This is the time of year when future lawyers have to make a crucial choice that will follow them for the rest of the legal careers: where to go to law school. The choice of law school is critical, maybe unfairly so. When you look at medical schools, the hard part is getting into a medical school. But in the legal profession, your choice of law school will be a huge factor in what professional opportunities you can take advantage of with your J.D.

Perhaps in past years, this choice was really easy for 0Ls: they could just go to the highest-ranked school they got into, and then hope for the best. But given the realities of the legal economy, 0Ls need to look at a number of factors beyond the U.S. News law school rankings: how much the school costs, what job markets the law school feed into, and so on.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve received a number of inquires from 0Ls asking for advice about which law school to attend. We’ve pulled out two of the best questions, and now we want to open it up to the Above the Law readers to give these students — and all 0Ls — the combined wisdom of the ATL community.

These are really tough choices, and we know reasonable people will disagree. Hopefully you guys can help these 0Ls feel comfortable with their decisions, whichever way they go….

Our first case study gets right to the heart of the problem in today’s environment. With high tuition and uncertain job prospects, how far down the U.S. News list should students go in order to save some money? Our first 0L has a very common problem:

I am a current 0L getting ready to make my law school decision and have narrowed my choices down to two schools. The first is the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana), which is offering me a guaranteed full ride for all three years of law school and has an extremely low cost of living. The other is Vanderbilt University, which has offered me a little more than half-tuition and has a fairly high cost of living. When all of Vanderbilt’s expenses add up, I will likely graduate with $100,000 worth of debt.

I have attended both school’s Accepted Student Weekends and find that either would be a good fit for me as far as law school environment goes. I would prefer to live somewhere in the South upon graduation, but I have no idea what type of law I would like to get into. So, should I take on the prestige and the debt, or should I go to school for free?

In past years, this would be an easy choice: Vandy is in the South, where the 0L wants to be; it’s ranked higher than Illinois; and Vandy isn’t even charging the student full freight. Game, set, match, to Vanderbilt.

But Illinois is ranked #23, according to U.S. News — only a few spots lower than Vandy (#16), so we’re talking about a very good state school. And the 0L can go there for free — not just cheaply, but free! In terms of high-paying jobs, Illinois is all up in Chicago’s business. And while Chicago might be pretty far away from the South, if the 0L ends up getting six figures without any debts to repay, I’m sure there are good airfares available for an American South vacation.

What do you guys think? Vanderbilt for half price, or Illinois for free?

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Our next case study looks not just at the cost of legal education, but also at the ability to succeed in law school:

I’m accepted with no money to the “CCN” group [Columbia / Chicago / NYU].

I’m accepted with good money from Michigan and Northwestern, as well as Minnesota [where I want to work].

I know that if I attend the U of Minnesota and finish high (top 15%) in the class, I would have a good shot at lading a job at the big firms of Minneapolis. Of course, as you know, there is no guarantee for a 0L of law school success. As a hedge against subpar law school performance, I’m debating attending the best school I get into, which in my case would be the CCN group…

Am I really worried about a bad performance in law school? Well, nothing in my past tells me that I should be. But like you have said, one never knows. I will most definitely work hard, but I know that this might not be enough to rank as high as I may like at some of the schools that I have discussed.

Thank you for speaking the truth. Most 0Ls don’t want to admit it, but when you have options, one of the things that the top schools promise is the ability to f**k up without it costing you your career.

Look, if this guy goes to Minnesota, he has to do well. And it’s not like Minnesota is so much easier than the CCN schools. They still have issue spotters and cold calls and competitive exams in the upper Midwest. And this student will have to excel at them in order to have really good job prospects. But if he goes to one of the CCN schools and his goal is to get a good law firm job in Minnesota, then realistically he can afford to sink back to he middle of the pack. You can act like that’s not true, but you know that it’s true. You can talk all you want about how Minnesota firms would rather hire top graduates from Minnesota over middle-of-the-class grads from Columbia, but you know that at the end of the day, the Columbia, Chicago, and NYU kids are going to have opportunities in Minneapolis if they want them. At Minnesota you have to do well; at CCN you have to do “not horribly.”

But how much is that peace of mind worth? This guy is talking about paying (or borrowing) full tuition at CCN versus getting a boatload of money at the school in the state he eventually wants to practice in. Should this guy even be considering paying a “slacker tax” to hedge against doing poorly in his 1L year? If it’s the difference between being debt-free in a couple of years versus being debt-saddled for a decade or more, shouldn’t the 0L take the money, and then cowboy up for the most competitive year of his life?

And then there’s the added Michigan/Northwestern angle — top schools in the right region, but arguably lacking the same kind of national prestige and employment security you’d get from CCN. If he slacks off at Michigan or NU Law, maybe he comes out okay, or maybe he ends up wearing a snarky t-shirt. And yet those schools are great for the Minnesota market, and they’re offering him money.

Decisions, decisions. I’d take a CCN school because I know that if I had the University of Minnesota on my résumé it would have been a lot harder for me to completely switch careers and still land on my feet. But I’ve also gotten used to walking around with my creditor’s foot up my ass; I don’t know any other way.

So again, the readers probably have more salient advice here:

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These students, and many students across the land, are facing some very tough choices. Remember, life is long, especially if you make the wrong decisions.

Are you a prospective law student facing your own difficult decision? Feel free to post it in the comments, and Above the Law readers might offer you some words of wisdom (or might just berate you for not getting into a top school with a full ride).

Good luck to these kids, and to all the other 0Ls out there. Everything will be okay. Right?