UT or University of Chicago Law?

[CfRhTxStBobcats 602]

Nothing like waiting until the last second, but my nephew has to decide by 11:59 est wether to attend UT or Chicago law school. His COA at UT is $40k and Chicago is $200k. He's torn because he likes Chicago but he likes the thought of no practically no debt. 

Thoughts if any lawyers or non lawyers for that matter out there read this this evening.

[Gil Bang 25,985]

where does he intend to practice?

[NeverMarryAStripper 21,913]

Where does he intend to practice?

[CfRhTxStBobcats 602]

3 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

where does he intend to practice?

That's why he's having such a tough time deciding. He's not sure if he wants to stay in Texas or not. He was smart enough to eliminate Notre Dame and a few others but keeps going back and forth with his two choices. As of last night he was leaning UT and of course that's what I'm pulling for. 

[CfRhTxStBobcats 602]

What are you guys thoughts on the potential income of each school? Over his career I guess $160k isn't that big a deal.

[Gil Bang 25,985]

What the fuck do I know?  It depends on how good or shitty a lawyer he turns out to be.

I've got a client that went to Thomas fucking Jefferson in San Diego, and he makes bank.  That's the University of Phoenix of law schools.

 

[CfRhTxStBobcats 602]

Just now, Gil Bang said:

What the fuck do I know?  It depends on how good or shitty a lawyer he turns out to be.

I've got a client that went to Thomas fucking Jefferson in San Diego, and he makes bank.  That's the University of Phoenix of law schools.

 

That's good to know. I told him if he's good the money will come wherever he goes. 

[Rudiger 1,163]

Chicago without question. 

[CfRhTxStBobcats 602]

4 minutes ago, Rudiger said:

Chicago without question. 

Chicago was his 2nd choice behind Yale but there was no scholarship offer from Yale. He's always liked UT law and they made his choice difficult with the generous offer. I guess we'll know in a couple of hours.

[DalTxHornFan 3,112]

When was the last time anybody asked to see your high school diploma?  Get your law license -- make your reputation. 

Edited April 16, 2023 by DalTxHornFan

[CfRhTxStBobcats 602]

2 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

When was the last time anybody asked to see your high school diploma?  Get your law license -- make your reputation. 

 I agree. It's UT with the deadline so hopefully he grabs it. 

[Rudiger 1,163]

23 minutes ago, CfRhTxStBobcats said:

Chicago was his 2nd choice behind Yale but there was no scholarship offer from Yale. He's always liked UT law and they made his choice difficult with the generous offer. I guess we'll know in a couple of hours.

If he has an offer to Yale he should go to Yale. 

[CfRhTxStBobcats 602]

8 minutes ago, Rudiger said:

If he has an offer to Yale he should go to Yale. 

I'm double checking on that. I know he applied but wasn't considering anywhere that didn't offer a scholarship of some kind. He's freaking out over $200k and I have no idea what a law degree from Yale would cost. 

[tx 3 putt 77,271]

Goto Yale 

[Bevo 13,592]

I think he should wait to decide pending a consensus on this board.

[CooterBrown 18,022]

I’m not a lawyer but a few lawyers I know agreed that law is regional so you need to go where you want to practice unless you go to a top 10 school. Those are national. I’m sure an actual law dog will give us their opinion on that in 1,000 words or more.

[tx 3 putt 77,271]

Surly law dogs are too busy doing blow and hookers, it’s a typical Saturday for them 

Edited April 16, 2023 by tx 3 putt

[CfRhTxStBobcats 602]

I figured he would wait until literally the last minute but he just decided on Chicago. I'm a little disappointed but happy for him. I told him none of the family will be visiting him during the winter. I was hoping he would go to UT, kick ass when he graduates and buy some good season tickets to football, basketball, and baseball. He just crushed my dreams.

[Prepuce of Doom 21,098]

39 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

I’m not a lawyer but a few lawyers I know agreed that law is regional so you need to go where you want to practice unless you go to a top 10 school. Those are national. I’m sure an actual law dog will give us their opinion on that in 1,000 words or more.

I more or less agree with this, though there are more than 10 law schools with very strong national reputations. 

[DalTxHornFan 3,112]

1 hour ago, CooterBrown said:

I’m not a lawyer but a few lawyers I know agreed that law is regional so you need to go where you want to practice unless you go to a top 10 school. Those are national. I’m sure an actual law dog will give us their opinion on that in 1,000 words or more.

This is good advice.  If you are interested in practicing law and not interested in playing in the Big Law and or Federal Judge Clerkship game, Baylor or St. Mary's are great places to get a practical law degree.   

[Anastasis 23,481]

Tell him to drop out of law school and find something productive to do with his life. 

[South Austin 52,536]

Have you told him that he doesn’t need an actual law degree to post on Surly?

[TwiceHorn 31,516]

Chicago all day every day.

Some of the stuff said here about local advantage and regionality of law is true as far as it goes.

Chicago is elite, UT is near elite.  Even without graduating Order of the Coif, Chicago will open doors open only to the most elite at UT.

Example.  When I was in law school, the legal economy was poor and UT people were struggling to find clerkships and jobs after graduation.  I ran into a friend going to Harvard.  Every major law firm in Texas pooled together to fly him to Dallas (home town) on a two week interview junket.  He wasn't law review or anything.

Texas firms will salivate to get him.  So will firms in other metro areas that present other opportunities.  Plus clerkships.

Go to the best school you can get into.

Edited April 16, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[Kennythetiger 9,418]

10 hours ago, Bevo said:

I think he should wait to decide pending a consensus on this board.

Can he give us the phone numbers of the admissions office?  We can get him an extension on his deadline. 

[CooterBrown 18,022]

I more or less agree with this, though there are more than 10 law schools with very strong national reputations. 

Sounds like someone who didn’t go to a top 10 law school.

[CfRhTxStBobcats 602]

42 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Chicago all day every day.

Some of the stuff said here about local advantage and regionality of law is true as far as it goes.

Chicago is elite, UT is near elite.  Even without graduating Order of the Coif, Chicago will open doors open only to the most elite at UT.

Example.  When I was in law school, the legal economy was poor and UT people were struggling to find clerkships and jobs after graduation.  I ran into a friend going to Harvard.  Every major law firm in Texas pooled together to fly him to Dallas (home town) on a two week interview junket.  He wasn't law review or anything.

Texas firms will salivate to get him.  So will firms in other metro areas that present other opportunities.  Plus clerkships.

Go to the best school you can get into.

Thanks! I'm going to pass this on to him. He's been really torn between the two since he eliminated the others. I kind of figured he would go with Chicago since he's had them in his top two since deciding to pursue a law degree. Personally I had no idea Chicago had such a good law school. Financially UT had the best offer by far.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, CfRhTxStBobcats said:

I figured he would wait until literally the last minute but he just decided on Chicago. I'm a little disappointed but happy for him. I told him none of the family will be visiting him during the winter. I was hoping he would go to UT, kick ass when he graduates and buy some good season tickets to football, basketball, and baseball. He just crushed my dreams.

Son went to college in NY.  We visited once during Freshman year and 3 times during Senior year.  Other than that, he came home to see family.    The focus is school, not maintaining old ties. Spring break, Summer, Thanksgiving and Christmas/ Winter break was his cadence. It worked out fine.

[TwiceHorn 31,516]

33 minutes ago, CfRhTxStBobcats said:

Thanks! I'm going to pass this on to him. He's been really torn between the two since he eliminated the others. I kind of figured he would go with Chicago since he's had them in his top two since deciding to pursue a law degree. Personally I had no idea Chicago had such a good law school. Financially UT had the best offer by far.

With a Chicago law degree, it's virtually certain that he will start in the lower six figures, almost without regard to class standing.  He can make easy work of student debt.

At UT, about half the class is going to miss out on the big starting salaries.  Maybe a little less.

A few years out of UT, I found myself in New Haven on business and cruised by Yale Law School.  There was a posting of the jobs of the graduating class.  Big city biglaw firms left and right.  Appellate and Supreme Court clerkships.  The worst jobs were public interest things, but at a very high level.  Not Legal Aid of South Texas but like ACLU headquarters, etc.

In the longer run, anyone can make a pretty decent legal career out of UT, or Baylor or SMU.  But certain opportunities are not going to be as easily available coming out of UT as coming from an elite school.  These may not be opportunities that he wants for the longer term, or really anyone but a select few, but it's nice to have the option.

An interesting note.  UT and other "national" law schools tend not to teach Texas law, except in certain contexts like Oil and Gas law, which is sort of inherently Texas law.  That used to be a disadvantage on the Texas Bar, and explains why Baylor used to usually do well on the bar, as they teach Texas law as a general proposition.

I just found out that Texas moved to the Uniform Bar Examination in 2021, which is a "model," common law exam that deemphasizes Texas law to a greater degree than ever before.

Edited April 16, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[CooterBrown 18,022]

I figured he would wait until literally the last minute but he just decided on Chicago. I'm a little disappointed but happy for him. I told him none of the family will be visiting him during the winter. I was hoping he would go to UT, kick ass when he graduates and buy some good season tickets to football, basketball, and baseball. He just crushed my dreams.

So, your main concern is that you won’t be able to mooch tickets off your nephew? I hope he never looks to you for life advice beyond choosing between brown and cream gravy.

[Dahobbs 17,628]

If he got into Yale, he should go to Yale regardless of cost. I think the choice between Chicago without scholarship and Texas with scholarship is much closer than @TwiceHorn. I'd pick the one he likes the most after a visit if he doesn't have a strong preference on where he wants to live. Chicago and Austin are pretty different, wherever he'll be happier during law school is the way to go in my opinion. 

[Surly Bevo 25,100]

Fucking lawyers.  The deadline was last night at 11:59 and you all are still here giving advice.

 

[Pato del Muerto 52,550]

If he’s been accepted by all of these law schools, student loan debt really shouldn’t be near the front of his decision drivers.  He should be able to cover whatever amount comfortably.  Hopefully he doesn’t spend another second thinking about it while he’s at U of C- assuming getting financed isn’t an issue. 

Edited April 16, 2023 by Pato del Muerto

[CfRhTxStBobcats 602]

47 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

So, your main concern is that you won’t be able to mooch tickets off your nephew? I hope he never looks to you for life advice beyond choosing between brown and cream gravy.

His dad is an aggy, my nephew is not. What better way to rub salt in his wounds than to go to a UT football game with his son?

[TwiceHorn 31,516]

30 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

If he got into Yale, he should go to Yale regardless of cost. I think the choice between Chicago without scholarship and Texas with scholarship is much closer than @TwiceHorn. I'd pick the one he likes the most after a visit if he doesn't have a strong preference on where he wants to live. Chicago and Austin are pretty different, wherever he'll be happier during law school is the way to go in my opinion. 

Possibly fair point re: Chicago vs. UT.  Chicago is not quire Yale.  Still, I think it is more firmly in the category of elite than Texas.

One thing is that Chicago's class size is much smaller, so there is actually less "intra school" competition for jobs.

Historically, too, UT has employed pretty harsh grading policies relative to other schools of its caliber.  I don't know about Chicago, it might be the same way, whereas most of the top law schools are pass-fail or heavily biased toward "good grades."

[Guest]

Is debt that big of a concern during Law School?

[Pato del Muerto 52,550]

3 minutes ago, slorch said:

Is debt that big of a concern during Law School?

Less so than, say, elementary education. 

[TwiceHorn 31,516]

7 minutes ago, slorch said:

Is debt that big of a concern during Law School?

It can be, yes.

At sub-elite law schools, sub-elite and sometimes even elite graduates can have difficulty finding a high-paying job.  That also includes graduates of UT in the lower reaches of class standing.

They may end up with a glorious and insanely lucrative career in a field like personal injury law, but servicing $100k in student debt or worse on a shitty little lawdog job could suck.  And law schools tend to be expensive relative even to undergraduate.

The entire concept of a law school was born largely of profit motive.  Christopher Columbus Langdell of Harvard Law School sold the concept along with the Socratic Method of teaching on the high student-to-faculty ratio.

Edited April 16, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[Guest]

was just kidding, boys and girls...and making light of the financial premise for Rounders.

[Kennythetiger 9,418]

1 hour ago, Surly Bevo said:

Fucking lawyers.  The deadline was last night at 11:59 and you all are still here giving advice.

 

You must be new here. Very few of Surly’s legal experts have ever seen the inside of a law school, let alone sat for a bar exam. 

[Bevo 13,592]

13 minutes ago, Kennythetiger said:

You must be new here. Very few of Surly’s legal experts have ever stepped inside of a law school, let alone sat for a bar exam. 

Since I resemble that remark let me take a stab at this. I don't think that I have seen the inside of a law school although it is likely that Legally Blonde was filmed on location. And, I don't have much desire to see the inside of a law school unless sex and a gavel is involved. Bars, though, are more up my alley.

With that said, top tier schools open up more doors than second tier. For MBAs, this mean that Kellogg offers better opportunities than Texas. But those opportunity differences only exist for maybe the top 9 schools. Once you get to Virginia, Dartmouth, Yale, Berkeley, Cornell the opportunity differences decrease. Then, UCLA, Texas, UNC, Indiana are probably at the next tier. The same is likely true for law schools. Yale, Harvard, Chicago, NYU, Stanford, Columbia, Penn, are top tier and will automatically open doorswith big paychecks and a set ladder for success. Then there is Virginia, Berkeley, Michigan, Duke, Cornell, Georgetown who are second tier but still open lots of opportunities but not a dramatic number and then there is Wash U, UCLA, Boston, Vanderbilt where the opportunities start becoming more regional and success will be based more on you than the degree.

[tx 3 putt 77,271]

3 hours ago, CfRhTxStBobcats said:

Thanks! I'm going to pass this on to him. He's been really torn between the two since he eliminated the others. I kind of figured he would go with Chicago since he's had them in his top two since deciding to pursue a law degree. Personally I had no idea Chicago had such a good law school. Financially UT had the best offer by far.

there’s a certain surly favorite / onlyfans ‘talent’ in Chicago. Just saying 

[South Austin 52,536]

2 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

If he got into Yale, he should go to Yale regardless of cost. I think the choice between Chicago without scholarship and Texas with scholarship is much closer than @TwiceHorn. I'd pick the one he likes the most after a visit if he doesn't have a strong preference on where he wants to live. Chicago and Austin are pretty different, wherever he'll be happier during law school is the way to go in my opinion. 

Agree with all of this.

I loved staying in Austin at my undergrad alma mater for law school. While a great three years of my life, there were also moments of tremendous stress, so it was nice to have stuff like Austin live music and Longhorn sporting events as a distraction. And I got to see all of the home football games and the OU win of Ricky’s Heisman season my third year. I would’ve taken that over a place like Chicago.

But if I had gotten into Yale, I’d take on that debt in a heartbeat.

[tx 3 putt 77,271]

Do Yale law grads get better coke and hookers ?

[Dahobbs 17,628]

7 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Do Yale law grads get better coke and hookers ?

It's like being famous, they no longer have to pay for them. 

[TwiceHorn 31,516]

26 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Agree with all of this.

I loved staying in Austin at my undergrad alma mater for law school. While a great three years of my life, there were also moments of tremendous stress, so it was nice to have stuff like Austin live music and Longhorn sporting events as a distraction. And I got to see all of the home football games and the OU win of Ricky’s Heisman season my third year. I would’ve taken that over a place like Chicago.

But if I had gotten into Yale, I’d take on that debt in a heartbeat.

On the other hand, UT Law damn near ruined the UT experience for me.  I was planning on a three-year victory lap and found it to be rather unpleasant, along with many of the people.

Didn't help that we continued our football suckage from undergrad.  Third year was fun, though, with the 1990 UH game and employment secured.

Edited April 16, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[South Austin 52,536]

3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

On the other hand, UT Law damn near ruined the UT experience for me.  I was planning on a three-year victory lap and found it to be rather unpleasant, along with many of the people.

I had a very different experience. I loved law school, the intellectual challenge, the professors (mostly), and the lifelong friends I made. There were a few assholes here and there, but I avoided them. I actually liked my law school experience in Austin more than my undergraduate. I’m sure I’m in the minority.

[TwiceHorn 31,516]

44 minutes ago, South Austin said:

I had a very different experience. I loved law school, the intellectual challenge, the professors (mostly), and the lifelong friends I made. There were a few assholes here and there, but I avoided them. I actually liked my law school experience in Austin more than my undergraduate. I’m sure I’m in the minority.

You're weird.🤪

[Hank Scorpio 17,729]

U Chicago is a better school than UT, however every U Chicago lawyer I know is a fucking weirdo. 

[TwiceHorn 31,516]

1 hour ago, Hank Scorpio said:

U Chicago is a better school than UT, however every U Chicago lawyer I know is a fucking weirdo. 

I don't think I know any, but I have looked a few up and UChi seems to produce some heavy-duty weirdos generally speaking.  

[tx 3 putt 77,271]

1 hour ago, Hank Scorpio said:

U Chicago is a better school than UT, however every U Chicago lawyer I know is a fucking weirdo. 

probably a bunch of serial killers