*Deep breath* Any lawyers here?

[Awesomeness!!]

The first story speaks to another thing that Awesomeness should consider if he does, in fact, decide to go to law school. In addition to the job market woes, law schools in particular are very regionally biased, especially outside the top 14, and the 1st tier more generally. So, for example, if that guy went to a California school like Pepperdine or UC-Irvine, the degree just isn't as well respected by employers on the east coast. UCLA, USC, Stanford and Berkeley? Yeah, sure, but those are all in the top 18 in the nation. I mean NY state has NYU, Cardozo, Cornell, Fordham, Harvard, Yale all within a reasonable distance. Those are the schools they're recruiting from, not obscure west coast universities they don't know much about. Unless, of course, a principal at any given firm is an alumni, but you can't count on that. And in North Carolina, a degree from Campbell might get you a job in either Charlotte or Raleigh, but it doesn't have much reach outside of the state. No one should go to Campbell and expect to get a job in Dallas or Chicago.

Of course the exceptions to the rule are the top 14 schools in the country; they're more widely recruited and graduates have more geographic flexibility. But outside of those, overwhelming percentages of grads find themselves practicing in the region in which they studied simply because that's where the degree carries weight. But as they say, where you went to school only matters for your first job. The rest is up to you after that.

This is essentially why I'm dying to move back to the southeast. I actually don't plan on being a lawyer forever. I want to (dare I say) community organize (community centers, things of that nature) but I want to do only in the south. I was considering transferring senior year of Undergrad, which would save me a ton of money in the long run.

Unlike a lot of people I honestly don't care where I go to school. To each his/her own but I don't think it matters that much if you don't plan on going and living in the private sector forever. That's the 100,000 gamble I'm taking anyway. I would be happy going to the Charlotte School of Law. That doesn't mean I won't shoot for Duke though.