Career & Grad School Advice (Law Related)

[GeekyPenguin]

I hate student loan debt as much as the next girl but I think he should transfer. My fiance went to a Top 30 law school for free and I went to a 2nd tier school for free. We still have six figures in student loan debt. If neither of you want to stay where you are, then he absolutely should transfer, because the better your school, the more mobility you'll have to end up somewhere you both want to be, both doing what you want to do. If he can do the big firm lifestyle for a few years, you can get rid of all that debt and have a lot more options available to you.

Forgot to comment on the long-distance thing - I was in an LDR all three years of law school. You can make it work if you know it's only temporary.

[AlphaFrog]

This may be a ridiculous question, but can someone only get one law degree, forever and ever amen? I thought there were specialized degrees...could he get one at his current school and work for awhile, then when you've saved some money/finished grad school/whatever go back and get another degree from a better school?

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

This may be a ridiculous question, but can someone only get one law degree, forever and ever amen? I thought there were specialized degrees...could he get one at his current school and work for awhile, then when you've saved some money/finished grad school/whatever go back and get another degree from a better school?

Generally yes, you get one JD and that is it. Some people (very very few) go on to get an LLM in a specialized area (like tax) but of all our lawyer friends, I think we know about 5 who did that. Where your JD is from is going to be what matters because it's 99.999999999% likely to be your terminal degree.

[VandalSquirrel]

I don't know how aware you are of what's going on in the legal profession, but assuming he'll make 160,000, let alone have a job, even with a degree from a T-10 school isn't realistic. If you can find a job where you can make money and advance while living in a place that makes you happy, regardless of his law school choice, that could possibly be better in the long run. You will be happy and have income to bring to the relationship while he is dealing with the bar and/or finding a job and then he will hopefully be employed to support you when you decide to go back to school in a few years.

There is a lot of information out there about the legal job market and the number of jobs in relation to the number of graduates and since you're in a relationship knowing as much about a situation that may affect you in the long term is worth a bit of googling.

[VandalSquirrel]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

This may be a ridiculous question, but can someone only get one law degree, forever and ever amen? I thought there were specialized degrees...could he get one at his current school and work for awhile, then when you've saved some money/finished grad school/whatever go back and get another degree from a better school?

Originally Posted by GeekyPenguin

Generally yes, you get one JD and that is it. Some people (very very few) go on to get an LLM in a specialized area (like tax) but of all our lawyer friends, I think we know about 5 who did that. Where your JD is from is going to be what matters because it's 99.999999999% likely to be your terminal degree.

There are also people with an MLIS and go the Law Librarian route, with most positions requiring a JD and a library degree. Some schools offer them together, like University of Washington.

Idaho has the "Waters of the West" program which pairs a graduate degree in environmental science if I remember right. Most IP and patent people also have a second degree, usually a Masters.

There are also the people who have a degree from a top school and can't pass the MPRE or the bar, and that makes things difficult to be employed in many legal jobs.

[bigquestions]

Thank you so much for your help and advice, everyone. I really appreciate it.

Somewhere upthread someone asked what specialty he's looking at. He has an engineering undergrad degree and is looking to go into IP/patent law.

Originally Posted by VandalSquirrel

I don't know how aware you are of what's going on in the legal profession, but assuming he'll make 160,000, let alone have a job, even with a degree from a T-10 school isn't realistic.

....

There is a lot of information out there about the legal job market and the number of jobs in relation to the number of graduates and since you're in a relationship knowing as much about a situation that may affect you in the long term is worth a bit of googling.

This is something that really does scare us, because we've seen the horror stories about so many students with mountains of law debt who are unemployed or can only get crappy jobs. It's something we're seriously thinking about. The reason I mentioned that his prospects are good for a big law job is that he currently has a 1L summer associateship in his preferred speciality with a V10 firm, and from the way things have been going and the feedback he has been getting he will most likely be invited back for 2L summer. If he keeps up the good work he will likely get an offer from them. The firm is currently building this branch and very commonly gives offers to their 2L summers. This year he is the only 1L summer assoc. they selected and there is only one 2L summer assoc.

But if for some reason things didn't work out there... I don't know what would happen. Is it better to be a top 1% graduate from a 2nd tier school with no debt and no job, or a mid-to-top (not sure exactly how he would fare, but he would definitely be in at least the top 30%) graduate from a T14 school school with 200K in debt and no job? I feel like his job prospects would be better in the second scenario, but it still scares the you-know-what out of me. I ask because I honestly don't know.

He's also planning to talk to one of the partners he's friendly with at this firm about whether transferring would affect his chances of getting an offer there. To me it would seem like it would make him a more attractive candidate, but from his casual conversations with this person, the partner doesn't seem very thrilled about him going. I can't tell if it's because they're afraid they'll lose him to another firm (which happened recently to one of their summer associates with a similar situation, who ended up getting another offer from a competing firm and turned them down) or if it's because his doing his last 2 years in another region will make him a less appealing candidate.

Again, thank you everyone!