Questions About Law Schools
Tussy needs advice – and where better to get it than Slaw.
My young Canadian friend Tussy Mohr needs some advice from the Slaw community – given its diversity of backgrounds and experience. She’s like many recent graduates – wants to go to law school but is uncertain about the choices.
She’s got a good science undergraduate degree from one of the top Canadian universities, a very respectable LSAT, but faces a dilemma. Should she apply to law schools in Canada or in the United States for an LLB/JD degree
She would like to focus on the space between law, science and public policy.
So three questions for Slaw:
1) Is there that much difference between Canadian and American law schools?
Leaving aside the top ten elite schools – Canadian schools aren’t trying to compete with Harvard, Yale, Stanford etc.
2) Are there schools which are stronger in collaboration between law, science and public policy?
3) What sort of job opportunities (beyond obviously law teaching) open up with an LLB/JD with particular emphasis on law, science and public policy?
Advice for Tussy would be much appreciated.
Thoughts off the top of my head:
The romantic liason will likely tell the tale — for her, more likely than for him, experience suggests.
Worry little about the JD thing: a good LLB leads to the necessary LLM (not to say PhD now), which could be from one of the biggies fairly easily.
If a joint degree is critical, consider the Osgoode / NYU combined degree program. You cannot beat NYU, ivy league pretension notwithstanding.
Don’t place too much emphasis on imagined career directions. Things change. Always. Inevitably. Instead, suss out good teaching, good library, freedom within the academic program, and plan on getting self-directed pronto.
We could definitely use her in a leadership role to help us slow down climate change!
My own perspective: I was raised in the U.S., moved to Canada immediately post-university, later went to law school in Canada, and now work at a Canadian law firm. (Also, as it happens, I have a science degree.)
In my view, unless money is no object, the arguments for studying in the U.S. are weak. Consider these two points:
1) A Canadian law degree will allow you to write the bar exam in many U.S. jurisdictions (Massachusetts and New York, at least – I believe there are others). Getting called to the bar in Canada with a U.S. law degree is not, I believe, as straighforward – corfirm what would be required if you have in mind to return.
2) A Canadian legal education, even at U of T, is vastly less expensive than at a comparable U.S. law school. This is no small issue, as graduating with $100,000 in debt will essentially foreclose certain career options. If your’re sure you want to practise in NYC it may not matter so much – but then, you don’t need a U.S. law degree to do that (see #1).
So: studying in the U.S. is much more money, and in return one gets a legal education that is no better, and arguably less flexible in terms of North American career options. Sounds like a bad deal to me. No wonder I went to McGill.
As to whether there is difference generally between Canadian and U.S. schools, I couldn’t say. Canadian law schools will give you some exposure to U.S. law; I doubt the reverse is true. Nature of pedagogy, students, etc – probably depends on the school. I think U.S. schools on average have shinier, newer buildings (all that tuition money). I would go visit and sit in on some classes.
On the topic of romantic transborder liaisons, I would just add that that was how I ended up in Canada in the first place. Within six months of arriving, the liaison was over. Unless this is a liaison of substantial seriousness (i.e., a ring), I would frankly advise giving that no weight in her decision-making. Choosing a law school was one of the most significant decisions I ever made; if I had had to make the decision partly on the basis of another person, I would have wanted to be darn well certain that person would stick around.
Good luck to her !
Alex
Given your stated interests the only thing I would add to the above, is that you might want to consider a joint program and what is offered at various schools. I know here at Dal there are a variety of joint LLB/XXX programs (eg. LLB/MLIS, LLB/MPA, LLB/MBA, LLB/MHSA). Such an offering and some of the possiblities they contain, sound like they might be of interest to you.