How much is a degree from a low level law school worth? (and more ?s) - Page 5

XXXNoahXXX · #41 03-02-2007, 11:59 AM

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tier 4's?

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Roger Williams, Cooley, etc. If you go to one of these for a year and get all As, and you have experience and good undergrad record, and a compelling story, you can transfer up.

Basically, you will need to be the best at your lower tier school and make it obvious to the admissions people at the higher ranked school that you belong there.

XXXNoahXXX · #42 03-02-2007, 12:01 PM

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Anyone,

Let's say someone wanted to just start a private practice (be an ambulance chaser, do wills, etc..) Forget the amount of hours per week or pay level. Does anything matter other than being admitted to the bar?

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Unless you plan on taking over someone elses practice or have a lot of legal experience, it is VERY difficult to just come straight out of law school/bar passage and do this. Obviously some people do it, just "hang a shingle" as they say, and go on your own. The problems are obviously huge startup costs, lack of any client base or name recognition. If you have the money and the drive, you can make it happen, but it will be a rough road for the first few years.

MrMon · #43 03-02-2007, 12:45 PM

I would guess the best routes to take if you're going to just hang out a shingle would be ambulance chaser, traffic law, or immigration. With those, you're either looking to do volume work or hit a home run with some easily manipulated jury.

James Boston · #44 03-02-2007, 02:13 PM

Noah-

Where are these huge start-up costs incurred?

I'm not thinking about doing this, BTW. Just curious.

niss · #45 03-02-2007, 03:02 PM

Hello everyone,

As I've mentioned a couple of times before, I'm the hiring partner at a large New Jersey law firm.

I could type for hours (and produce an utterly tl;dr post) responding to the posts above based on my personal experience and opinions (I graduated law school in 1991) (that's not to insinuate that everything said above is untrue, some of it is very accurate). Instead of doing that and boring the hell out of everyone, and to the extent anyone feels that I might be able to add something to this discussion, feel free to post questions to me in this thread, or PM me if you prefer.

niss · #46 03-02-2007, 03:05 PM

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Noah-

Where are these huge start-up costs incurred?

I'm not thinking about doing this, BTW. Just curious.

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I'd imagine the cost of getting office space, getting it up and running, and the cost of trying to get your name out, when there is no income coming in.

MrMon · #47 03-02-2007, 03:57 PM

Here are some hiring partner questions:

1. At your firm, is the hiring partner position permanent or temporary?
2. Does your firm give you any credit for it, or is it just something that people have to do?
3. Do you still have to maintain the same hour requirements while being the hiring partner?
4. What are your class standing requirements? Top 20%? Top 10%? Do higher ranked schools get a lower cut line? Would you rather have a 50th percentale Yale grad or a top 10% Rutgers grad?

jesusarenque · #48 03-02-2007, 04:40 PM

It would be incredibly difficult to "hang a shingle" in immigration law. I agree with you on "ambulance chaser" and "traffic law."

niss · #49 03-02-2007, 04:47 PM

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Here are some hiring partner questions:

1. At your firm, is the hiring partner position permanent or temporary?
2. Does your firm give you any credit for it, or is it just something that people have to do?
3. Do you still have to maintain the same hour requirements while being the hiring partner?
4. What are your class standing requirements? Top 20%? Top 10%? Do higher ranked schools get a lower cut line? Would you rather have a 50th percentale Yale grad or a top 10% Rutgers grad?

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Thanks for your questions, all good ones.

1. We have rotating committee obligations. Hiring partner is not one of the more popular jobs, as the hiring committee involves more work than most other committees. The prior hiring partners have all moved on to "better" appointments when given the opportunity. I enjoy being the hiring partner. I enjoy interacting with the students, and I enjoy doing interviews. I enjoy having something of a head start on knowing our new hires and our summer associates. So I imagine that I'll keep doing it for a while ... but it's not really a permanent position.

2. Being a partner is a lot like being an associate. Those that succeed are those that show the most commitment to the team, those who go the extra mile. Even in a partnership, you may have those who are into it more than others. So while we all are assigned to various administrative obligations, those of us who give up more of our free time than others to help the firm may receive some type of additional, small financial benefit at the end of the year.

3. My hours now are more than when I was an associate, but I have much more non-billable time than I did. There is much more administrative work, as well as client development obligations. Personally, I enjoy most of the administrative stuff, and the client development stuff can be fun too -- a lot of golf and travel.

I should mention that I do not work in New York City. So no matter what happens, my workload is never onerous. I rarely work on the weekends, and if I do it's usually from home, Sunday night, after the kids go to bed. I have a life (which includes time for poker), and have time to enjoy it.

4. Class standing requirements vary depending on the school. But they are far from set in stone. There are a number of other things we consider -- employment experience, clerkships, interests, diversity, etc. It's not just grades, although grades are certainly important.

James Boston · #50 03-02-2007, 06:10 PM

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Noah-

Where are these huge start-up costs incurred?

I'm not thinking about doing this, BTW. Just curious.

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I'd imagine the cost of getting office space, getting it up and running, and the cost of trying to get your name out, when there is no income coming in.

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Yeah, but starting any business takes money. Unless you buy an existing business, having cash flow on day one is going to be an issue.

I live in a small area, and have mentioned before that I'm in advertising sales. The only reason I was curious is that I know what office rent is here, and I know what effective advertisiing costs. I just didn't know if being a lawyer had other costs I didn't know about. I would think, especially in smaller markets, one could "hang a shingle." I don't know really anything about law, but I would guess that settling a case is worth a decent amount of money, as in the ambulance chasing example. One wouldn't have to settle a ton of cases to payback a years worth of overhead and advertising costs. Borrowing the money might be an issue. I don't know, just thinking outloud.