Deciding where to apply or attend law school can feel overwhelming. ABA-approved schools share considerable similarities with one another when it comes to the basic model for delivering legal education. However, there are considerable differences in size, location, culture, incoming class numbers, and most notably, job outcomes and reputation at the local, regional, and national levels. ABA accreditation operates only as a floor for quality assurance, signaling that a school meets minimum standards. Prospective students must find other means to compare programs and decide where to apply and attend.
Our Find Your Law School tool helps you identify schools that may be a good match based on your geographic and job preferences. All you have to do is answer four questions about your job priorities, desired location, and educational background and then we provide a list of law schools as a starting point. Applying to this or that school isn't a decision to take lightly. Smart decisions about where to apply require thoughtful reflection about what you want from your career and where you want to work
The first two questions inquire about your job priorities. Is it important for you to work in a high-prestige job, such as an associate position at a large law firm, a federal clerkship, or a competitive public service position?
Next, you are asked to select your priority level — no interest, low interest, medium interest, or high interest — for each job category:
Any lawyer job, which would require you to pass the bar exam and practice law.
Any law firm job, which would entail practicing law in a private practice of any size.
A large firm, which is a specific career trajectory focused on practicing law at the largest firms in the country.
Public service, which includes working for the government or a non-profit.
A clerkship, which is typically a one- or two-year position working for a judge in their chambers.
From there, you provide information about location by selecting the states (or Puerto Rico or Washington, D.C.) that you would like to work in after graduation. There is no limit to the number of locations you can select, but having a shorter list in mind will make it easier to compare schools and help you narrow down your choices.
Location is important because 2 in 3 employed graduates do not leave their school’s state for their first job. In other words, where you choose to attend school is highly likely to be where you find yourself working after graduation and launching your career. Therefore, geography should be a high priority for your decisions regarding where to apply to schools and ultimately attend.
Finally, there are two prompts related to your educational background. You are asked to fill in your highest LSAT score in the range of 120 to 180, which is used to determine your chance of admission for each school. And then you are asked to provide your LSAC CAS GPA in the range of 0 to 4.33. This is a GPA that has been converted into a standard format that takes into account all of your undergraduate coursework, regardless of grading system.
After completing those four questions about job priorities, location, and education, the Find Your Law School tool summarizes your responses and builds your personal report of suggested schools.
Each school is summarized with a Job Score that reflects how close a school’s job outcomes are to your goals. The schools are then broken down into data regarding your admission chances based on your LSAT score and GPA, the employment score (the percent of recent graduates who have found a long-term, full-time job that requires a law license), the location match (what earned a school its place on your report), the cost of tuition for residents and non-residents, and the median earnies for recent graduates.
You can sort the list of schools by any of these measures, select individual schools as favorites, view additional details for each school,[5] create a budget for attending a school, and compare as many as four schools at a time side to side. There’s even an option for if you wish to attend law school part time. You can also choose to only view results for a specific state or for national schools, and you can toggle between the list of suggested schools and just the ones you marked as favorites. Most importantly, you can revise your answers to the four questions at any time to update your matches. This lets you broaden or narrow your results and consider different career paths.
No single school will be the right fit for every prospective student. That’s why it’s important to consider the factors that are priorities for you, such as acceptance rate, cost of attendance, geographic location, job prospects, and mentorship opportunities. Your goal isn’t to apply to and be accepted by the best school – it’s to find the best school for you. LawHub’s Find Your Law School tool helps you do just that by matching you with schools tailored to your strengths and interests. Get started today to find your dream school!