Columbia (Hamilton) vs. Harvard for PI/clerking Forum

[RSN]

I'm making this decision too and I'm leaning hard towards the Hamilton. I also really want to go the academia route though I know it's unlikely. Even the Harvard-trained law professors I've asked for advice don't think H's marginal advantage in academia is worth that much extra over Columbia.

Glad to hear you're leaning toward CLS, which is the right call.

And look, if you end up doing exceedingly well in 1L (which isn't necessarily a prerequisite for getting to academia, but if you don't, it's a reasonably clear signal that it's not going to be a viable path), Columbia does send a handful of transfers to HYS every year. That shouldn't really be part of the calculus at this stage, but it's something to be aware of.

Thanks, that's good to know. And I'm also told that CLS is trying to up its game in the academic market, so I think there are potentially better prospects for institutional support at Columbia.

The bottom line for me is that I want to have career flexibility if I don't make academia, and I don't want to do NYC biglaw. I figure minimal debt gives me the most leeway in that regard. If it came to it, I'd be happy doing biglaw in my home city (secondary southern market) where I have lots of ties.

You sound like you've got your priorities in line and like you'll be a great fit at Columbia, where although NYC biglaw is the major focus, there are substantial communities with other interests as well. There actually has been a noticeable uptick this year (my impression at least) in the number of events and programs for students interested in teaching careers also. Feel free to PM if you'd like to chat more.

[GFox345]

I've never been able to understand why this is a hard question for people. Harvard law for sticker is objectively stupid unless you come from money or have some other way of reducing the cost. No Law school is worth $300k debt. Say it with me now. Now write it 100 times on the chalkboard. This isn't even worth a second thought. Take the Hamilton, run, and never regret it. You will very likely regret taking on massive debt to go to Harvard. The difference in employment outcomes is way, way overstated on this site. When we're talking about going to Harvard vs. Columbia, your grades are going to be everything. Harvard vs. Columbia would only ever make the difference between two identical applicants. That's not worth 200k. It's not worth anything in my opinion.

[runinthefront]

Does anyone really pay sticker at Harvard? Serious question: I thought HYS financial aid packages are so good that you either get like 30k a year or your parents make enough that they're expected to contribute $$ to at least bring your debt into the very low $200k, at worst.

This may be a very dumb question, but do students ever walk out of HYS with $300k debt?

[curry1]

Does anyone really pay sticker at Harvard? Serious question: I thought HYS financial aid packages are so good that you either get like 30k a year or your parents make enough that they're expected to contribute $$ to at least bring your debt into the very low $200k, at worst.

This may be a very dumb question, but do students ever walk out of HYS with $300k debt?

I'm pretty sure that you could come close to getting no aid if your parents have even like a 500k net worth. If one's parents are late 50's plus and have multiple kids, it is implausible for them to pay a significant amount of one's cost unless they have a multi-million dollar net worth, regardless of H's definition of need. I'm sure there are plenty of kids who walk out of HYS with 300k in debt, considering that ~50% don't qualify for need and I'm sure more or at least an equal amount fit into the paradigm that I described above than the trust fund/fantastically rich paradigm.

[italianlover]

Does anyone really pay sticker at Harvard? Serious question: I thought HYS financial aid packages are so good that you either get like 30k a year or your parents make enough that they're expected to contribute $$ to at least bring your debt into the very low $200k, at worst.

This may be a very dumb question, but do students ever walk out of HYS with $300k debt?

Well, for reference, my parents make too much for me to get financial aid (maybe a very negligible amount), but they still couldn't afford to help me even if they wanted (again, maybe a small amount with some COL expenses). If I were to go to Harvard I'd walk out with $300k or close to it in debt. SA earnings could help, but then your aid gets reevaluated. In the end, best case for me at H would probably be >$250k debt.

[italianlover]

You sound like you've got your priorities in line and like you'll be a great fit at Columbia, where although NYC biglaw is the major focus, there are substantial communities with other interests as well. There actually has been a noticeable uptick this year (my impression at least) in the number of events and programs for students interested in teaching careers also. Feel free to PM if you'd like to chat more.

Thanks, I'll probably take you up on that. And btw, your thread on this decision from last year (or a couple years ago?) has been really helpful for perspective.

[Alexandros]

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[blueperiod]

Re: this thread - I don't have any advise to offer and am not qualified to say anything here. But my thinking is: Consider how much debt you're willing to tolerate if you decide you don't want PI in LS and end up in the private sector. My inclination would be strongly in favor of Hammy regardless, but there is a big difference between 150k and 300k (if you're not in PI).

Interestingly, I think if I take on the debt at HLS biglaw just will not be an option for me, because I don't want to do it anyway, but there will be very little temptation because knowing that I would have to pay loans myself instead of LIPP taking care of them would be a strong enough deterrent.

I can actually see myself being more tempted to stray down the biglaw path at CLS (if I could find some kind of biglaw that vaaaaguely interested me, and that's doubtful...), because apparently it's even easier to stray that way from CLS to begin with, and because I'd have the potential to be loaded (my version of loaded anyway) because of my lower debt level.

So in a strange way, there are weird incentives/disincentives at play that would all but guarantee I would do PI from HLS, but that would make the ~corporate sellout~ path way more appealing from CLS.

In a backwards way, that makes HLS more appealing.

Again, not my final decision, but one of the confusing aspects of the decision that I'm mulling over and expressing.

****cue veterans in the thread flaying me alive for my admittedly twisted logic***

[RSN]

Re: this thread - I don't have any advise to offer and am not qualified to say anything here. But my thinking is: Consider how much debt you're willing to tolerate if you decide you don't want PI in LS and end up in the private sector. My inclination would be strongly in favor of Hammy regardless, but there is a big difference between 150k and 300k (if you're not in PI).

Interestingly, I think if I take on the debt at HLS biglaw just will not be an option for me, because I don't want to do it anyway, but there will be very little temptation because knowing that I would have to pay loans myself instead of LIPP taking care of them would be a strong enough deterrent.

I can actually see myself being more tempted to stray down the biglaw path at CLS (if I could find some kind of biglaw that vaaaaguely interested me, and that's doubtful...), because apparently it's even easier to stray that way from CLS to begin with, and because I'd have the potential to be loaded (my version of loaded anyway) because of my lower debt level.

So in a strange way, there are weird incentives/disincentives at play that would all but guarantee I would do PI from HLS, but that would make the ~corporate sellout~ path way more appealing from CLS.

In a backwards way, that makes HLS more appealing.

Again, not my final decision, but one of the confusing aspects of the decision that I'm mulling over and expressing.

****cue veterans in the thread flaying me alive for my admittedly twisted logic***

Not going to draw and quarter you, but you have indeed twisted yourself into a weird place where somehow more debt is better than less debt -- and it's not, just objectively. Also, I don't think it's "easier" to get pulled into biglaw from Columbia than Harvard. Most students at both schools will work at New York firms their 2L summer and go back after graduation. But that doesn't stop anyone at Columbia, or Harvard, from pursuing PI. The difference for you would be that if you do it at CLS, you don't have to have debt hanging over you for the next dozen years. That's unequivocally the best outcome. In terms of life scenarios, for what it sounds like your goals are, it seems like the ranking should be

1. Hamilton, focus on PI, cost of living debt only, enjoy life
2. Hamilton, go to big law for a bit, save some money and develop some skills, then move to PI after a few years, enjoy life
3. HLS, tons of debt, work in biglaw for years to pay it off or do LIPP for a decade, finally get out from under debt at 40, struggle

I just don't see how HLS makes sense

[Alexandros]

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[Nebby]

@blueperiod
You don't seem very committed to PI, which is totally understandable as a 0L, and you really shouldn't take on 300k as some sort of perverse incentive to do PI. Go to CLS because you can achieve any goal from CLS at half the cost of HLS.

[Nebby]

- I've gathered that it's easier to go from BL/private sector to PI than the reverse (veterans ITT - please correct me if I'm wrong)

It's actually not easy. You have to strategically position yourself from day one of law school in order to go biglaw -> PI. It's equally difficult to go from PI to biglaw and biglaw to PI.

[Alexandros]

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[GFox345]

Does anyone really pay sticker at Harvard? Serious question: I thought HYS financial aid packages are so good that you either get like 30k a year or your parents make enough that they're expected to contribute $$ to at least bring your debt into the very low $200k, at worst.

This may be a very dumb question, but do students ever walk out of HYS with $300k debt?

That's how it's designed. Median debt at graduation for the class of 2015 was 150k, though I imagine some (hopefully not many) walk away with sticker debt (not sure if that number is available anywhere). People do get screwed over if their parents have $$ but won't contribute.

Re: this thread - I don't have any advise to offer and am not qualified to say anything here. But my thinking is: Consider how much debt you're willing to tolerate if you decide you don't want PI in LS and end up in the private sector. My inclination would be strongly in favor of Hammy regardless, but there is a big difference between 150k and 300k (if you're not in PI).

It's worth mentioning that that debt figure does NOT include any interest (including origination fees). The actual debt number is much closer to 200k. Also, median =/= wise decision necessarily.

[Nebby]

- I've gathered that it's easier to go from BL/private sector to PI than the reverse (veterans ITT - please correct me if I'm wrong)

It's actually not easy. You have to strategically position yourself from day one of law school in order to go biglaw -> PI. It's equally difficult to go from PI to biglaw and biglaw to PI.

That's very good to know. Thank you for clarifying.

Feel free to pm in the future if you want to know how to do it

[RSN]

- I've gathered that it's easier to go from BL/private sector to PI than the reverse (veterans ITT - please correct me if I'm wrong)

It's actually not easy. You have to strategically position yourself from day one of law school in order to go biglaw -> PI. It's equally difficult to go from PI to biglaw and biglaw to PI.

I'm curious, is your experience mostly with New York? My sense is that it's not so difficult in DC, and maybe other markets to the extent non-government PI exists in other places beyond NY/DC, to go biglaw -> PI. Just anecdotal of course, but I've heard a few times that NYC PI is more difficult to break into without serious hustling and positioning than DC, where it seems to be a lot more fluid in both directions, but especially biglaw to PI.

[Nebby]

- I've gathered that it's easier to go from BL/private sector to PI than the reverse (veterans ITT - please correct me if I'm wrong)

It's actually not easy. You have to strategically position yourself from day one of law school in order to go biglaw -> PI. It's equally difficult to go from PI to biglaw and biglaw to PI.

I'm curious, is your experience mostly with New York? My sense is that it's not so difficult in DC, and maybe other markets to the extent non-government PI exists in other places beyond NY/DC, to go biglaw -> PI. Just anecdotal of course, but I've heard a few times that NYC PI is more difficult to break into without serious hustling and positioning than DC, where it seems to be a lot more fluid in both directions, but especially biglaw to PI.

It's difficult to say without knowing what the practice areas are and how long they practiced. The level of ease (none of it is easy) is practice specific.

[Alexandros]

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[RSN]

- I've gathered that it's easier to go from BL/private sector to PI than the reverse (veterans ITT - please correct me if I'm wrong)

It's actually not easy. You have to strategically position yourself from day one of law school in order to go biglaw -> PI. It's equally difficult to go from PI to biglaw and biglaw to PI.

I'm curious, is your experience mostly with New York? My sense is that it's not so difficult in DC, and maybe other markets to the extent non-government PI exists in other places beyond NY/DC, to go biglaw -> PI. Just anecdotal of course, but I've heard a few times that NYC PI is more difficult to break into without serious hustling and positioning than DC, where it seems to be a lot more fluid in both directions, but especially biglaw to PI.

It's difficult to say without knowing what the practice areas are and how long they practiced. The level of ease (none of it is easy) is practice specific.

I'm thinking about what I assume is a fairly standard path of general biglaw commercial lit -> nonprofit impact litigation and policy advocacy, which seems to be the model 0Ls like these are thinking about, although I could be wrong about that.

[Nebby]

- I've gathered that it's easier to go from BL/private sector to PI than the reverse (veterans ITT - please correct me if I'm wrong)

It's actually not easy. You have to strategically position yourself from day one of law school in order to go biglaw -> PI. It's equally difficult to go from PI to biglaw and biglaw to PI.

I'm curious, is your experience mostly with New York? My sense is that it's not so difficult in DC, and maybe other markets to the extent non-government PI exists in other places beyond NY/DC, to go biglaw -> PI. Just anecdotal of course, but I've heard a few times that NYC PI is more difficult to break into without serious hustling and positioning than DC, where it seems to be a lot more fluid in both directions, but especially biglaw to PI.

It's difficult to say without knowing what the practice areas are and how long they practiced. The level of ease (none of it is easy) is practice specific.

I'm thinking about what I assume is a fairly standard path of general biglaw commercial lit -> nonprofit impact litigation and policy advocacy, which seems to be the model 0Ls like these are thinking about, although I could be wrong about that.

Yeah, in that scenario, you have to strategically plan from day one.

[Veil of Ignorance]

- I've gathered that it's easier to go from BL/private sector to PI than the reverse (veterans ITT - please correct me if I'm wrong)

It's actually not easy. You have to strategically position yourself from day one of law school in order to go biglaw -> PI. It's equally difficult to go from PI to biglaw and biglaw to PI.

Are you including government work in this? I thought going (biglaw litigation --> ADA or public defender) wasn't too hard.

[RSN]

- I've gathered that it's easier to go from BL/private sector to PI than the reverse (veterans ITT - please correct me if I'm wrong)

It's actually not easy. You have to strategically position yourself from day one of law school in order to go biglaw -> PI. It's equally difficult to go from PI to biglaw and biglaw to PI.

I'm curious, is your experience mostly with New York? My sense is that it's not so difficult in DC, and maybe other markets to the extent non-government PI exists in other places beyond NY/DC, to go biglaw -> PI. Just anecdotal of course, but I've heard a few times that NYC PI is more difficult to break into without serious hustling and positioning than DC, where it seems to be a lot more fluid in both directions, but especially biglaw to PI.

It's difficult to say without knowing what the practice areas are and how long they practiced. The level of ease (none of it is easy) is practice specific.

I'm thinking about what I assume is a fairly standard path of general biglaw commercial lit -> nonprofit impact litigation and policy advocacy, which seems to be the model 0Ls like these are thinking about, although I could be wrong about that.

Yeah, in that scenario, you have to strategically plan from day one.

Huh, alright. I mean I've known people who have done it outside New York who I'm pretty sure just planned for biglaw and decided to figure out the rest later, but maybe they strategized more than I knew about.

[A. Nony Mouse]

- I've gathered that it's easier to go from BL/private sector to PI than the reverse (veterans ITT - please correct me if I'm wrong)

It's actually not easy. You have to strategically position yourself from day one of law school in order to go biglaw -> PI. It's equally difficult to go from PI to biglaw and biglaw to PI.

Are you including government work in this? I thought going (biglaw litigation --> ADA or public defender) wasn't too hard.

Biglaw litigation to ADA/PD would actually be kind of unusual. To AUSA/federal PD, not really (it's competitive, but a career path that makes sense), but for state, it would be unusual. I'm not saying it would be impossible or never happens, but the longer you're in biglaw the weirder it would be. It would be weird to take a midlevel biglaw person as an entry level lawyer, and you wouldn't have enough trial experience to come in as a lateral. DA/PD's offices would also be suspicious that you really wanted to give up the biglaw salary to go work as an ADA/PD; you normally need to show commitment/dedication through experience. Also you can get ADA/PD jobs out of law school (not usually the case for AUSA/FPD) so employers would wonder why you just didn't do that.

And I agree with Nebby (to the extent that I understand this) that the people who go from biglaw --> impact lit PI tend to have been angling for a specific path. You probably *can* figure it out as you go along (because there's a lot more serendipity in career paths than TLS sometimes acknowledges), but it will make a big difference to lay a foundation early.

[Alexandros]

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[blueperiod]

Thanks all. I know CLS is the logical choice and I'm leaning towards it. My brain knows that but hope when I visit next month I will catch the feels for it too.

Also interesting to hear about the biglaw to PI litigation stuff. I'd do basically anything to avoid biglaw but it was seeming like maybe it was a necessary or common stepping stone to impact lit. If it's not, then that's fantastic. Just trying to learn about all of this stuff...