제가 로스쿨 준비할 때 해커스에 자주 들렸었는데 최근에 아는 분 딸이 로스쿨 생각한다길래 이런 저런 얘기 하다가 혹시 여기 누군가에게도 도움 될까봐 쓰고 갑니다. 미국 로스쿨에 관해 얘기할 때는 영어가 더 편하니 영어로 쓰겠습니다. Also, if you are not able to read the below comfortably, YOU SHOULD NOT consider going to a law school in the states.
As a bit of an introduction, I'm a 6th year in big law in the M&A group and I've lateraled once within AmLaw/Vault 100. I went to a law school in T14. This is a very general, personal advice for those who are thinking about going to law school. I've done a lot of interviews for my firm and my previous firm (including OCIs and callbacks), and this is what I've noticed as a pattern among Koreans (or other Asians or Asian Americans) who 1) go to law school and 2) then regret their choice because they did not land in big law.
First, it's a myth that seems to exist only in the Korean community that Koreans tend to "return" to Korea because of their non-resident/non-citizen status. This is NOT true.
In both of the firms I've been at, and as I know from all of my friends in other law firms, your citizenship status has ZERO impact on your ability to get a summer associate position. It does have an impact on whether you get allowed to stay in the states through the lottery system. But typically, most law firms provide and support you up to two chances to apply for these lotteries, and if not, they will still keep you in either London, Hong Kong, or Singapore, etc. until you get a chance to come back. I've seen this happen so many times. If people opt to return to Korea, it's either because 1) they did not luck out in their OCI process, or 2) the firm they chose during the OCI process was a big law firm that did not have an office at another country or they were hired by a relatively regional firm that also does not have a global office.
A little bit more on the fact that your citizenship status has zero impact:
We are NOT allowed to even ask you your status. Yes, right after an offer has been provided, you are asked to fill out the paperwork for the law firm for tax purposes and in one of those questions you have to provide your passport or citizenship status. But this is after you have been given an offer and law firms (unless there is an extreme red flag on the candidate like criminal record during 2L or 3L) do not revoke their offers. NO ONE cares during the interview stages whether you are a Korean citizen, a Swiss citizen, or an US citizen.
What we DO care about (or at least what I care about when I'm asked to do these interviews):
1) Whether you look like you're a responsible person (i.e., you won't go MIA when there's a deal closing, you're not constantly going to the doctor when I need you to work on the disclosure schedules, etc.) - law school grades are pretty reliable on this front AND I personally look very favorably when you have some kind of position in a journal. Because those are actual assignments and tasks you have to do outside of just studying, which is quite similar to the kind of responsibility you feel at a law firm.
2) Whether you can understand instructions - I look at whether you can actually answer the questions I ask you and, importantly, whether you speak fluent English. This means you have to come off confident when you speak English, and this is where a lot of Asians fail when they interview. Super, super high grades may save this situation because most junior work at a law firm involves just emailing/due diligence/drafting documents so I'm not too worried.
3) Whether you are someone the law firm can see long term/someone partners are not worried about constantly for their competence in front of clients - The reason why I said "super, super high grades" in the sentence above is because most law firms don't want to hire thinking that "let's use them for 2-3 years" - we want candidates who will stick around, as unrealistic as it is to believe that they will. Ideally we want candidates who will be able to lead calls (and partner just sits on the call chiming in when he feels he needs to/to show the client that he is actually there and not just eating up the bills). So I look at the communicative skills VERY closely, and so do most interviewers you'll face, the more senior they become. Partners look at your fluency and confidence VERY closely.
Now that the myth regarding citizenship status is debunked, the below is my personal advice on when anyone comes to me regarding going to law school:
1. Law school is a lot of time and a lot of money. When you're a student, you don't really care about both because you typically do not have other options (and hence that's why you're considering law school). But even after I've been working in big law and meeting my bonus almost every year, a $200K+ debt is a HUGE dent in your future finances and you should not take it lightly. And while your starting salary is $200K+ and by your third year your income significantly outpaces your loans, you will want to quit every now and then in the first two years of your law firm experience. It has gotten a lot better during the pandemic and I honestly envy those who started out in Sep/Oct of 2019 or 2020. The salary scale is MUCH higher when I started while the remote working has made juggling work a lot easier. Now you can actually cook for your meals time to time and clean up your apartment.
This said, if you have family members who could pay for you OR if you can get scholarships, then it might be worth giving it a try, even if you get into a school below T14.
But in ANY CASE, even if you have family members who are paying for you, unless you have an extremely engaging or charming personality, DO NOT go to a school below ~T50 because the employment scores in those are against you. They are not what you're looking for and the places people get hired from those law schools will NOT be looking for Asian (or Asian American) lawyers typically. In other words, there won't be much opportunities for you and even those opportunities will be swept away by your classmates in the same class year. If you have an EXTREMELY engaging or charming personality, it just means you're a strong interviewer so you might do well (but if this is the case, why go to law school?) The only other exception I'd mention is if it's your DREAM to become a lawyer in the states. In that case, then yeah, all the power to you to do whatever you want to achieve it.
All this is to say, if you're paying for law school yourself or taking out $200K debt to do it, you HAVE to go to a big law firm because realistically speaking, 1) they are the only ones who will actually give you a chance as an Asian American person who went to law school and 2) being a big law associate is the only way to really pay off that debt quickly.
2. Give LSAT a try and make sure you have a good GPA as well. In the rare case that you are blessed with a very logical brain that could also process information very quickly, you might be able to score well on the LSAT on your first try. Even if you don't, you could study for 3 months or so and see if your score goes above 168 consistently. My personal advice is to take 3 months to see your potential, and if it doesn't happen, then do not go to law school unless you have someone paying for you or it's your dream to go to a law school. Some people study for a year and improve their score significantly, but this is actually the exception, not the norm after everyone I've spoken to (including myself). I studied for a year and did not get to improve on my score much but I had a really high GPA that spared me. I attended a T14 law school on a sticker. I had scholarship options from T20-T30 schools, and now that I'm actually earning money, I realize that $40K difference is actually QUITE a huge difference after-tax - it might not seem like it when you're comparing offers from a bunch of different schools that are ranging from full scholarships (this was at a time where some schools were giving near full scholarships like USC Gould). As a lawyer, $40K post-tax is typically around $65-70K pre-tax, which is like... giving up your entire bonus to pay off that much. This does lag you in your financial plans - buying a car, buying a house, starting out your business, or quitting big law...
3. If you do get to go to a T14 law school on a scholarship due to high LSAT score/GPA, law school might be a worthwhile investment.
At this point I should mention something that is obvious to those in law schools/law firms but may be not to those who are not - why am I harping on T14?
At the end of your first year of your law school, you go to your first year internship. you do it well, come back with 3-4 stories you can use on your interviews. While you're in your 1L internship, a T14 school will send you a list of law firms that are coming to your school in August, after you return from your internship. Schools in T14 will have more than a 100 law firms coming directly on their campus, interviewing at least 20 students per each applicable office (typically from my experience) of the law firm (for example, Latham CA offices will interview heavily with CA law schools, while Latham NY offices will interview heavily with NY law schools). Most students attending a T14 school will have interviewed with at least 25 law firms, sometimes more, sometimes less.
T14 schools do not have this many law firms coming to their campuses - why? Because from the law firms are ranked lower and the candidates are not as attractive. Law firms are paying their own money to fly out associates and partners to interview at these schools, and to set up callback dinners or events to attract them to pick the law firms after these interviews. RARE exceptions exist - Fordham, for example, has one of the best alumni network I've seen and has a lot of law firms interviewing the students (and the students get placed well, too). When you see good employment outcomes in certain law schools despite not a high average LSAT/undergrad GPA, that's because the school is in a very favorable geographic location and/or the alumni network is strong.
Returning to the point on the fact that law school is a worth-while investment -
If you get a good to a T14, do well on the interviews, and land a big law job, law school might be worth it. Big law associates make a TON of money and we are in rare industries within the US where an Asian person may actually have a realistic chance at being a millionaire as a partner. The only other jobs that have outpace or have comparable compensation are in banking, medicine, and big tech software engineering. Next to banking, we actually have less stress, next to medicine we actually put in less work, money, and time (since med school is longer and doctors come out with crazy debts) and next to software engineering we actually have a lot more job security (we rarely get fired in big law and our salaries and bonuses are not tied to any stocks that need to vest). Next to most other jobs we actually have a MUCH higher salary. I've outpaced my friends who are in regular companies in 4 years in terms of savings.
Some other perks:
1) The fact that everyone's salary and bonuses are the same is huge (and the fact that it's so publicly disclosed, and that you don't need to negotiate for it). It's so transparent that it's still shocking to me. You can know exactly how much your colleagues make and you typically don't feel "unfair" unless you've had an excruciatingly productive year (in which case, most firms provide an additional bonus).
This is the latest on the salaries: https://abovethelaw.com/2022/01/biglaw-raise-tracker-2022/
First year salaries are at 215K.
2) The fact that there is an "automatic promotion" where you just need to stay put and wait until Sep/Oct hits (or whenever your year began at your firm) is also an extremely favorable system for the associates in the firm - you don't have to show yourself too much to get promoted (if you want to become a partner, that's a different story though).
3) The fact that the firm does an "automatic hiring" through the summers and the first years starting new every class year is also a huge added bonus. You only know how good this is when you've been in other employment other than a law firm. When someone quits in an ordinary job, your team takes forever to hire someone again. And you never really get a sense of how competent they will be until 2-3 months into their job. In a law firm, the law firm hires a batch of first years EVERY year, the minimum quality is kind of guaranteed (although some people are there just to "cruise") and you get to work with many of them to figure out which ones to avoid.
4) Reimbursements at AmLaw/Vault 100 law firms are very generous. Late night meals/ubers up to $35-50 depending on your law firm. During the summer season with summer associates, you can basically wine and dine wherever you are on the firm's money. Typically, you'll also get "work from home stipends", "tech stipends", and "wellness stipends."
5) Your exit options are actually more favorable than other jobs. In other jobs, once you've started there's not much else you could apply for. As a lawyer, you have SUPER transferable skills especially when it comes to project management, organization, communication, and delegation - and you can easily go to other in-house opportunities as a lawyer OR even try out something completely different like consulting, etc. One thing for SURE is that no one dislikes seeing a law firm on someone's resume (other than some doubt on whether we'll be satisfied with the salary cut and also whether we'd be too arrogant. Both of these you could give assurances on the interview) - your competence is, in a sense, guaranteed and no one questions whether you are a "hard working individual" because your 3 years in a law school, and X years in a law firm, will show it without you having to speak for it. Even returning to academia is a complete possibility for those who want to pursue PhD or masters.
Hope this helps for anyone thinking about law school.