What's St. John's School of Law like?

May 25, 2008 11:13 PM

I am very seriously considering attending St. John's School of Law. What's it like?

I'm a 26-year-old liberal who's lived in NYC for the past 8 years. I've already been accepted, and I've been offered a competitive scholarship. I'm coming into law school with an open mind as far as career prospects are concerned, but I'm most interested in public interest law, work in the government, or entertainment law. (I've been bounced up and down the socioeconomic ladder enough to not be all that interested in Big Law.) What is the general tone on campus? How solid are the job prospects?

posted by Sticherbeast to education (6 comments total)

This may be something that you already know, so I apologize if I'm beating a dead horse, but law school rankings reaaaaaaaalllly matter in some/most fields. If you're interested in public interest, it may not as important as it would be otherwise, although there are certainly many areas of public interest that are very competitive as well. The legal world is quite snobby, and if a job you want is at all competitive, you will have to have performed very near the top of your class to get a look. I would recommend asking the school for their statistics regarding the number of students employed at graduation and their median salary. It may be that this school has a solid local reputation and its students do ok, but it is something to think about. You might also look at some places that you would like to work and see what the credentials of the people working there are.
posted by wuzandfuzz at 2:46 AM on May 26

If by "competitive" you mean a scholarship of $25,000 or $30,000 a year, than by all means go unless you're giving up some great opportunities to do so. St. John's is an entirely respectable law school whose graduates immediately (if they have very high grades) or eventually (if they work hard and prove themselves great lawyers) establish fine careers in New York. The school is off the beaten path in Queens, but that's not a bad thing: fewer distractions, cheaper cost of living.

If by "competitive" you mean a lesser scholarship, say no.

The kind of public interest and government jobs that would offer you the remotest possibility of servicing a six-figure debt load are going to be out of reach to all but the very top of the class at St. John, and, unlike top corporate jobs, tend to stay that way for a long time and even then only open up if you've had some very good results in prior work and made some great connections.

Debt is a critical issue for entertainment law as well. Quite unlike any other legal career path I know, entertainment law is more like being a doctor -- a few years of school followed by at least as many, and usually, more years of low-paid and generally quite brutal on-the-job training. The difference is that, unlike a doctor's residency and fellowship, there is no defined path for an entertainment lawyer's apprenticeship and most people fail to complete it. (Ask a hundred successful entertainment lawyers how they did it, and you'll get a hundred different stories, none of the them pleasant.)
posted by MattD at 4:47 AM on May 26 [2 favorites]

If you are seriously considering public interest work, CUNY is by far the best choice you can make. However, if you live anywhere other than Queens it is quite a hike. The same can be said for St. John's. I also got a scholarship from St. John's, but turned them down when I saw how isolated it is from Manhattan (where I live). It's also a fairly conservative student body.

Oh and wuzandfuzz's comments are really not true unless you have nothing to offer but your grades. Being an interesting adult with a great "real world" resume counts for a lot more than you think
posted by thermopolis at 10:56 AM on May 26

As an ex-lawyer who didn't even like the career options coming out of a top school (Harvard) and left the profession, I want to urge you to be VERY careful about going to a less-than-top school. In particular, be careful about debt (and even a good scholarship might leave you with debt once you factor in the cost of living in NYC): you could find yourself with a really shitty job struggling to pay law school loans.

Even without debt, think of the opportunity cost of three years of your life. Do you really want to practice law in the kinds of jobs one can get out of St. John's? Really, really? If not, you should take some time and figure out what you actually want to do. And I suspect that's the case from the wide variety of jobs in which you've expressed mild interest. You shouldn't go to law school unless you know what you actually want to do with the degree, genuinely want to do that thing more than anything else you could reasonably do, and have a plan for how you're going to get there.
Self-link coming: Why You Shouldn't Go to Law School.
posted by paultopia at 12:24 PM on May 26

That's true thermopolis, but given that he didn't mention any particular "real world" experience, I just thought it important to point out the relative snobbery of the legal world. It was certainly something I was unaware of when I first started law school.
posted by wuzandfuzz at 3:26 PM on May 26

Thermopolis is right that the school you go to is not the "end-all-be-all" of getting a job after graduation. However, going to a good school would make things easier when you get out and would also make for an easier three years of law school. Since most people at higher-ranked schools are guaranteed jobs, they tend to be a little less competitive (not that any law school will qualify as relaxed.)

If you are serious about public interest, I would urge you to think about a couple of things. First, public interest jobs in NYC can be more competitive than firm jobs. I go to a highly ranked law school, and many of the recent graduates who want to pursue public interest jobs in New York are hitting dead ends. There is less turnover in those jobs and less funding, creating a scarcity of positions. The people I know who got into the public interest world did it in one of two ways: through good clinics or through a clerkship they got after graduation. I would ask St. John's questions about both of these areas.

You also might want to see if any other schools you are interested in have some kind of debt repayment program for people interested in public interest. I know my school has one, and many of the other schools I was interested in had one as well. Such a program might mean that the scholarship would not play as much of a role in your decision.
posted by quine's_gavagai at 4:34 PM on May 26