Hi, I am new to the board so forgive me if I ask a repetitive question here, but this site just seems too helpful to not ask.

I am currently a Junior at The Citadel in Charleston, SC. I have a little over a 3.2 cumulative. I have not yet taken the LSAT, but will in June and obviously plan on doing well. However, I am originally from Louisville and would like to go to law school there, and I believe my grades and a decent score should get me in. To complicate it, I will be accepting a commission into the Army when I graduate and any school will do to get me into the JAG Corps.

Here is my question:
Is attending a school that I truly want to be at, such as Louisville, that is not as highly reputed, going to hurt me after my time in the Army? Or will the offsetting experience from my Army time even it out? I know there is no definitive answer here, but any opinions would be appreciated.

Does anyone have an opinion?

Also, does anyone think my attending a military college as well as being an Army officer will add a slight edge towards my application? Or is that usually worth no "brownie points" on these applications?

Of course it'll help your application.

If you have an arrangement with the military to be a JAG once you finish law school because you are already in (I have a friend who did this with Army), then it doesn't really matter where you go. The primary reason people go to higher ranked schools is for OCI advantages and judicial clerkships. Since you will be doing neither with a commission...

People also try to avoid schools where people wind up underemployed or unemployed. That's also not an issue in your case.

You might have some problems with hyper snooty firms later in your career if you want to lateral to the private sector - but that's more than cancelled out by the huge preference you get for federal jobs. JAG's also learn to be very good litigators and by the time you're probably thinking of leaving the military, you'll have a lot of experience and almost no one will care where you went to school.

problem is, most people here (me included) are just a bunch of regular old twenty-somethings. There are three or four veterans around here, and I think one or two AF jag interns, but besides that this crowd is only going to be able to give you uninformed bs at best. If I were you I would speak to officials in the Army instead of people here.

You may want to try asking over at viewtopic.php?f=3&t=31543

There are some current officers in JAG over there taking questions.

I can think of a dozen or more regular posters who are veterans.

I don't know if this applies to the citadel, but service academies usually have much lower average grades (so a 3.2 coming out of Annapolis is quite high and pretty mediocre at Johns Hopkins), admins know this and while they don't just turn that 3.2 into a 3.7 you will not be treated like a regular old slacker (if the Citadel grades like the academies).

It's not going to get you into law school if your numbers are not competitive, but it helps if you are borderline.

Thanks for the help guys... I'm gonna head on over to the suggested military law thread to continue this...