Big Law or Bust University of South Carolina Forum

[joebottles93]

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[existentialcrisis]

This school does not match your goals at all. You need to retake.

You'll need to do a lot better than top 3rd for NYC (or any biglaw) from sc.

[UVA2B]

DO NOT GO TO UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA IF YOU WANT BIGLAW IN NYC. RETAKE THE LSAT FOR BETTER OPTIONS.

[guynourmin]

If you are motivated and willing to put in the work, then put that energy into getting a 170+ LSAT score. Going to usc law school is giving up on your goals.

[joebottles93]

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[UVA2B]

I don't think its possible that there is 0 oppurtunity to work NYC big law from this school. It's ranked in the top 100 law schools in the country and, after speaking with the career services office, the woman explained that a lot of grads go on to work at big firms across the country.

https://www.lstreports.com/schools/sout ... /location/

This website pulls data from a school's ABA employment disclosures, so this is the data provided by USC for their job placement by location. For the last class, 0% of the class ended up in NYC. If you went back to previous years, I'm willing to bet you'd find the same (I'm not going to look up the ABA disclosures for previous years, so if you want to do so and bring it back showing people placing in NY with any regularity, I'll listen skeptically).

I implore you to play around with the above website, because it's a great source in understanding what schools place in certain types of jobs and in certain locations. USC is exclusively in the Southeast, and <10% end up in Biglaw of any kind. With law school grading being on a forced curve, you cannot reasonably assume you'll be in that part of the class, especially since you're from the Midwest and you're in a region that is pretty insular and skeptical toward outsiders.

You're early in this process, and you probably need to do some more research on law school, the legal profession, and outcomes to expect from a given school. If you don't want to be a small-time attorney in SC, you shouldn't go to USC under any circumstance.

[existentialcrisis]

I don't think its possible that there is 0 oppurtunity to work NYC big law from this school. It's ranked in the top 100 law schools in the country and, after speaking with the career services office, the woman explained that a lot of grads go on to work at big firms across the country.

"A lot" = less than 10%.

https://www.lstreports.com/schools/southcarolina/

Most big firms, NYC or otherwise, won't even look at USC students outside the top 10% of the class.

You absolutely cannot count on being in the top of your class. DO NOT GO TO USC.

Edit: Scooped

Edit again: I also really don't think any K-JD should be biglaw or bust, or even go to law school frankly.

[loslakers]

the best thing you can do is look at the data available to you. heres the link to South Carolina's actual employment stats that they have to report to the ABA. http://law.sc.edu/administration/consum ... tion.shtml

you say your a long time lurker, so you should already know that your goals dont align with your school right now. looking at last years numbers alone 15 students work at firms with 101+ attorneys (generally considered biglaw) add another 7 for federal clerkships, and you get 22 out of the 193 graduates that ended up with your goals (more or less). thats 11.4%. the three states where the school sent most of their graduates were south carolina (108), north carolina (9), and georgia (8). so last year AT BEST the university of south carolina has 7 people out of the 193 graduates working in New York. that's less than 4%.

basically if you want to work in new york and a reasonable shot at biglaw. you should AT least aim for Fordham. but since your heart is "dead set on big law" then you should probably retake the LSAT until you get into a t14.

EDIT: got beat to it.

[joebottles93]

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[guynourmin]

I don't think its possible that there is 0 oppurtunity to work NYC big law from this school.

no one said that. It will be much easier to get an LSAT score that gives you a full ride to WUSTL or 15-25k/yr to a lower t13 than it will be to get biglaw from USC, though. If you want to achieve your goals, retake is how you do it.

[stego]

I don't think its possible that there is 0 oppurtunity to work NYC big law from this school. It's ranked in the top 100 law schools in the country and, after speaking with the career services office, the woman explained that a lot of grads go on to work at big firms across the country.

https://www.lstreports.com/schools/sout ... /location/

This website pulls data from a school's ABA employment disclosures, so this is the data provided by USC for their job placement by location. For the last class, 0% of the class ended up in NYC. If you went back to previous years, I'm willing to bet you'd find the same (I'm not going to look up the ABA disclosures for previous years, so if you want to do so and bring it back showing people placing in NY with any regularity, I'll listen skeptically).

I implore you to play around with the above website, because it's a great source in understanding what schools place in certain types of jobs and in certain locations. USC is exclusively in the Southeast, and <10% end up in Biglaw of any kind. With law school grading being on a forced curve, you cannot reasonably assume you'll be in that part of the class, especially since you're from the Midwest and you're in a region that is pretty insular and skeptical toward outsiders.

You're early in this process, and you probably need to do some more research on law school, the legal profession, and outcomes to expect from a given school. If you don't want to be a small-time attorney in SC, you shouldn't go to USC under any circumstance.

To be fair the number of grads that went to NYC probably wasn't literally zero students. LST's geographic placement data is shit and only tells you stats for the top 3 states. Of the employed grads we don't know where 9.4% of them went.

My dad went to South Carolina Law but I agree that with OP's goals they should not go to South Carolina Law.

[stego]

Would it be possible for me to make big law money at a small, local firm? I've also heard a lot about graduates working for like plaintiff's lawyers or small law firms and making more than big-law money their first few years out. This option has the added benefit that most of these lawyers don't look favorably upon those with just top grades; they prefer people who are more social.

Unlikely. Most small firms don't pay close to big law salaries. The boutique firms that do are just as hard to get as big law firms are, if not harder.

[emkay625]

Would it be possible for me to make big law money at a small, local firm? I've also heard a lot about graduates working for like plaintiff's lawyers or small law firms and making more than big-law money their first few years out. This option has the added benefit that most of these lawyers don't look favorably upon those with just top grades; they prefer people who are more social.

I am a practicing attorney and have never met someone who works at such a firm. The small plaintiff's firms you're referring to are elite litigation boutiques, and those jobs are generally much harder to get than big law jobs. Generally only hire students in the top 10% at T14 schools (plus UT/Vandy/UCLA maybe).

Most people I've met who work at small local firms started at between 40K-70K, depending on region of the country.

[UVA2B]

Would it be possible for me to make big law money at a small, local firm? I've also heard a lot about graduates working for like plaintiff's lawyers or small law firms and making more than big-law money their first few years out. This option has the added benefit that most of these lawyers don't look favorably upon those with just top grades; they prefer people who are more social.

Theoretically possible? Sure, it's theoretically possible you could be the sole graduate some private three rainmaker shop hires to work with them, and it's theoretically possible said rainmakers would rain money down on you like a rap video for your complete lack of marketable legal skills and legal savvy (this is not a comment on USC graduates, but all law school graduates because none of us know how to practice law when we graduate). But is it going to happen, and should you even entertain it as a possibility before you ever start law school? No, no you should not.

You seem to be very much about the money and little else, so here is some advice for you that is generally the way legal hiring works for highly paid associates: they are buying either your prestige because you went to the right law school, they're buying your resume because you killed law school and/or have a resume that is impressive, or a combination of both.

If you want to make Biglaw money, you need to go to a school that places ~50% of its graduating class into Biglaw & Federal Clerkships. Those are the only schools where you can reliably count on getting Biglaw and those big paychecks. The data several people have cited above should make that abundantly clear if you care to look at it.

[TooMuchTuna]

I don't think its possible that there is 0 oppurtunity to work NYC big law from this school. It's ranked in the top 100 law schools in the country and, after speaking with the career services office, the woman explained that a lot of grads go on to work at big firms across the country.

I hate to say it because it's an annoying TLS mantra, but you really need to retake and go to a more highly ranked school if you're big law or bust.

[barkschool]

I've also heard a lot about graduates working for like plaintiff's lawyers or small law firms and making more than big-law money their first few years out.

Have you met these people you speak of?

[existentialcrisis]

Would it be possible for me to make big law money at a small, local firm? I've also heard a lot about graduates working for like plaintiff's lawyers or small law firms and making more than big-law money their first few years out. This option has the added benefit that most of these lawyers don't look favorably upon those with just top grades; they prefer people who are more social.

You should not go to law school without a clear idea of the type of career you want, and a plan for how to get there.

Deciding you want to make bank, and working your way backwards from there doesn't count.

[UVA2B]

I don't think its possible that there is 0 oppurtunity to work NYC big law from this school. It's ranked in the top 100 law schools in the country and, after speaking with the career services office, the woman explained that a lot of grads go on to work at big firms across the country.

https://www.lstreports.com/schools/sout ... /location/

This website pulls data from a school's ABA employment disclosures, so this is the data provided by USC for their job placement by location. For the last class, 0% of the class ended up in NYC. If you went back to previous years, I'm willing to bet you'd find the same (I'm not going to look up the ABA disclosures for previous years, so if you want to do so and bring it back showing people placing in NY with any regularity, I'll listen skeptically).

I implore you to play around with the above website, because it's a great source in understanding what schools place in certain types of jobs and in certain locations. USC is exclusively in the Southeast, and <10% end up in Biglaw of any kind. With law school grading being on a forced curve, you cannot reasonably assume you'll be in that part of the class, especially since you're from the Midwest and you're in a region that is pretty insular and skeptical toward outsiders.

You're early in this process, and you probably need to do some more research on law school, the legal profession, and outcomes to expect from a given school. If you don't want to be a small-time attorney in SC, you shouldn't go to USC under any circumstance.

To be fair the number of grads that went to NYC probably wasn't literally zero students. LST's geographic placement data is shit and only tells you stats for the top 3 states. Of the employed grads we don't know where 9.4% of them went.

My dad went to South Carolina Law but I agree that with OP's goals they should not go to South Carolina Law.

Sure, there is always some play in the data, and maybe one graduate of that 9.4% is actually employed as an attorney in NYC, but it's every bit as likely those 9.4% who are in unknown locations are unknown because they didn't want to report where they were working after graduation. If USC was sending graduates to NYC, they'd be knocking down those 9.4% of graduates' doors until they got to report USC places outside of the Southeast.

You can try to forgive the data and say it's unlikely 0 graduates ended up fully employed in NYC as an attorney, but a reasonable skeptic could just as plausibly say that 9.4% of unknown location are more likely in less desirable locations, and therefore can comfortably say that it likely wasn't NYC. Neither person is right because it's unknown, but it's at least equally likely that one or the other is correct.

[emkay625]

I don't think its possible that there is 0 oppurtunity to work NYC big law from this school. It's ranked in the top 100 law schools in the country and, after speaking with the career services office, the woman explained that a lot of grads go on to work at big firms across the country.

Law schools are ranked partially based on what percentage of students that are accepted end up matriculating. It is this woman's job to sell you on the school, not to give you actual advice. It's really challenging because we're used to educators being our friends, but that's not the case in the law school admissions process. They are trying to sell you a product. You should always take anything a law school official tells you during the admissions process with the same degree of skepticism you would with someone trying to sell you a car or a house. They're sales people, not guidance counselors.

[ponderingmeerkat]

Dude...

South Carolina would be a catastrophically horrifying decision given your goals. I can't possibly stress this enough.

You aren't from the South (much less South Carolina) so the incestuous, fallback, "good ol' girl" jobs that might be available to the "local homecoming queen who made good and finished slightly above median at law school" won't be available to you, and neither will the handful of "USC Law considers these 'plum' jobs but aren't really" like state supreme court and Charleston mid-ish law that people scratch and bite and claw for at that school (because there aren't that many in positions like that in South Carolina's mostly rural legal market).

If you're a long-time lurker, you have to know that ties are important--doubly so in a place like South Carolina with a hugely "southern" mentality and a teenie-tiny legal market.

So, all your ties-sensitive, "I did ok but not great at law school" fallback jobs are going to be taken from you by local kids and there's almost zero chance you end up in big law, much less NYC biglaw.

Don't let adcomms lie to you (ok, maybe not lie, but stretch the reality of their hiring situation to their absolute limit)--you won't be going to NYC, you won't be getting biglaw, and because you're not from the south, you might not even get a decent "I'm grinding it out in a rural ADA job" either.

For someone with a biglaw or bust mentality, I shudder to think how dissatisfied you will be with your outcome.

Don't do it. Run...run fast.

[stego]

Sure, there is always some play in the data, and maybe one graduate of that 9.4% is actually employed as an attorney in NYC, but it's every bit as likely those 9.4% who are in unknown locations are unknown because they didn't want to report where they were working after graduation. If USC was sending graduates to NYC, they'd be knocking down those 9.4% of graduates' doors until they got to report USC places outside of the Southeast.

You can try to forgive the data and say it's unlikely 0 graduates ended up fully employed in NYC as an attorney, but a reasonable skeptic could just as plausibly say that 9.4% of unknown location are more likely in less desirable locations, and therefore can comfortably say that it likely wasn't NYC. Neither person is right because it's unknown, but it's at least equally likely that one or the other is correct.

LST only shows the top 3 states, so I'm not sure if we can infer that the other 9.4% refused to report their location. If 1 or 2 students did report NYC we wouldn't know. I would assume most of the 9.4% are in other southeastern states, of course. But of the 15 students from the last class who did get a big law firm, probably some are in NYC since that's by far the largest big law market.

[TheWalrus]

Would it be possible for me to make big law money at a small, local firm? I've also heard a lot about graduates working for like plaintiff's lawyers or small law firms and making more than big-law money their first few years out. This option has the added benefit that most of these lawyers don't look favorably upon those with just top grades; they prefer people who are more social.

I am a practicing attorney and have never met someone who works at such a firm. The small plaintiff's firms you're referring to are elite litigation boutiques, and those jobs are generally much harder to get than big law jobs. Generally only hire students in the top 10% at T14 schools (plus UT/Vandy/UCLA maybe).

Most people I've met who work at small local firms started at between 40K-70K, depending on region of the country.

For shame. And yeah, plantiff botiques are weird. The one I'm at has a weird pay structure, but elite litigation boutiques are great and notoriously hard to get.

[emkay625]

The honest to goodness best thing you can do to achieve your goals is sit out a cycle and retake the LSAT. Get an easy job, something that pays the rent and doesn't require you to work outside of working hours. Then spend four months studying 4 or 5 days a week, 3 hours a day. Then retake the Sep/Oct test, and again in December if necessary.

For your goals (NYC big law) you will need to go to a top 20 school, preferably a T13 school.

University of South Carolina can be a good law school for people with specific goals: want to practice in South Carolina, don't care about big law. If that doesn't interest you, you shouldn't go there.

[emkay625]

Would it be possible for me to make big law money at a small, local firm? I've also heard a lot about graduates working for like plaintiff's lawyers or small law firms and making more than big-law money their first few years out. This option has the added benefit that most of these lawyers don't look favorably upon those with just top grades; they prefer people who are more social.

I am a practicing attorney and have never met someone who works at such a firm. The small plaintiff's firms you're referring to are elite litigation boutiques, and those jobs are generally much harder to get than big law jobs. Generally only hire students in the top 10% at T14 schools (plus UT/Vandy/UCLA maybe).

Most people I've met who work at small local firms started at between 40K-70K, depending on region of the country.

For shame. And yeah, plantiff botiques are weird. The one I'm at has a weird pay structure, but elite litigation boutiques are great and notoriously hard to get.

Lol my bad. I went to UT and did not mean to slight it. Meant to slight Georgetown. Should've typed T13 plus UT/Vandy/UCLA. : D

[UVA2B]

Sure, there is always some play in the data, and maybe one graduate of that 9.4% is actually employed as an attorney in NYC, but it's every bit as likely those 9.4% who are in unknown locations are unknown because they didn't want to report where they were working after graduation. If USC was sending graduates to NYC, they'd be knocking down those 9.4% of graduates' doors until they got to report USC places outside of the Southeast.

You can try to forgive the data and say it's unlikely 0 graduates ended up fully employed in NYC as an attorney, but a reasonable skeptic could just as plausibly say that 9.4% of unknown location are more likely in less desirable locations, and therefore can comfortably say that it likely wasn't NYC. Neither person is right because it's unknown, but it's at least equally likely that one or the other is correct.

LST only shows the top 3 states, so I'm not sure if we can infer that the other 9.4% refused to report their location. If 1 or 2 students did report NYC we wouldn't know. I would assume most of the 9.4% are in other southeastern states, of course. But of the 15 students from the last class who did get a big law firm, probably some are in NYC since that's by far the largest big law market.

That's not how the reporting works. Look at any other school that has placement beyond three states. I randomly picked BC.

https://www.lstreports.com/schools/bc/jobs/location/

They show where graduates are being placed, even if it's only 1% of the class. If someone reported working outside of those three states for USC, it should show on LST.

ETA: Should also mention that this is dependent on what the school provides to the ABA, so you'll get varying extent of reporting based on how the school structures their disclosures. So some schools tend to be more transparent with their geographic placement and others only report locations above a specific percentile. That part will really depend on the individual school.

ETA2: For instance, Yale shows placement in only 3 states, but BC shows placement all over the country to provide a stark example to illustrate where graduates place for a given school.