Very OT: The Merits of Boalt Hall?

you can learn from the great proponent of torture, the esteemed John Yoo. Barf.

You are indeed in an awesome position. Here’s what I would consider:

1. Scholarships. Last time I checked, I have over $150K of law school debt. But good news, it looks like I’m a class member of the UC professional students suit!
2. Geography. This factor isn’t as important because all 3 schools are so highly regarded, but alumni networks are stronger in each location, which is a factor in attorney recruiting.
3. Job prospects. You should be fine at any of the schools, provided the economy fully recovers by your 2L year (and you do decently enough). Since the schools are similarly ranked, grades, your personality, and alumni networks are the major factors here.
4. Boalt now has a pass/no pass grading system.
5. Distance from family/friends/significant other.

With a year of hard work, some charm, two years of slacking off, and 3 months of cramming, you too can be a member of a profession where time is recorded in 0.25 or. 0.10 hour intervals. In all seriousness, good luck.

What attracts to you the field? I could see the appeal of being a “cause” lawyer, eg working for a political,social or religous cause you care about, but if you aren’t doing that, what about law do you like? What is enjoyable about it for you?

is go to the admitted students day. i know schools dress themselves up during these times but you also get a chance to interact with professors, students, ad potential classmates. it’s also when you get the most info. boalt does tend to be late with these things and since they have a public university budget you get far less mailers than from nyu and columbia. i’d say call em up. ed tom is a nice guy and is always willing to talk to admits if he can. prolly get you the info you’re looking for too or give you a lead at least.

the advice given by others above is on point, consider what you want to do during and after law school; location, type of law, your financial situation, etc. you really can’t make a wrong choice with your options so it is really a matter of where you’ll fit best.

congrats

If you want to give me an email address I can send you my thoughts!

First of all, congrats! Don’t put too much stock into which professors are teaching where. You’ll probably find that some of the great legal minds aren’t necessarily great professors, and some of your favorite professors will be people you had never heard of before enrolling. FWIW I had Issacharoff when he was at Columbia, and he was absolutely awesome. I don’t think anyone else could have actually made me interested in CivPro. But it’s just one class among many.

Like others have said, you’re going to get a great degree with any of those 3 options. I think the most important questions to ask, assuming you’d be happy living in either SF or NYC, are 1) Do you know already what type of law you want to practice?, and 2) Do you know where you want to practice after you graduate? Not that you’ll have a hard time finding work in any city with those degrees, but there are pros and cons to each. I agree with the above comment that Columbia focuses heavily and is regarded as an international law school, so if you’re interested in working abroad at some point, that would be a great option. On the other hand, if you know you want to work in Cali, I might choose Boalt over Columbia, and definitely NYU.

Of course, if you don’t know the answer to those questions right now, that’s perfectly fine. I went into law school having no idea what I wanted to do, but by the time I graduated I had found something I loved.

Anyway, if you’d like to give an email address, and are interested in more specific info about Columbia (or to a lesser extent, NYU), I’d be more than happy to oblige.

09, congrats on getting in some awesome law schools!

I went to Boalt back in 1990-94 (took some time off in the middle b/c of sickness). Let me preface my comments by my background at the time. I went to undergrad at U. of Texas at Austin (hook’em horns!) but didn’t plan on living in Texas. My 1st choice was Boalt primarily b/c I planned on staying in California afterwards. My undergrad degree was a liberal arts program & I took a lot of philosophy and history classes, which I LOVED. I loved my undergrad experience and HATED law school. I think b/c I really had no idea of what law school was, so I wasn’t prepared for the “legal” way of thinking. So that doesn’t reflect on Boalt, more me at that time. That being said, I loved being in the Bay Area, the law students were generally way more liberal than the faculty. The students were generally smart, nice and not insanely competitive. Depending on where you want to practice afterwards, I think that is more important. I think it’s pretty safe to say that a Boalt degree will do you well in CA. If you want to practice on the East Coast or NY, I would think the other 2 schools are better choices.

Good luck! And remember that law school doesn’t teach you anything that practical about law practice in real life or the bar exam!

I really appreciate all of the advice and experiences that you’ve all shared. I would’ve responded earlier, but I got home from work just in time to flip on the TV and catch the beginning of the game. In response to many of the comments above:

Where I want to work is a bit complicated. At the moment, it looks like I’ll be following my significant other to the East Coast immediately after law school. Once she completes her PhD five years later, I have no doubt that we’ll be back, either in LA or the Bay Area. I suppose that means I should be leaning towards NYU or Columbia, but it’s hard to base my decision on something like that- she could completely change her direction three years from now. As far as what I want to do, I’m just assuming that something will jump out at me while I’m in school.

I’ll try to get back to individual comments a bit later, but the second half is about to start.

Go Bruins!

go to Columbia, so if that’s what you are after, then go there. That bit of information came from the Columbia Law grad that sat next to me at the bar. NYU ain’t shabby either. I would pick either above Boalt if I was so lucky but I think you know more about this than any glib information I can give.

It all depends on what you want to do. If you want to be public interest or work for the government, it would probably be better to go to the place that gives you the most scholarship money (or weigh the cost benefit against the fact that GPLUS loans can be forgiven in 10 years, and IBR is pretty sweet) Law school is expensive. I have 200K in debt right now and jobs are hard to come by. Remember that and take heed of the fact that the law profession has gone through a drastic re-alignment in the way business is done, especially at big firms. Some say that it will never be the same again.

Here’s my take for what it’s worth. I was faced with the same decision as you, deciding between Columbia, NYU and Boalt. Born and raised in LA, I was immediately partial to heading east for a few years. I ultimately decided on NYU because of the location, figuring that I couldn’t go wrong in terms of finding a job after law school. The three years I spent living near NYU were some of the most fun years of my life (despite being there for only 3 weeks before 9/11 happened), and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. $150K in law school loans are inevitable, but as you point out, if you do want to go into public interest/government work, the NYU programs and the LRAP are terrific. I of course went the corporate route, but am happily back here in the warmth and sunshine (and non-humid summers) of Los Angeles. To be honest, I haven’t been very plugged in to the law school decision and law firm recruiting circles for a while, and I’m sure it’s a bit tougher these days to find summer associate positions and what not. But I knew I wanted to come back to LA, and at the time I was going through the process, everyone that I knew from NYU that wanted to come out to LA did so without issue, and in almost every case had their pick of the firms out here. And of course, if you want to stay out east, going to NYU or Columbia would give you a leg up.