Aspiring applicants consider many factors when researching law schools. Many applicants defer to rankings, while others examine employment and clerkship statistics. Some look to see if the school is strong in the area of law in which they want to practice. Another factor that applicants often consider is location. But how much does a school’s location actually matter, especially when some law schools are located in areas with no real legal market?
In this blog post, we at Stratus offer some guidance on weighing a law school’s location among other factors when deciding where to apply.
Reasons for Choosing a Location
- Personal and professional obligations: There are many reasons applicants value location when choosing a law school. Some might need to stay in a particular location, such as if they have a significant other and/or children who cannot move somewhere else for three years. In addition, some law students attend part-time programs and continue working at their job during law school, and therefore moving might not be possible.
- Personal preferences: Other applicants zero in on a particular location simply because they like it. The idea of attending law school in a rural area, for example, might sound more appealing than living in a city. They also might be part of a community or enjoy living near friends and family.
- New city to explore: Applicants might see law school as a chance to try living in a different city such as Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, which have a lot of law schools. If an applicant has dreamed about living in a particular city, attending law school there could be a good opportunity to try it out for three years.
- Post-graduation plans: Similarly, some applicants choose a law school because they know that they want to work in that school’s area after graduation, perhaps due to personal preferences or family situations.
- Financial considerations: Finally, some applicants choose a location for financial reasons. For example, Virginia and California have several good public law schools, so if an applicant is a resident of one of these states already, they might want to receive in-state tuition.
Evaluating These Reasons
Are all of these reasons for choosing a location valid? Yes. Should location be your sole factor when selecting a law school? It depends.
- Investigate the employment statistics of law schools in your target area. If your personal circumstances require you to stay in a certain location, there is not much you can do. The only thing to weigh there is whether it makes sense to attend the law schools in that area versus not going at all. Focusing on one location will greatly limit the number of law school options. If your only choice is a law school with poor employment numbers, it might not make financial sense to attend. Therefore, exploring such statistics is an important step. The American Bar Association (ABA) requires law schools to post employment details for their recent graduates, such as employment rates, the types of law firms where graduates work, and the types of jobs graduates have (such as private sector versus public sector jobs). The best way to find these stats is to Google “[law school name], American Bar Association employment statistics.”
- Weigh the opportunities available in a particular location versus your happiness there. In terms of feeling more at home in certain locations than others, this is a very personal choice. There are two opposing ways to look at this. One is “It is just three years.” Although that is a lot of time, it’s not your whole life. Therefore, if you have a good opportunity to attend a particular law school that could help you in the long term, it could be worth putting up with the school’s location. The other viewpoint is “Your happiness matters.” If you truly think that you will be unhappy in a particular location, life is too short to be miserable for three years. Additionally, law school is stressful, so hating the location could add to this stress and even impact your academic performance. Furthermore, some law schools’ employment prospects are mainly limited to the region where they are located. So, if you don’t want to live in that region in the long term, you do not want to limit your job prospects to that area by attending such a school.
- Consider the reality of trying out a new city while in law school. Selecting a particular school for the purpose of living in a new location can be a factor, but it probably should not be the leading factor. Law school requires a large investment of time, so you might not get to truly enjoy trying out the location. Also, if the school’s employment prospects are largely limited to that location and you do not end up liking the area, you might be in a tough situation come graduation. Similarly, if you end up disliking the school’s location, you could have a tough three years.
- Understand employment prospects at national schools versus regional schools. A school’s employment options can be directly tied to its location. For example, the University of Illinois offers a variety of legal job opportunities in Chicago but ranks behind the University of Alabama in U.S. News & World Report’s 2023 Best Law Schools list. However, if you’d rather work in Chicago, it makes more sense to attend the University of Illinois despite its lower rank. Additionally, smaller legal markets such as Salt Lake City, Denver, and Seattle might prioritize local students when hiring for new positions—even sometimes ahead of students from Top-14 law schools. At the same time, most, if not all, of the Top-14 law schools provide opportunities for their students to work in all of the major legal markets, as do other national law schools (i.e., schools that are highly ranked and nationally recognized) like Notre Dame. So, if you know you want to work somewhere like Chicago or New York and you gain admission to a national law school with good employment statistics, it might make sense to go to that law school versus one in a smaller legal market. Again, the ABA employment report can show you a particular school’s employment prospects, including in certain cities.
- Consider your post-graduation plans. If you know that you want to work in Silicon Valley, and you get into Yale and Stanford, you might find that it makes sense to go to Stanford given its location in California. Similarly, if you want to work in Chicago and you get a full ride to both Northwestern and Harvard, you might choose Northwestern with location partially in mind.
- Look beyond the lower price of in-state tuition. The prospect of qualifying for in-state tuition can be a valid factor for applying to schools in a particular area. However, you still might want to apply elsewhere to see if you get a scholarship offer from a private or out-of-state school that makes more financial sense for you. Additionally, you should ensure that the in-state schools have employment prospects that justify the amount you will invest in your law degree. For example, if you save some money by attending an in-state school that offers poor employment prospects, the investment might not be worth it.
Weighing These Reasons
In most cases, location will not be your sole reason for attending a law school, but it can be a factor. As discussed earlier, if a regional school gives you a full ride and is located in an area where you want to work, those factors could be compelling enough to make you forgo attending a higher ranked school. At the same time, if you get into a national school with far better employment statistics than a regional school, even though the latter is located in an area where you’d like to work, you might opt to attend law school outside of your preferred region. As with any decision related to law school, you should consider all the factors in the context of your personal situation and make an informed decision.