SectionC3

As a recent UB Law grad, I thought I'd offer a few general observations on this thread: 1. Before I start, a little background: Graduated from a SUNY College in Western/Central New York with a bachelor of arts I'd prefer not to mention in the interest of maintaining anonymity and secondary education certification. Went straight from undergrad to UB Law; earned law review membership and moot court, worked 15-20 hours per week during the semester and graduated with honors. After graduation, turned down an offer to work at a wonderful firm in the Buffalo area, accepted a position outside of Western New York where I'm not responsible for billable hours and intend to return to Buffalo in the next year or so. 2. To those considering law school, i.e. Johnny B. and the "Ivy" daughter, I have a couple of suggestions: a. DON'T take a Princeton, Kaplan or other LSAT course. It's a waste. I bought the ARCO book by Thomas Martinson, spent 3 hours a night with it for about 6 weeks, and scored in the 90-95% percentile range on the LSAT. You're better served by buying a book like that for $20 and working the practice problems until you get every single one right. Thereafter, I taught an LSAT course for a company I wish not to name. I wouldn't take a course like that, and here's why: the actual classroom sessions are poorly planned and essentially parrot the material contained in the texts distributed to the students. More importantly, though, what the places with the larger class sizes don't tell you is that students who don't have a prayer of getting into law school are grouped into the same class as those who are there to try to boost the 159 to a 164. I had a group where a few of the students scored a 120 (rock bottom) on the preliminary test, while other students were over 155 (generally good enough to get into a Tier II law school). My problem, then, was to try to figure out whether to help the lower end of the class score well enough to get into law school, or help the higher-end folks boost their scores and get into a Tier I or Tier II school. Those responsible for supervising classroom instruction offered no advice in this regard. Thus, if you're moderately intelligent and willing to work, a $20 book with three or four practice tests and a "can-do" attitude should be enough to get you where you need to go on the LSAT. b. Have a plan when you go to law school and be willing to work. I’m not even sure where to start with this . . . . I guess this is directed more toward the “Ivy” daughter. UB Law is a wonderful place and a great school. If you work hard during the first year, make “A’s,” get on law review and present yourself well during August recruiting following your first year, it is well within the realm of possibility to get a job paying close to six figures (though not in Buffalo). If you don’t do as well academically during your first year and therefore don’t get a job in summer recruiting, you’ll have to compete in Moot Court, boost your grades, and give it a shot again next time around. On the other hand, law review and moot court membership doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything either. I know a few law review colleagues who were still looking for jobs six months after graduation, while others accepted positions in medium-sized firms from Buffalo to Albany and all places in between with average starting salaries of between $37,000 and $54,000 and billable hourly requirements of about 1800 hours a year. The money may sound somewhat pedestrian, but consider this: those who take the six-figure jobs in New York City, Boston, D.C. etc. have hourly requirements in the 2000 to 2200 range. What that means is they’d better learn to enjoy spending nights and weekends in the office. Moreover, from what I hear from those I know in the “fancier” jobs, just about all of the big paycheck is spent every week, whether it be on rent (Manhattan is expensive), loan payments due on the 15th of the month, or, as comes with the "big firm" job, the obligation to “accessorize” – i.e. the women have to have the expensive handbags, and the men need something other than suits purchased at a store in the Galleria Mall. The lesson is, I guess, that everything comes with a price, and while it’s easy to go to a big city and make the big bucks, bear in mind that whoever is paying you is probably getting a heck of a lot more out of you than you’re getting out of them. c. Academic environment at UB v. a “Top 14” school: Again, UB is a great school and one can start a great career there. This is a close call, but if the goal is to make money quickly and live in a big city (and spend some serious time in the office), the higher-ranked school is the way to go. That said, if the “Ivy” daughter doesn’t ace the LSATs and ends up at UB, she should be wary of establishing a mindset that the Ivy pedigree will make UB a breeze. I dealt with a number of Ivy and Ivy League “flunky school” grads (sorry, Colgate), and while some were extremely nice (two of my best friends in law school are from Cornell and another outstanding private school in the North Country), for the most part I found that there were more than a few who liked to hear themselves talk and had a hard time squeezing their egos through the door. I happen to be the first to finish college on my father’s side of the family, worked throughout high school, college and law school, and am not in the business of taking any crap from people like that. Needless to say, many “Ivy” classmates provided wonderful motivation. Any time I felt like closing the books a little early on the weekend or leaving the library before midnight, a casual reminder of a particularly pompous classmate would cure that thought very quickly. In the end, things worked out pretty well for me, and to a certain extent, I have my interaction with some of my more “privileged” classmates to thank. d. “I don’t want to be suing everyone all the time”: This is a misconception. What people don’t realize is that, for the most part, it takes two lawyers to conduct a trial. So, while a “trial lawyer” may be responsible for suing someone, it takes a “trial lawyer” to defend the suit. Some of the ill-informed folks here may not like “trial lawyers” per se, and to some extent they may have a point. However, I doubt you’ll hear too many complaints if you choose to practice insurance defense and therefore defend the father who gets sued because his kid got into a car accident with the father's car. In any event though, the “trial lawyer” complaints expressed in previous threads are for the most part ill-informed. Anyone who bothers to “google” the afore-discussed McDonald’s coffee case will realize a couple of important things: (1) the coffee was served at 190 degrees – approximately 40-50 degrees hotter than industry standards, and therefore in clear breach of McDonalds's duty to serve coffee that wouldn't melt human skin in 2-7 seconds; and (2) the punitive damages award was reduced by the court to a figure in the neighborhood of $400,000 before a confidential settlement was reached. That may seem like a lot of money, put the nature of damages, at least in that regard, were punitive, which means they were supposed to punish and deter future similar conduct. There, the damages as reduced by the court amounted to just a few hours of coffee sales at McDonalds restaurants. All of the proponents of tort reform should think very carefully about this before spouting off with ill-informed opinions. Such deterrence encourages responsibility. I doubt those proponents of tort reform on this board would be willing to strap their kids into a Ford Pinto, throw some Firestones on the car, and hit Niagara Falls Boulevard or the 290 during rush hour. In any event, my opinions on “trial lawyers” aside, most lawyers don’t conduct trials and are instead engaged in paperwork or motion practice. This would be a silly reason to forego law school. e. What to expect as a young lawyer: Without revealing where I work or my salary, I will say that life after law school can be grueling. I work anywhere between 60-80 hours a week and come home so tired at night that I can barely string two coherent words together in conversation or on paper (as if you haven’t figured that out already by reading the above). That said, I love my job and am very happy with my decision to attend law school. I note, however, that if things don’t work out financially in the next 10 years or so, I will have no problem leaving a job paying less than 1.5 times the average teachers’ salary per year to make use of my teaching certification, enjoy the summers and accrue outstanding retirement benefits. 3. A brief comment on the Medical Malpractice discussion: I think it’s interesting that people generally choose to attack lawyers on this issue. If ever there exists a profession where a certain standard or care and prudence is required, medicine is it. Most people don’t realize that in order to pursue a medical malpractice action in New York State, a plaintiff invariably needs the friendly testimony of a medical doctor to merely survive summary judgment. In other words, if a doctor doesn’t say another doctor screwed up, it’s tough to maintain action against the doctor that screwed up. In any event, and I say this in the most conciliatory manner possible, I’d be interested to see the statistics regarding recovery caps and insurance premiums. The big assumption in that argument, I suspect, is that insurance companies would be willing to lower premiums in conjunction with a ceiling on potential malpractice recovery