Here are some tips for selecting schools, based on an analysis comparing each school to all others across dozens of factors:
Schools Concentrating On Lawyers
- Focus: For schools with a focus on this career area, look at Georgetown.
Fastest Response From Schools
- Request Info: For the fastest information for prospective students, look at the Spotlight schools on this page.
Student Body
- Part-Time: For schools emphasizing part-time studies, consider Howard and Catholic University of America.
- Diverse: For a diverse student body, consider Howard, David A. Clark School of Law, American University, and Georgetown.
- Adult Learners: For lots of adult learners, consider David A. Clark School of Law.
School Setting
- Out of State: For geographic diversity, take note of Howard, Georgetown, American University, and Catholic University of America.
- Dorms: For a residential campus environment, take note of Catholic University of America, Howard, American University, and Georgetown.
Excellence
- SAT: For students with high SAT scores, look at Georgetown, American University, and Catholic University of America.
- % Accepted: For selective institutions, look at Georgetown, American University, and Howard.
- Class Size: For small class sizes, look at Howard, Catholic University of America, Georgetown, and American University.
Student/Alumnus Reviews of Schools for This Career and State
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Georgetown University Law Center • Washington, DC
Studying Law (completion in 1979)
• 9/16/2011
"The education served me well. It might have been nice to have a social setting that endured, but a JD is a tool and not a definition of social standing or culture."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | maybe | As I mentioned, if money is a concern, then a state university might be a better choice, given the current economic situation and difficulty of finding jobs in law. This is a top school, but I would recommend spending the money -- or taking on the debt -- only if the student aims for the top of the class, so is competitive with Harvard lawyers. |
| Program Reputation | 9 | Georgetown is good and grads can still get good jobs, but it's not Harvard or Yale. If money is an issue, and you can't get into Harvard, maybe in state would be the answer. But in DC, Georgetown should hold up. |
| Program Quality | 10 | Georgetown is a high quality school with excellent professors who may come from senior positions in the government. The city offers learning opportunities that no other city can. The Supreme Court is a few blocks away, as is Congress. The students are high achievers. |
| Instruction | 10 | The school is top flight and the city attracts some of the best lawyers in the US. For a course like legal ethics, the university can bring in an adjunct professor who has had real world, high profile experience, or can bring in a top government official. The course work can be more connected to eventual real world law practice. |
| How Difficult | 10 | Law school is demanding, no matter where one goes. But at a top school like Georgetown, the students are the best and so competition is intense. Professors are demanding, as they should be. I more recently earned a masters degree in "food studies," a social science degree. The rigor of the law program was not even in the same universe as the social science degree. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | It was fine. We had seminars in which we were to produce real life briefs and argue real life style moot court arguments, or do an estate plan for a fictional client. Because Washington has traditionally offered great employment opportunities, many, if not most, students also got real world experience by working part time, or in the case of night students, full-time. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 10 | Georgetown had a very big evening program that attracted senior government employees and interesting people with interesting jobs. Classes were in the evenings and on Saturdays, but any student could take any class. |
| Academic Facilities | 8 | The library was excellent. Professors seemed accessible--they weren't running out the door at the end of class or just hanging out with each other (which I saw in my masters program). Then the whole city of Washington and the Library of Congress are also available. |
| Social Life | 5 | This is a law school to attend to get a good education, not worry about football games. It's in the city and has no campus (it's not on the undergrad campus). We made our own friends and study groups, and that was that. |
| Placement Services | 8 | My experience is too old to be useful. It was excellent in 1979, but then getting a job was easy back then if you did reasonably well. Very organized system. It probably is still as good as possible. I never needed it afterwards. The school's reputation and my first law firm stood on their own. |
| Alumni Network | 4 | People come and go in Washington and the school's networks may reflect that. There is not the same sense of community that I noticed among lawyers who had gone to a place like Harvard or Virginia. It's not a place to go to be coddled, during or after, but the placement system when I was there was excellent. |
Catholic University School Of Law • Washington, DC
Studying Law (completion in 1985)
• 9/28/2011
"I am very happy with my degree. I learned a lot and am the member of 4 different bars. I passed all the tests the first time."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | no | The field is overrun and is under extreme pressure. It is extremely stressful and not that rewarding. |
| Program Reputation | 7 | I think that Catholic has a great reputation in the area and a good reputation in the Catholic community nationwide. Beyond those groups, though, it is an unknown entity. |
| Program Quality | 9 | It was a wonderful law school with great professors and good opportunities. I wish that I had had more guidance. |
| Instruction | 7 | We had many opportunities for internships but no real peek in to the real world. Practical applications of the law degree would have been nice to have |
| How Difficult | 8 | I was challenged. But I love reading and writing so it was not all that hard. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | Hands on opportunities are limited in this field. No one wants a law student without a license working on something serious. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 10 | There were a lot of students that were not of the traditional age. The school was great in allowing students the flexibility to work full time and get a degree. |
| Academic Facilities | 9 | The library was more than adequate. We had to use actual books and there were a lot of them. |
| Social Life | 8 | It was law school. There were parties occasionally and the city provided the night life. But it was LAW SCHOOL, it was not supposed to be social and no one expected athletic events or social activities. |
| Placement Services | 5 | I got my own job. I did not get any assistance. I think that there was a lot of assistance with internships while in school. |
| Alumni Network | 6 | It was not very organized back in the dark ages before the internet. I think that they are still behind compared to my high school and undergrad institution. |
George Washington University • Washington, DC
Studying Juris Doctor (completion in 2010)
• 9/21/2011
"The school provided a lot of opportunities and my education and degree are highly valued within the legal community. However, because of the state of the economy, my education is not as valuable as it would have been a couple of years ago."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | I think GW is an excellent law school, but I would recommend that others reconsider pursuing a legal career. However, if they did want to pursue a legal career, GW would be an excellent place to do it, based on its academic excellence and location. |
| Program Reputation | 10 | GW has been in the top 20 law schools as ranked by U.S. News and World Report for a long time. Its location in D.C. also helps its reputation. |
| Program Quality | 9 | GW has many opportunities available to students because of it's location in the D.C. area. It's externship partnerships and adjunct professors are amazing. |
| Instruction | 9 | The course selection is so varied - you can take a class on almost any type of law. The professors are amazing - they have incredible backgrounds and experiences and are widely published. |
| How Difficult | 10 | Any law school program is extremely difficult and time consuming. The reading alone will take up a large portion of your time, as will the extracurricular activities like journal, moot court, etc. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | All law schools are pretty much based on the case study method, which necessarily involves book learning. GW is moving towards externships and clinics, though, which are more hands on. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 5 | There is a part time program available, so there are a large number of classes available at night. Summer classes are available, but not a large variety. Online classes are not available. |
| Academic Facilities | 7 | The library has a great deal of material and the library staff is incredibly helpful with research. Academic advising is pretty much nonexistent. |
| Social Life | 7 | The Student Bar Association controls pretty much all organized social events. Most of them are of no cost or low cost to students. |
| Placement Services | 5 | Career services focuses exclusively on the Washington D.C. and New York markets, even though it advertises itself as a national school. They also focus on large firm and federal government jobs, to the exclusion of many opportunities. |
| Alumni Network | 5 | I am currently living in Florida, where the alumni network as not as developed. It is more developed where there are a lot of alumni, like D.C. or New York. |
Georgetown University Law Center • Washington, DC
Studying Law (completion in 2009)
• 10/12/2011
"Great school, great experience. I'm going to be paying for it for a long time, though."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | Great school, great place to start a legal career. Be careful of the cost, though. |
| Program Reputation | 8 | Considered a very good law school. We're Top 20. |
| Program Quality | 8 | Georgetown is solidly in the top 20. We're not Yale, but we're pretty good. |
| Instruction | 7 | I had some very good teachers. Some were a little too egg-heady, but some we quite talented. |
| How Difficult | 7 | Courses could be hard, but the curve made it easy. Very easy to do pretty well, hard to do very well. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | The hands on learning was there if you looked for it. You didn't have to take part in it, though. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 10 | Night classes and classes throughout the day. Couldn't really be more flexible. |
| Academic Facilities | 8 | Excellent professors who were always available. Excellent library with great support for students. |
| Social Life | 7 | Pretty good for a law school. Some school spirit and parties. |
| Placement Services | 5 | If you want to go to a Big Firm, it's excellent. For everyone else, not so much. |
| Alumni Network | 3 | I never use the network. I'm not sure I know how to. |
Georgetown Law School • Washington Dc, DC
Studying International Law (completion in 2007)
• 10/16/2011
"G-town law was very expensive. It has given me some good opportunities in DC, but it hasn't been the great game-changer for my career that I thought it would be."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | no | The school is too expensive if you are not dying to be a lawyer. There are simply too many lawyers, and not enough legal opportunities. It's not worth taking 3 years out of potential experience from the work force and go deeply into debt. |
| Program Reputation | 9 | G-town has an excellent international law program that is one of the nation's best. Very diverse class offerings. |
| Program Quality | 8 | Georgetown has an excellent International Law program. It has placed me in a competitive position for jobs in Washington DC. |
| Instruction | 8 | The teachers at Georgetown are extensively qualified. They are extremely experienced in the international law field as well. |
| How Difficult | 5 | Georgetown is hard to get into for law school, but the academics are not super strenuous. Grading is scaled so that most people get a B+. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | Most of my learning was by electronic means. Some of my international law classes, however, extensively focused on reading. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 10 | You can take classes whenever you want. Weekends are a viable option as well, on a condensed schedule. |
| Academic Facilities | 9 | The facilities at G-town law are top-notch, very modernized. Excellent assistance with media issues as well offered by staff. |
| Social Life | 3 | G-town law had lackluster school spirit and few social opportunities. |
| Placement Services | 6 | G-town is geared towards placing students in law firms, not in government jobs. They have not been particularly helpful since the economy has tanked. |
| Alumni Network | 8 | There are a lot of G-town alumni in the DC area that are very helpful. Many have risen to considerable heights of achievement in the legal world as well. |
Catholic University Of America • Washington, DC
Studying Law (completion in 1988)
• 12/24/2011
"I was very satisfied with the school, because it prepared me very well for the practice of law, and I enjoyed my time there. The only real drawback was its lack of a national reputation."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | I feel that CUA provides excellent training in the practice of law, and a supportive community in an exciting city. Particularly for someone interested in working in Washington, DC, it is a great place to learn. |
| Program Reputation | 7 | The school has an excellent reputation in the Washington, DC area. However, it is not very well known outside of the East Coast. |
| Program Quality | 7 | I was very satisfied with the education I received at CUA. It prepared me very well for my legal career. |
| Instruction | 8 | I was very well prepared for a legal career. The material was relevant and timely. A few of the teachers were not as good as the others and I didn't learn as much from them, but they were the exceptions. |
| How Difficult | 9 | The study of law is very demanding. It requires several hundred pages of reading each day. The reading is complex and detailed. I routinely studied between 5 and 8 hours each day, in addition to classes; more when preparing for final exams. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | The school was very book oriented. There was really only one hands-on opportunity, which was a legal clinic for the poor. It did not offer experience in my chosen field of the law, so I did not take advantage of it. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 8 | When I attended, the school offered various options for class times, to allow for flexibility in scheduling. Now, they have expanded their offerings, particularly online, to meet the demands of the newer generation. |
| Academic Facilities | 9 | Within the past 10 years, the school has constructed a new building. It has state-of-the-art facilities, including an excellent library and classroom spaces. The library in particular has become a resource not only for students, but for local practitioners. |
| Social Life | 9 | I had an excellent social experience at the school. Since enrollment was small, it fostered a real sense of community. I made some very close friendships that have lasted through this day. |
| Placement Services | I have been in my current job for 23 years. I have not used the career services office at my school for a long time, so I do not feel qualified to rate them. | |
| Alumni Network | I don't join groups. I do not have a lot of experience with the alumni network. |
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