Law Schools

Law Student Makes Astute Points About Law School Before Just Going All Racist

Things definitely go off the rails.

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Basically me halfway through this post.

In a now-deleted Reddit post in the law school subreddit, a soon-to-graduate Rutgers Law School student offers some advice for aspiring law students about the problems with the school. To the poster’s credit, there are some good points in here that law students should take into account during the law school selection process. Then… things get all weird and racist.

The post was titled “AVOID Rutgers Law School at all costs. Extremely bad employment prospects.” This isn’t really true — at least compared to a lot of options out there.

That’s not how this poster sees it:

Rutgers Law Student class of 2019 here to say that if you want to be employed when graduating (unlike 80%+ of our graduating class currently), or if you want to find employment beyond the 1 year state clerkship experience, avoid our school at all costs.

The school boasts at 75.5 percent employment score and a 13.8 underemployment score from Law School Transparency, so either this student’s anecdotal calculations are way off or the school is about to experience a nuclear meltdown in career placement. Admittedly, these employment figures aren’t stellar numbers, but roughly on par with schools like SMU and the University of Florida — neither of which anyone characterizes as “bad” schools. Given that Rutgers is eminently affordable, with all-in costs of around $176K for a resident (and becoming a New Jersey resident is relatively forgiving), Rutgers is a solid option for someone seeking a regional career.

I have a 3.6 GPA, am on one of the school’s legal journals, have interned with the government and judges and have been rejected from numerous firm and federal court clerkships, including state clerkships above the trial level.

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Well… yeah. Federal clerkships are rare plums for the majority of T14 students, so an above average but not top of class student on a journal that is not the law review is not going to move many needles. The same is true of appellate state clerkships. This is the point that a lot of prospective students don’t consider. At schools below the top tier — and for these purposes this goes beyond the T14 to roughly the top 25 or so — it’s not enough to do well to get the top opportunities. The margin for error just isn’t there like it is for Columbia and Chicago or even a Vanderbilt or Texas. If you have concerns that you might not dominate a school outside the top echelon of law schools, then don’t go unless you’re at peace with not working on the big firm/federal clerkship stage.

The career services promotes clerkships so much because it inflates their post-graduation employment statistics but they don’t reveal statistics on who actually gets offers after the clerkship experience.

Whether the school promotes these experiences for this reason or not, it’s true that clerkships are counted in most employment scoring and thus would obscure if post-clerkship graduates are struggling to find work. This is worth keeping in mind when looking at the numbers. Most schools crow about their clerkship numbers — take those into account when looking at employment figures.

And the firms (and even NJ state government positions) are not interested in you unless you are an African-American woman or some other “minority” status with a super high GPA, so everyone else even those with high achievements that are just “not diverse” or special enough, aka the 80%+ percent (sic) of us, are left with terrible employment prospects.

HELLO! This post certainly took a turn. The good news for this person is Fox News may need a legal analyst and I think they’d do just great.

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Well at least that racist aside is behind us… oh wait, it’s NOT:

On top of it all the schools are located in horribly unsafe cities I would never feel comfortable having my parents visit or children attend.

It is fair to say that both Newark and Camden have more crime than some cities. But neither city is Thunderdome. Inserted into the narrative right after a jeremiad about affirmative action, one has to wonder if the author is more concerned that most of the neighbors are black than over any specific threat. Also, La Cocina across the street from the Newark campus makes excellent empanadas and that more than makes up for any apprehension a student might feel.

For anyone who is actually considering Rutgers for law school — think seriously about the points raised in the first half of this post. Law school is a professional school and if you can’t be confident you’re putting yourself in a position to advance your professional career, then it’s not worth it. If you’re still in, check out the school. Make sure it meets your debt threshold. Understand that there are safety risks in cities like Newark and Camden — as there are everywhere — but don’t artificially inflate those risks with racist claptrap.

Read the whole post on the next page. It’s a doozy.

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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