Interesting stuff. You and I practice in such different areas it's almost as if we have 2 entirely different professions. I'm with you on the price of gasoline affecting individual consumers. And certainly perception drives reality.
slandballa, Rockets R' Us - I'm Northwestern JD/MBA, graduate 2010. Feel free to shoot me an email (huy@alum.mit.edu) to ask about admission to the law school or the MBA program.
Yep. It is a different world. If I had a dollar for every client, either BK or family, that did not retain us due to money or that retained and failed to pay, I'd retire.
i was gonna get a law degree in harvard, but i decided to drop out and went into pc software bussiness instead.
This BBS just keeps on gettin better everyday. Definitely looking forward to linking with you man, thanks for lending a hand. Question though, "alum.mit.edu"? What'd you do at MIT? Undergrad? And SlandBalla, we need to link up too then man, seeing that we're on the same track I'm sure we can kick some advice back and forth to help us both out. My e-mail is fburha2@uic.edu
I'd go back if I were you. After your first year, I'd say it's probably not worth your time and money. After your second year, you've already completed more than half of the degree. Even if you never practice, the degree could set you apart from other candidates.
I just got back from a visit to the Bay area this weekend, so I figure I'd chime in. I applied this cycle, and have acceptance letters from Columbia, NYU, Berkeley, UChicago, UPenn, and Virginia (still waiting to hear from Harvard, Yale, and Stanford). I applied two years ago to a wider swath of schools and had significant scholarships at UT and Northwestern. I'd recommend checking out some of these sites to get a sense of the rough odds you have at different schools: http://lawschoolnumbers.com/ http://www.hourumd.com/ http://lawschoolcalculator.com/ http://officialguide.lsac.org/UGPASearch/LSATGPA.aspx?ref=inline&sidstring= http://www.chiashu.com/ Obviously, statistics aren't perfect, and most of these are self-selecting populations, but they'll give you some idea about what kind of numbers you need to have a good shot. My general advice would be, if you have several years of work experience, and a GPA that is less than stellar, to do what you can to find particular strengths that a law school has (e.g. a strong intellectual property curriculum, bankruptcy, etc.) and to tailor your application so that they have a strong sense of the kind of law student you'll be. You'll be competing against a lot of undergrads who will be blathering on about wanting to right wrongs and represent the downtrodden, when the reality is that the vast majority of people go to work for firms out of school (not all, but the vast majority). Going ahead and distinguishing yourself as someone who has really specific goals will be a big help as an applicant. As far as all the talk about whether a JD is worth it or not. I think several posters are right on in saying it depends on what you want from a degree. A JD certainly isn't a ticket to an automatic six figures out of school, and a lot of those six figure jobs require you to give up most of your personal life. But there's usually room for you to find something you really want to do if you know how to look. My girlfriend is a first year associate at Quinn Emanuel, which is one probably the top IP litigation firm in the country, she pulls in ridiculous money for someone right out of school, does really interesting work, and still has time to spend the entire weekend with me in San Francisco. A JD is a great investment, as long as you invest the time in researching what options you'll have with it, and you invest the time in law school to get the grades that'll open up those options.
It tell kids what I tell my kids, attaining 100k in debt is never good. I graduated with a biochemistry degree, started teaching so I could coach, worked for halliburton for a few yrs, then out the twitch of my hand, started driving 18 wheelers. I enjoyed seeing the road and doing what I wanted, but my bigger goal was small fleet. Bought a truck a year for the next 3 yrs debt free. I didn't get new trucks, but anything under 500k miles is low milage. I make over 500k and even after fuel and paying drivers, I'm still over 100k and I don't leave the house unless I'm bored. The moral is that as long as you have passion for what you're trying to do, money is irrelevant. Also,when I talk to school kids is a degree is fine, but don't close your mind to all options even if they're not "sexy." So is law school worth it? Sometimes, sometimes not, it just depends. My nephew is adding letter to his name and racking up debt which he'll probably never pay off.
