re: thoughts on a PE attending Law School..

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If you want to stay in LA LSU is the best choice unless you know you want to be in NOLA.

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shite, even then i'd be hard pressed not to choose LSU. if you are certain you want to practice in state i wouldn't even consider tulane (schlow mo and i are both tulane lawyers). please don't mention southern. loyola is alright, but as far as i can tell you're limited to nola and there just aren't any jobs here.

if you want to attend law school in louisiana, then lsu is your school.

credit to just me for this reasoning, combined with my own commentary:

Ranking the schools by oppotunity and cost:
1. LSU - In state, it is the best option overall.
2. Southern - It's cheap and its a law degree. There isn't much else about it that is good, especially outside of Louisiana. I went there and hated almost every minute of it. But I got a law degree for right around $20k and like my job and practice.
3. Tulane/Loyola - These two costs way too much. If you are on full scholarship its a different story. Or, if money is no object to you and you want to practice in NOLA, these are clearly better choices than SULC.

None of the four La. schools will wow any out of state employer by themselves. You will need to be in the top 10 of your class for any large firm work. SULC, you probably need to be a minority and top 5 (persons, not %). I did have 3 exceptional classmates who started work out of law school for Sidley Austin in NYC. That is an outlier for SULC and cannot be expected on any regular occurence.

I'm not sure any of these schools offer any type of worthwile IP courses or educational track.

ETA: Just so I don't bag on SULC too hard, it is arguable who is better between SULC and Loyola from an academic standpoint. They are usually similar in terms of bar passage. Neither one lights the world on fire. Occasionally, SULC will jump Loyola in passage rate. I can't imagine the learning environment itself is up for debate. The proximity of the undergrad campus at SULC makes it a rough 3 years.

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I'm not sure any of these schools offer any type of worthwile IP courses or educational track.

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LSU has a basic Patent course, a basic IP course, and some other more detailed IP courses. But you're going to have to learn the info for the Patent Bar outside of school. The bigger concern should be getting to the top of the class to have a chance of cracking into one of the big firms in the state if you want to do IP.

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i'm not sure you bagged on southern at all. in fact, i felt like your post was stupid, based solely on the fact that you even had southern in your personal rankings. telling anyone to go to southern is awful, awful advice. when you read national articles about how there are too many law schools cranking out too many lawyers (although only 65 of 139 july 2012 sulc bar examinees were able to pass the LA bar exam), they are talking about school exactly like southern.

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Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I do not disagree about your comments about too many lawyers and SULC being a part of the problem. But if you don't think Loyola, Tulane and LSU are also culpable to an extent, then you are a fool. I will disagree that my post was stupid. SULC is not the ideal school to go to and is a pretty bad idea unless you fall into one of the following categories:
1. Going to take over a family practice or have a job setup in with a firm already under whatever circumstances.
2. You want to prosecute.
3. You want to work in government and have an in there.
4. You just really want to be a lawyer but can't get into LSU.

I'm not sure its wiser to go to Tulane and/or Loyola at what they cost a year (I believe somewhere between 15-20) in those circumstances than SULC.

Tulane is over 40 a year. They give out schollies like candy though.

I dont think it is wise under any circumstance to attend Southern. When I was talking about TTT, Southern is a prime example.

since you brought me up, i'll respond (which will have to be an exercise in restraint).

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But theOG works at a small, consumer law firm

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what are you getting at here? as i'm sure you're aware, since you went to southern (where i'm sure most people end up opening up their own practice), solo/small firm work can be quite lucrative.

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(unless he had a schollie)

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i did.

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He is also thinking about going back to school for an engineering degree.

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i could have gone to yale and i don't think i would enjoy being a lawyer every day for the rest of my life. the fact that i'm considering going back to school for an engineering degree has absolutely nothing to do with where i went to law school.

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what are you getting at here? as i'm sure you're aware, since you went to southern (where i'm sure most people end up opening up their own practice), solo/small firm work can be quite lucrative.

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I work in a small firm. I have since the day I started practicing. I'm certainly not attempting to degrade the work or area of law you practice. But its not a big law job.

I guess what I am getting at, is if you didn't have a scholarship, how much sense would it have been for you to go to Tulane in hindsight? For your purposes is a moot point. But does it make sense for anyone to go to Tulane without a scholarship?

You and mo called me stupid for suggesting there are circumstances were SULC should be considered an option. I'm using your situation as an example of why its not the worst thing in the world to do and should be considered in some circumstances.

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i could have gone to yale and i don't think i would enjoy being a lawyer every day for the rest of my life. the fact that i'm considering going back to school for an engineering degree has absolutely nothing to do with where i went to law school.

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Right, and I wasn't getting at that. Just pointing out the fact that you have a degree that costs 120k+ and you wanting to get out of law.