Phoenix School of Law (law school, costs, legal)

[The_Cadillac_Lawyer]

I'm stating I'd much rather be in a diverse law school (period). Diversity may not be important to you, but it is to me. Again, many think the world revolves around the life they live, the decisions they'd make, what their preferences are. Unable to fathom a perspective aside from their own.
The field of Law is over-saturated blah, blah, blah . . . I've been hearing this for the past ten years. You know what, telecommunications, IT, Plumbers etc, are ALL over-saturated fields because of Baby-boomers that have postponed retirement again and again.
This country will see mass waves of retirements in ALL fields and when it does the area of law will pick up hiring just as much as Electricians.
You think I don't know that people hire other people based on personal preferential reasons??
LoL, as minority, the law school I attended will more than likely be the least of my concerns when it comes to personal preferences!!
Now if you want to make the argument based on sheer economics, then YES I'd recommend ASU over PSL any day of the week! 60k vs. 90k goes along way. However, many other factors are considered when a person chooses a law school, and fortunately your factors aren't the only ones that people take or should take into consideration.

[azriverfan.]

Originally Posted by trudawg

The field of Law is over-saturated blah, blah, blah . . . I've been hearing this for the past ten years. You know what, telecommunications, IT, Plumbers etc, are ALL over-saturated fields because of Baby-boomers that have postponed retirement again and again.

The difference is it doesn't cost 250K in debt to attain these positions either.

This country will see mass waves of retirements in ALL fields and when it does the area of law will pick up hiring just as much as Electricians. You think I don't know that people hire other people based on personal preferential reasons??
LoL, as minority, the law school I attended will more than likely be the least of my concerns when it comes to personal preferences!!
Now if you want to make the argument based on sheer economics, then YES I'd recommend ASU over PSL any day of the week! 60k vs. 90k goes along way.

Did you read this article? These schools fudge their numbers. For example, they include any type of employment when accounting for the percentage of graduates employed within 9 months. Here is an excerpt from the article. This graduate couldn't even get a job as attorney. He is doing paralegal work as a temp while he looks for a job.

"He remembers little about the promotional materials the Thomas Jefferson school sent when he applied in 2006, other than a pamphlet with lots of promising numbers. That was before the economy crumbled, but the school’s postgraduate data still looks fabulous, particularly given its spot in the fourth and bottom tier of U.S. News’s rankings. The most recent survey says 92 percent of Thomas Jefferson grads were employed nine months after they earned their degrees."


Even students with open eyes, though, will have a hard time sleuthing through the U.S. News rankings. They are based entirely on unaudited surveys conducted by each law school, using questions devised by the American Bar Association and the National Association for Law Placement.

The surveys themselves have a built-in bias. As many deans acknowledge, the results are skewed because graduates with high-paying jobs are more likely to respond than people earning $9 an hour at Radio Shack. (Those who don’t respond are basically invisible, aside from reducing the overall response rate of the survey.)

However, many other factors are considered when a person chooses a law school, and fortunately your factors aren't the only ones that people take or should take into consideration.

Sorry but when you have $250K in debt, my factors are the most important ones unless you have rich parents or won the lottery.

[azriverfan.]

This is my last response on this thread but I want all of you guys to read this excerpt from this article as it is the most relevant to the point I'm making

"Based on the seething and regret you hear from some law school grads, more than a few wish that someone had been patronizing enough to say, “Oh no you don’t.” But it’s often hard to convince students about the potential downside of law school, says Kimber A. Russell, a 37-year-old graduate of DePaul, who writes the Shilling Me Softly blog. “This idea of exceptionalism — I don’t know if it’s a thing with millennials, or what,” she says, referring to the generation now in its 20s. “Even if you tell them the bottom has fallen out of the legal market, they’re all convinced that none of the bad stuff will happen to them. It’s a serious, life-altering decision, going to law school, and you’re dealing with a lot of naïve students who have never had jobs, never paid real bills.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/bu...m1myW/k965GtCg

[The_Cadillac_Lawyer]

I hear ya, I have been warned time and time again, but like I said different people do things for different reasons.
If I thought for one second that I'd incur $250k of debt and not be able to get a job over 50k then there is no way I'd go to ANY law school.
Fortunately for me, I'll have no where near that kind of debt! 60K at most! I know people with under-grad degrees in sociology that owe more than that!
Also fortunate for me, I have ZERO desire to work in Big-Law, unlike others it's not about the money. It's truly about being in a position to help others. Now of course, I have loans to pay off and will need a job to do that, but I don't make decisions based on fear.
True, the days of a 26 y.o. coming out of law-school making well over six figures are dead.
True, that even though many opportunities afforded to lawyers have dried up, for-profit law schools continue to pump out JD's.
True, 250k in debt with 20 years to pay off (at 50k a year) is not an ideal situation to be in.
False, that you have no personal control over your OWN destiny based on what happens to others!

I don't care if you just graduated from pipe-fitting school, your likeliness to find a good job lies on your ability to sell yourself and network!

Now of course I could be eating crow in a couple years, but I highly doubt it because motivation doesn't quite come from the same place as others.

[rockybird]

My opinion: You need to go to the best law school that you can get into. By "best" I mean an established school with high rankings. You may think you want to go into public law now, but you may very well change your mind when you are in school. It is an extremely competitive world and law is one of the most competitive fields to get a good job. You make 20k now, so maybe 60k sounds like a lot to you. When you come out of school with huge student loans growing astronomically with interest, 60k will not seem like much. 100k will not seem like much. I am not an attorney (I am a physician), but my father runs a firm, my brother is also an atty. and my stepfather is a judge. I know this is the same advice that they would give me. On a side note, I do hope that PSL will succeed and build itself into a respected school. It would be great for Phoenix. I also envy you, because I had always wanted to go to law school as well. I kicked around joining my father in practice before going to med. school. Good luck whatever your choice.

[nickw252]

the law school I attended will more than likely be the least of my concerns when it comes to personal preferences

This makes no sense and it's not even based in reason. Are you saying that good law schools only accept white, land owning males?

Diversity won't get you a job, wont get rid of hundreds of thousands of debt, wont get you a good education. Good grades and a good law school will.

[nickw252]

Originally Posted by azriverfan.

Sorry but when you have $250K in debt, my factors are the most important ones unless you have rich parents or won the lottery.

Not just any $250,000 in debt, it's NON-DISCHARGEABLE debt. You can never get rid of this debt. Bankruptcy does not discharge student loans.

[The_Cadillac_Lawyer]

Originally Posted by nickw252

This makes no sense and it's not even based in reason. Are you saying that good law schools only accept white, land owning males?

Diversity won't get you a job, wont get rid of hundreds of thousands of debt, wont get you a good education. Good grades and a good law school will.

Clarification . . . it makes no sense to YOU. I was not referring to law school acceptance. I'm referring to getting a job. Minorities have the highest unemployment rate in the country. I'm not just pulling this out of my arse

[_Charles_]

Originally Posted by observer53

Huh? Your first sentence doesn't make sense, but they ARE fully ABA accredited. Phoenix School of Law: News & Events

Passing the bar "really counts", yes, because you can't work as a lawyer without it, but getting a job has more to it than that. Their bar passing rate was better than ASU's or U of A's in Feb 2010; their job placement rate within nine months of graduation is 97 percent. Not bad, either.

Someone else made the comment about them (Phx Law School) not being accredited. Personally I don't care. I was just explaining what "unaccredited" in this context means.

And as I stated passing the bar is what matters - LOL.
All the networking in the world means nothing without passing the bar. DOH!

[dougstech]

Originally Posted by Romeosgal

Oh my gosh... you'll love the weather here. Today, it is just beautiful. And it will be through to late April!

I've been at PSL for over a year... I'm a 2L. There are a lot of scholarships available that you may want to check into. Just call Admissions and they'll let you know what you could qualify for. Good luck!

From the TWO posts you have made, all of them on this single thread and highly praising PSL, I'd say you work from them. PR companies are hired to search the web and write these kinds of things for their clients.

Take consideration of the poster's reputation on this site when taking it seriously.