Law Schools

It’s A Law School Party And You Are Invited

Admitted student receptions can be an extremely valuable tool for making one of the most important decisions of a lawyer’s life.

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The admissions cycle for the law school class of 2022 is currently in full swing and as a result, I will soon be checking in on my American Airlines app and trekking to the airport for another venture on the friendly skies.  Unlike my previously documented travels, this will not be a whirlwind law firm tour, nor will it be to attend more NALP programming; instead, I will brave another encounter with TSA to meet the newest crop of law students.

As is the case with many schools, Vanderbilt hosts receptions for students who have been admitted to the law school.  While some of these events take place in Nashville, allowing 0Ls the chance to see the campus firsthand and get a small taste of what awaits them, there are other receptions which take place around the country, including Chicago where I will spend approximately 10 hours later this month, two of which will be in the offices of Baker McKenzie to meet with admitted students.  For those who intend to matriculate in the Fall and are just trying to determine to which law school they should take their talents, or even for those potential students who have been admitted and are trying to decide if law school is the right step to be taking at this time in their lives, the perception of these admitted student receptions can often rest at one of two poles: daunting or not worth the investment.  Neither are true.  Instead, these receptions provide 0Ls with an opportunity to gain some valuable information while meeting some of the people with whom they will potentially spend the next three years.

To get the most out of admitted students receptions, one first should know who will likely be in attendance.  At Vanderbilt events, you will typically have representatives from Admissions, Career Services, and Alumni Relations.  But this is only a small fraction of the attendees.  The vast majority of those in the room will be either fellow admitted students or law school alumni practicing/living in the area.  With a sense of the players, how can a 0L capitalize on more than just the free food and drink?

With regards to the law school representatives in attendance, use this as an opportunity to meet with officials who you would otherwise only get a chance to talk with over email or, perhaps, not until you enrolled.  While you will have likely already had extensive conversations with the admissions office — once you have been let into the school, their impact on your life has dwindled a significant amount — try to use the fact they are standing right next to you to chat about a scholarship.  Many schools will negotiate scholarship opportunities — Vanderbilt is not one of those schools — and said negotiations can be far more financially fruitful if done in person rather than via a stilted email exchange.

But while admitted 0Ls have likely interacted with admissions on numerous occasions before attending an admitted students reception, this might be their first crack to chat with both Career Services and Alumni Relations.  While I admittedly have a significant bias, a conversation with the former can prove quite valuable to soon to be students trying to decide between schools.  Basic information about the employment prospects of a school’s graduates are readily available outside the confines of an admitted students reception, but that data only goes so far.  Knowing how many students in a particular class went to firms with at least 501 attorneys is a decent proxy if you are a 0L concerned with trying to make $190,000 after graduation, but not all 501+ attorney firms are created equal.  By talking to a Career Services representative, you can get a sense as to whether students from that school are going to Am Law 10 firms or AmLaw 100 firms.  As I touched on a few columns back, that distinction can be of vital importance in the current legal economy which is seeing the firms at the top continue to grow with stagnation among a great many others.

Similarly, 0Ls can get a general sense as to geographic areas where students from a particular school begin their practice, but the publicly available data does not link the geographic region to the type of job.  Attending an admitted students reception will allow a potential student to find just what sort of jobs graduates are landing in Chicago, New York, or Seattle.  If you want to be a public defender in Denver, but your potential law school has only ever sent students to the Mile High City to work in private practice, that is a critical piece of information to have before making a final decision.  Representatives from Alumni Relations might not be able to tell you as much about what your potential first job out of law school might be, but they can give you some insight into the possible arc of legal career while also giving you a sense as to how engaged graduates stay with the law school once they leave campus, a piece of information that is valuable when it comes to networking.

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Talking to school representatives at admitted student receptions is important, but the real benefit is talking to the vast majority of the attendees, both alumni and potential classmates.  While Career Services and Alumni Relations can provide you with statistics, the alumni can tell you what it is like to spend the next three years of your life at a particular institution of higher learning.  Inquire into all aspects of their law school life.  What are the professors like?  The curriculum?  Friendliness among the student body?  How hard was it to get a job?  What is it like to live in that area for three years?  If the alumnus is practicing in a geographic or practice area of interest, ask how they ended up on that particular path.  Get a sense from the alumni how their careers have progressed and how attending this particular law school helped or hindered said progression.  Alumni will be your best source of information about any law school because they are the ones who have already been down the law school hole and know the way out.

Finally, take this opportunity to talk to fellow admitted students.  Some, though probably not all — unless you are attending a Yale Law School admitted students reception — will be your classmates for the next three years.  Law school is not college, nor is it high school — though depending on the school, that latter distinction can be difficult to discern. The typical 1L forges a rather strong relationship with a decent portion of their first-year classmates.  Use the opportunity presented by having all of you in the same room and get to know them.  Are these the sorts of people you want to spend an inordinate amount of time with for the next three years?  People that you want to be linked with for the next several decades?

While sometimes viewed by 0Ls as a burden requiring putting on some respectable clothes and dragging themselves into downtown, admitted student receptions can be an extremely valuable tool for making one of the most important decisions of a lawyer’s life.

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Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at [email protected].

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