes, helpful inside stories, or whatever about any D.C. area schools, I'd love to hear them. I'm especially interested in avoiding a "cutthroat" school (the kind where people steal books from the library to prevent other students from doing assignments, etc.—JCA talks a bit about this here), so if you know anything about the cutthroat level at any D.C. schools, that would be particularly helpful. If you're concerned about libel, the comments system on this blog happily accepts completely anonymous posts, or you can email me: ai at mowabb dot com.

Posted 06:53 PM | Comments (2) | law school

ACLU PI Fellowship

The most recent installment in the Cool Job o' the Day series: the ACLU Marvin M. Karpatkin Fellowship in Civil Liberties. This one-year fellowship is open to recent law school graduates. It looks like it would provide unparalleled public interest/civil liberties litigation experience, and it even comes with a decent paycheck. "Decent" being a relative term; public interest pay scales are, um, not impressive to the average lawyer, it seems. For the past three years I've been living on $15-20k annually, so anything above $30k is decent in my book. Combine this with a Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP), and I could be a very happy public interest lawyer. Of course, I have to get in to law school, first. Those damned details....

Posted 01:53 PM | Comments (2) | law school