San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten Forum

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SherbertHerbert

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San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by SherbertHerbert » Sat Apr 08, 2017 3:05 pm

Interested in Transactional work- hoping that I finish Top-10% and have options. Good GPA, possibly re-taking LSAT in June. From the Midwest, but willing to practice wherever I go to school.

20K/yr scholly at Marquette

16K/yr scholly at San Diego + 4K/yr Work Study

Waitlisted at Iowa, Wisconsin, UIUC. Undergrad at Illinois, so would like to go somewhere else if possible.

Does USD or Marquette offer a better shot at getting a top job in their respective cities? Is USD worth the extra $10K/yr I'd pay for more expensive Tuition & Housing?

Is is worth paying sticker at Iowa/Wisconsin if I get pulled off their waitlist?
Last edited by SherbertHerbert on Sat Apr 08, 2017 4:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Rigo

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Re: San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by Rigo » Sat Apr 08, 2017 3:14 pm

Not possibly. Definitely retake the LSAT.

No idea what your numbers are, but my options were like this when I was a senior in undergrad. I retook and changed my entire future. Don't settle.
None of these schools are worth the debt, and there's a 90% chance you won't be in the 10%. Go to a school where the median outcome is the one you want.

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luckyirish13

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Re: San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by luckyirish13 » Sat Apr 08, 2017 3:47 pm

Rigo wrote:Not possibly. Definitely retake the LSAT.

No idea what your numbers are, but my options were like this when I was a senior in undergrad. I retook and changed my entire future. Don't settle.
None of these schools are worth the debt, and there's a 90% chance you won't be in the 10%. Go to a school where the median outcome is the one you want.
Oh look, math :D.

Also Rigo is right, as a fellow 0L, I can tell you that these are absolutely not schools I would consider unless there was a full tuition scholarship. Retake the LSAT, study hard for it and get between a 165-175, then you can get either of these schools at full scholarship, or even better, you can get into a much better school with better career options coming out.

grades??

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Re: San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by grades?? » Sat Apr 08, 2017 3:50 pm

What do you mean transactional work? You wont get transactional big or mid law from any of these options. Also, idk if transactional practice in small law is a thing (like m&a, finance, etc)

Tiger2Eagle

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Re: San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by Tiger2Eagle » Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:37 pm

grades?? wrote:What do you mean transactional work? You wont get transactional big or mid law from any of these options. Also, idk if transactional practice in small law is a thing (like m&a, finance, etc)
(Full disclosure: I am a Marquette 3L)

The above statement is simply untrue. I personally know attorneys (Marquette law grads) who work for Foley and Lardner, Quarrels and Brady, Godfrey and Kahn, Husch Blackwell, Ogletree Deakins, etc. All of these are large firms who regularly hire Marquette grads (often from OCI). Sure, it may be an uphill battle but it is far from unheard of. These firms also poach Marquette laterals after 3-5 years of applicable legal experience. Grades, law review/moot court participation, clerkship experience, and soft skills are all decisive. Milwaukee offices of the above are exceedingly loyal to Marquette. With diploma privilege, Marquette grads can begin working for these firms (as fully licensed attorneys) months earlier than hires graduating from outside the state (late May vs. late October), further adding to graduates human capital.

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IExistedOnceBefore

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Re: San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by IExistedOnceBefore » Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:47 pm

Tiger2Eagle wrote:
grades?? wrote:What do you mean transactional work? You wont get transactional big or mid law from any of these options. Also, idk if transactional practice in small law is a thing (like m&a, finance, etc)
(Full disclosure: I am a Marquette 3L)

The above statement is simply untrue. I personally know attorneys (Marquette law grads) who work for Foley and Lardner, Quarrels and Brady, Godfrey and Kahn, Husch Blackwell, Ogletree Deakins, etc. All of these are large firms who regularly hire Marquette grads (often from OCI). Sure, it may be an uphill battle but it is far from unheard of. These firms also poach Marquette laterals after 3-5 years of applicable legal experience. Grades, law review/moot court participation, clerkship experience, and soft skills are all decisive. Milwaukee offices of the above are exceedingly loyal to Marquette. With diploma privilege, Marquette grads can begin working for these firms (as fully licensed attorneys) months earlier than hires graduating from outside the state (late May vs. late October), further adding to graduates human capital.
You aren't wrong, but something important to note is that the graduates do not leave Wisconsin. That's where the diploma privilege comes from. If you want to live and practice in Wisconsin, Marquette and UW-Mad are perfectly fine. But the OP seems to be applying all over. If they want to practice out of Wisconsin, I wouldn't recommend Marquette. Don't forget the geographic caveat.

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UVA2B

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Re: San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by UVA2B » Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:59 pm

Tiger2Eagle wrote:
grades?? wrote:What do you mean transactional work? You wont get transactional big or mid law from any of these options. Also, idk if transactional practice in small law is a thing (like m&a, finance, etc)
(Full disclosure: I am a Marquette 3L)

The above statement is simply untrue. I personally know attorneys (Marquette law grads) who work for Foley and Lardner, Quarrels and Brady, Godfrey and Kahn, Husch Blackwell, Ogletree Deakins, etc. All of these are large firms who regularly hire Marquette grads (often from OCI). Sure, it may be an uphill battle but it is far from unheard of. These firms also poach Marquette laterals after 3-5 years of applicable legal experience. Grades, law review/moot court participation, clerkship experience, and soft skills are all decisive. Milwaukee offices of the above are exceedingly loyal to Marquette. With diploma privilege, Marquette grads can begin working for these firms (as fully licensed attorneys) months earlier than hires graduating from outside the state (late May vs. late October), further adding to graduates human capital.
<10% of your graduating class will go to a big firm upon graduation, and given the big firm hiring model, getting picked up by a big firm as a lateral from a small firm is exceedingly rare, even in a small market like Milwaukee where there are so few big firms relatively.

Plus, you should realize, people are giving advice that the person should not go into Marquette expecting to get big law. Since you're a 3L, I hope you can appreciate how unforeseeable your law school grades will be as a 0L. So going to Marquette for cheap while wanting to work in Wisconsin exclusively is an ok decision, assuming you are comfortable with smaller firm work if your grades, ECs, resume, etc. aren't good enough to put you in that <10% of the class.

And please don't come back with anything akin to "well not everyone at Marquette even wants to be at a big private firm." While certainly true, it's a fact that ~1/6th of the last graduating class was not working as a full time, bar passage required attorney a year after graduation.

It's fine to defend your school and why it might make sense for someone, to include suggesting getting work at a big firm isn't impossible from a school. But if you're not willing to openly recognize that it's exceedingly unlikely someone wanting a big firm from Marquette will be able to just make that happen. Even if we graciously allow that some grads don't want it, and others might not actually try hard to do well in law school (I don't even want to make this assumption, but it would at least help account for the discrepancy between big firm placement and underemployed graduates), then the most accurate assessment you can reasonably make is that it's equally likely to be underemployed as it is to get to your goal of working at a big firm that pays higher.

I hope you've enjoyed your time at Marquette, and I hope you got the job you want, but spitting anecdotes of graduates who are at big firms isn't as good for a 0L as looking at the statistical placement power of the school. Because the stats paint a much less rosy picture of someone's chances of getting hired by a big firm out of Marquette, and the stats draw from the entire sample, vice cherry picking the desirable results.

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Re: San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by Tiger2Eagle » Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:02 pm

IExistedOnceBefore wrote:
Tiger2Eagle wrote:
grades?? wrote:What do you mean transactional work? You wont get transactional big or mid law from any of these options. Also, idk if transactional practice in small law is a thing (like m&a, finance, etc)
(Full disclosure: I am a Marquette 3L)

The above statement is simply untrue. I personally know attorneys (Marquette law grads) who work for Foley and Lardner, Quarrels and Brady, Godfrey and Kahn, Husch Blackwell, Ogletree Deakins, etc. All of these are large firms who regularly hire Marquette grads (often from OCI). Sure, it may be an uphill battle but it is far from unheard of. These firms also poach Marquette laterals after 3-5 years of applicable legal experience. Grades, law review/moot court participation, clerkship experience, and soft skills are all decisive. Milwaukee offices of the above are exceedingly loyal to Marquette. With diploma privilege, Marquette grads can begin working for these firms (as fully licensed attorneys) months earlier than hires graduating from outside the state (late May vs. late October), further adding to graduates human capital.
You aren't wrong, but something important to note is that the graduates do not leave Wisconsin. That's where the diploma privilege comes from. If you want to live and practice in Wisconsin, Marquette and UW-Mad are perfectly fine. But the OP seems to be applying all over. If they want to practice out of Wisconsin, I wouldn't recommend Marquette. Don't forget the geographic caveat.
Indeed, geography plays a large role. However, you can always hop to other offices "later down the road." This happens with biglaw associates in Milwaukee transferring to corresponding Chicago offices. Applying outright, you will have a more difficult time in other markets. Again, not unheard of. However, proximity certainly comes into play when graduating from a regional school. Nonetheless, I know biglaw partners in Chicago who went to Marquette and never worked in Milwaukee after graduation. There are Big Fed. attorneys who graduated from Marquette as well. My point was (and remains), people need not speak in absolutes. Far too often, on this forum, people make generalized statements about topics they are not sufficiently qualified to make. They either play off of stereotypes or rumors but less often use personal experience or data.

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cavalier1138

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Re: San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by cavalier1138 » Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:10 pm

Tiger2Eagle wrote:Indeed, geography plays a large role. However, you can always hop to other offices "later down the road." This happens with biglaw associates in Milwaukee transferring to corresponding Chicago offices. Applying outright, you will have a more difficult time in other markets. Again, not unheard of. However, proximity certainly comes into play when graduating from a regional school. Nonetheless, I know biglaw partners in Chicago who went to Marquette and never worked in Milwaukee after graduation. There are Big Fed. attorneys who graduated from Marquette as well. My point was (and remains), people need not speak in absolutes. Far too often, on this forum, people make generalized statements about topics they are not sufficiently qualified to make. They either play off of stereotypes or rumors but less often use personal experience or data.
I know people who went to Vegas and won big at the slot machines.

Everyone here (except you) is using data. You're talking about outcomes for literally 8% of your classmates as though they're totally achievable for everyone who matriculates to Marquette. And you're ignoring that, of the other 92%, none of them will earn enough to make a 10-year repayment plan possible if they didn't get a decent scholarship (which, according to the 509s, means that most of them are fucked).

If attending Marquette worked out for you, that's great. But don't pretend that everyone else is using stereotypes when you're the only one blithely ignoring the actual numbers.

ETA: This was also a dumb necro to begin with. OP made their choice months ago.

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Tiger2Eagle

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Re: San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by Tiger2Eagle » Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:19 pm

cavalier1138 wrote:
Tiger2Eagle wrote:Indeed, geography plays a large role. However, you can always hop to other offices "later down the road." This happens with biglaw associates in Milwaukee transferring to corresponding Chicago offices. Applying outright, you will have a more difficult time in other markets. Again, not unheard of. However, proximity certainly comes into play when graduating from a regional school. Nonetheless, I know biglaw partners in Chicago who went to Marquette and never worked in Milwaukee after graduation. There are Big Fed. attorneys who graduated from Marquette as well. My point was (and remains), people need not speak in absolutes. Far too often, on this forum, people make generalized statements about topics they are not sufficiently qualified to make. They either play off of stereotypes or rumors but less often use personal experience or data.
I know people who went to Vegas and won big at the slot machines.

Everyone here (except you) is using data. You're talking about outcomes for literally 8% of your classmates as though they're totally achievable for everyone who matriculates to Marquette. And you're ignoring that, of the other 92%, none of them will earn enough to make a 10-year repayment plan possible if they didn't get a decent scholarship (which, according to the 509s, means that most of them are fucked).

If attending Marquette worked out for you, that's great. But don't pretend that everyone else is using stereotypes when you're the only one blithely ignoring the actual numbers.

ETA: This was also a dumb necro to begin with. OP made their choice months ago.
Merely to clarify: I have not spouted off any false statistics nor have I said it was a certainty for all. I recall that I expressly stated it would be an "uphill battle". Nonetheless, I wanted to leave a note that rebutted the prior absolute. No need to be hostile.

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cavalier1138

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Re: San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by cavalier1138 » Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:30 pm

Tiger2Eagle wrote:Merely to clarify: I have not spouted off any false statistics nor have I said it was a certainty for all. I recall that I expressly stated it would be an "uphill battle". Nonetheless, I wanted to leave a note that rebutted the prior absolute. No need to be hostile.
Calling it an "uphill battle" is an understatement. And you haven't relied on statistics at all, but you have hurled around accusations that everyone else is unqualified to make these judgments and is relying on "stereotypes and rumors" over data, which is patently false. You don't need any special qualifications to read an employment report. The data support the initial assertion (which you pointlessly responded to months after the fact): Marquette grads have an extremely low chance of working in a big firm.

No one is actually saying that these outcomes are literally impossible. They're exaggerating (slightly) to emphasize that if your career goals are in biglaw transactional work, then schools like the ones listed in the OP are bad options.

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Re: San Diego vs. Marquette vs. Big Ten

Post by Tiger2Eagle » Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:45 pm

cavalier1138 wrote:
Tiger2Eagle wrote:Merely to clarify: I have not spouted off any false statistics nor have I said it was a certainty for all. I recall that I expressly stated it would be an "uphill battle". Nonetheless, I wanted to leave a note that rebutted the prior absolute. No need to be hostile.
Calling it an "uphill battle" is an understatement. And you haven't relied on statistics at all, but you have hurled around accusations that everyone else is unqualified to make these judgments and is relying on "stereotypes and rumors" over data, which is patently false. You don't need any special qualifications to read an employment report. The data support the initial assertion (which you pointlessly responded to months after the fact): Marquette grads have an extremely low chance of working in a big firm.

No one is actually saying that these outcomes are literally impossible. They're exaggerating (slightly) to emphasize that if your career goals are in biglaw transactional work, then schools like the ones listed in the OP are bad options.
I made no such statement regarding "everyone else." I was adding another perspective from inside the community being addressed. You are correct, I have not quoted specific percentiles. My goal was never to argue odds or debate specific numbers. Again, I was merely noting that you cannot speak in absolutes. There are a multitude of factors. If you are interested in Marquette, then you should absolutely do further research. That said, I could not allow previous posts (casting the prospect of biglaw as impossible) to go unaddressed. Maybe my point was lost in translation. For this miscommunication, I apologize.

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