New York: The Greatest City on Earth (to be Stuck in a Law Library)

Photography by Maria Dudenhoeffer

By Maria Dudenhoeffer

Two weekends ago, I spent my Sunday and Monday in New York City and took a tour of Columbia Law School. Even though it was my first trip to New York, I fell in love with the city and the prospect of attending law school there.

My trip started with a 2:30 a.m. Greyhound Bus out of Union Station Sunday morning. I arrived at Penn Station a little before 7:00 a.m. and proceeded to do the most touristy thing I could do, go to Times Square. Surprisingly enough, 6:55 a.m. is not peak tourist time so I had the opportunity to walk around while it was relatively empty. Since I would only be in the city for two days, I decided to take a bus tour, which, while cheesy, is an excellent way to get an overview of a city in a short amount of time. The biggest difference from DC in my opinion, is the sheer size of the buildings. After taking a quick break from the bus tour and visiting Roosevelt Island by the way of an aerial tram, I headed up to Columbia University to see where my tour would be taking place the next day.  

Ranked 4th in the country by US News and World Report, Columbia Law School is located in the neighborhood of Morningside Heights in Manhattan. Columbia University and Columbia Law School coexist on the same campus, which means the law students receive access to all the facilities of Columbia University. My Visitation Day started with a student-led tour of the Law School, followed by an Admissions Information Session, in which a senior admissions representative gave us an overview of the application process and answered any questions we had. Columbia Law is one of the most competitive schools in the country, with a median LSAT Score of 171 and median GPA of 3.70.

However, if Columbia is a reach (let’s face it, that’s most of us), there is still a plethora of other law schools in the NYC area. Fordham Law is a top tier school in the heart of Manhattan with the Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law being the 1st-most cited student-edited banking and finance journal. NYU Law is nestled in Greenwich Village and is ranked 6th in the nation for by US News and World Report and consistently ranked 1st in International Law and Tax Law. Cardozo School of Law isn't far from NYU and, despite not having the reputation of Fordham, Columbia or NYU, is ranked 6th for its intellectual property program by US News and World Report. Brooklyn Law School, located in the hipsterest of boroughs, has an impressive bar-passage rate of 94% and produced New York City's first and only African-American mayor, David Dinkins.

Regardless of your LSAT and GPA, being at a school in NYC, much like being at a school in DC, allows for countless opportunities for internships with an assortment of institutions, ranging anywhere from investment banks to the United Nations. New York is, in many ways, the financial, commercial, political and legal capital of the world, making it an ideal place to study law. Receiving an undergraduate education in DC and studying law in New York would be an incredible experience few aspiring lawyers can hope to have.

*Special thanks to Grant Smith for the article title.