Leyther

So I am due to graduate relatively soon and I am looking into attending one of the following law schools and was just looking for first-hand information regarding the area that they are in.

I am really seeking anything that you can tell me about them, from rental prices for a one bedroom house or apartment and the general cost of living to the "vibe" and experiences and of the area. It doesn't matter how small the details, even if you only know the general climates; every little helps.

The schools are:
- Stanford, Ca
- UC-Berkeley
- UMich, Ann Harbor
- University of Virginia, Charlottesville
- Duke. Durham, NC
- William & Mary, Williamsburg, Va
- Notre Dame, IN

I am also looking for information about living in the following cities: Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston and if anyone can offer a comparison of them to living Denver, that would be great also.

Dan725

You might also want to have a look at the www.city-data.com website - you'll get lots of info from those forums.

Cape Blue

craigslist.org will be your friend for accommodation and many, many other things.

Stanford and Berkeley have the Northern California advantage - great weather, skiing a couple of hours away, San Francisco, hiking, liberal vibe and on and on. Downside is that it is quite expensive.

Kaffy Mintcake

Love love love Ann Arbor, Michigan - but be prepared to bundle up in the winter. Brrrr!

Samuel

My 2c on Palo Alto/Stanford: Weather is really nice (summers could be warmer), location is fairly urban and lively, yet you are a 30 min drive for a metropolis - so no complaints there. If you are in law school you should be qualified for stanford's housing, I believe 1bdr around 2k. As for price of rentals I'd expect to pay 1.5k to 2.5k for a 1bdr place (depending on a wide array of factors). Good luck. Samuel.

penguinsix

Stanford. Stanford is in Palo Alto and the campus is quite pretty. It's a bit of a island though, about a half a mile to a mile walk to the main drag in Palo Alto of stores and whatnot. The area around Palo Alto is Silicon Valley, which is one of the most expensive housing areas in the country (and you'd be kind of shocked at the quality of some of the places). It's a very good school, and if you want or have a technical focus I think it should be your top choice.

Berkeley. Middle of a pretty crap area. Rather huge campus.

Notre Dame (where I went to law school). Very, very run down town (South Bend) surrounds the oasis of Notre Dame. About 90 minutes from Chicago. Law school has very strong alumni connections throughout the US, but the area is a pretty run-down ex-industrial town (i.e. you'll get bored if you are coming from London). Fall is absolutely crazy as everything (I mean EVERYTHING) revolves around the college football season (the Fighting Irish). The stadium is next door to the law school (basically) and on a game Saturday they'll be about 80,000 people mulling around (all the students go to all the games). Social life surrounds football and a few cheap college bars nearby. Cold as hell in the Winter (bitter cold--lake effect snow and wind). Grey for long periods on end (like a few months). Quite a few Irish students and most of the US students claim 'part Irish' in some way or another.

HOWEVER, if you go to Notre Dame law you can do your second year of law school at Notre Dame's London campus, just a block away from Trafalgar Square. Quite a few brits put up with South Bend for Years 1 & 3 and do one year 'back home' in London.

NOTE: Notre Dame is a Catholic school. A very Catholic school (not just 'oh yeah we're Catholic') but we have priests or nuns living in every dorm (which are single sex) and no visitors of the opposite sex allowed after midnight. In fact a few law professors are priest and many of your classes will start with a prayer. You don't have to be Catholic to go there of course, but if you are vehemently anti-religious you should go somewhere else. Often called 'the Catholic Disneyland' with a very very conservative student body (no gay organization allowed, no abortion rights groups allowed on campus).

Anyway, town is rundown. I rented a modern 1br place for $450 ten years ago in a complex with a pool and indoor squash courts, and I doubt it is much more expensive today than it was then.

Good luck in your decision.

What exactly are you looking for (education wise, community, location, etc)?

NC Penguin

I live in Durham and I can tell you that the cost of living is really quite reasonable compared to the two schools listed in CA, for example.

Due to the university, nearby RTP (Research Triangle Park) and the other local universities, Durham and the surrounding area has a multinational population, compared to other cities of its size, I imagine. Around Duke, there's plenty of restaurants to suit all budgets and tastes, bars and other places to hang out.

About Duke itself. It's a rather snobby institution and there's even bumper stickers that read "parent of Duke student". To study or work at Duke, it really is expected that you become a "Blue Devil" (fanatic of the university's men's basketball team).

Durham is in the middle of the Triangle and has excellent road and airport links. RDU Airport is 30 minutes from Duke campus (I am taking account of traffic. At 3.00am, it would be a 20 minute drive) and there is a non-stop, direct flight to London from RDU.

I like Durham because of its relative cosmopolitan vibe, affordable cost of living and four seasons although winter is quite mild. It can get cold in the winter but it rarely snows (at all). Brits living here complain about the humidity and the heat in summer but I became accustomed to this after a couple of years.

The area surrounding Duke University and its hospital is a complete pain in the backside during business hours so if you decide to study here, living close to campus or cycling may be a good option.

I've never been to Denver so I can't make any comparisons between that city and Durham.

If you have any specific questions about Duke or Durham, please send me a PM.

Leyther

Thank you for all of responses so far.

Education wise I am looking at getting into a top 10 (Stanford, Berkeley, Chicago, UPenn and UMich) law school and eventually obtaining a J.D. with a concentration in corporate law. Beyond those I have mentioned previously, I am looking for something more than what I could get at either of the law schools here in Colorado i.e. extensive alumni connections and networks etc.

Location, well my partner and I hope to avoid both NYC and L.A. hence the reason why there is no Columbia, NYU, UCLA or USC on my list. She is a secondary education English teacher who is currently in the process of obtaining her Master's degree in order to teach at university level, so areas which have employment opportunities for her are also at the top of our list of priorities. She is also into the theatre (her mum graduated from Juilliard) and that really is her passion, so somewhere which could accommodate this would be much appreciated.

We are currently paying around $1,250 a month, including utilities and parking for our one-bedroom apartment which is located just minutes from downtown Denver and are looking for a similar price in terms of renting in a location that is not in the heart of the student or city population but is within a couple of miles of it, and of course the campus. In short, we prefer to live close to the cities, but far enough away from them that you wouldn't notice.

I know it all depends on what offers I get and from who, but I at the moment I am just fishing for information on the areas surrounding the schools which I am interested in.

penguinsix

Well, if you are looking for next year at a top ten school, you have about a month to decide. The application process is well underway and most students who will be starting next Fall already have their applications under review. I'm gathering you've taken your LSATs already and are in the top 2-5% as that's pretty much the requirement for most of the schools on your list. I'm not sure if that is still offered only a few times a year or whether there is another option.

While this school / that school can help you get a corporate law degree, the real value will come from where you are working. For example, if you get a degree at one of these schools great, but what firms will value even more (down the road) is whether you cut your teeth in the corporate world in New York (instead of say Detroit). A NY training will open doors for you pretty much the world over later on. As you pick the law schools you should be looking long term toward where you want to settle and what your 5 and 10 year plans are post-law school.

As someone said, there are the top 3 law schools in the country, which really are about 5 or so. The top 10 is really about 15 different schools, and the top 25 are composed of about 40 (because the schools jump around in rankings so much its really hard to say who is in tier 1, 2, and 3 of the 'top' schools in the country.

Something to consider is say a top 25 school in a town and area you LOVE and want to settle down in, vs. a top 10 school somewhere else. If I wanted to work in say Boston one day, I'd probably be better off selecting Boston U or Boston College (top 25 schools) over say Univ of Virginia (top 10). If you were going to practice in Chicago than even the Univ. of Illinois (top 35) would be better than say the Univ. of Texas (top 15).

Anyway, good luck. Corporate law is really a killer. It grinds through lawyers with long hours and low morale.

Leyther

Thank you for the advise Penguin.

I am not looking to start this upcoming fall due to other commitments but I have taken the LSAT and I believe that my score of above 170 along with a nearly perfect GPA and all of the other bells and whistles should see myself with a competitive application for admission to most of the schools which I mentioned.

I am under no illusion that where you cut your teeth in the corporate world is what will be of value in the long-run; in the short run however, I am aiming to earn my degree from one of top schools to put myself in a better position to prepare for that next step and to at least unlock some of those doors, that would otherwise be closed to me if I attend a law school here, in the hopes that I can open them in the long-run.

At the moment I am just gathering information, but thank you again, your words are much appreciated.

Bill_S

Amen to that. My wife works for a Fortune 50 company, and in her role she frequently needs input/answers from the legal dept. The lawyers on staff are very sharp but vastly overworked and it's a miracle if one of them even picks up his phone much less gives her the information she needs.

Michael

The following are a couple of cost of living calculators that my help you determine costs.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/movecalc.asp?a=0

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costo...tofliving.html

nc-gremlin

I quite like the "My kid and my money go to Duke" bumper stickers. I worked at Duke for ~3.5 years and my wife still does. On the whole a good place to work.

Bob

Search for Boston threads, I can't be arsed, but I started a few and there's a lot of info...the question is, are you looking Boston proper, or the burbs? Downtown Boston, bloody expensive, but you could get away with not having a car, anywhere else, it's expensive, and you'll need a car. The winter sucks goat and they do a pish job of snow clearing except down town, the pike and a few other towns.

Steerpike

Stanford and Berkeley are both excellent schools. Stanford is private, while Berkeley is part of the University of California system, and regarded as 'on a par' with the fancy private schools.

Stanford is in Palo Alto, while Berkeley is in the town of Berkeley which borders on Oakland. The 'atmosphere' of these two places is quite different. Palo Alto is home to Steve Jobs (Apple) and is surrounded by extremely affluent areas (Los Altos, Woodside, Menlo Park, Atherton, etc) where the founders of HP, Intel, etc (and their descendants) live. It is a very upscale place with great restaurants, etc - and PRICEY (even by Bay Area standards). Berkeley is, by comparison, run by a local government that would make San Francisco look conservative (maybe even North Korea....) and has a dreary, run-down feel to it - strong rent-control has had a weird effect on the property market, and there are a LOT of homeless people around (again - more than in SF, and that's saying something). It does have a very strong restaurant scene, but I've stopped going because I'm tired of running the gauntlet of beggers on the sidewalks. It IS much more of a 'student town' than Palo Alto; Palo Alto has a huge commercial infrastructure, with Stanford being just one component, while Berkeley really is dominated by the University.

Berkeley is a very politically active place - anti-war, anti-everything demonstrations and if you long for the days when 'peopled cared/got involved', this is the place for you!