Albany Law School At Union Univ. ?

Q: I am interested to hear from current students and any alumni of Albany Law School. I received my acceptance letter today, and would like to hear opinions on the particular strengths and weaknesses of the school, it's faculty, it's facilities, and it's reputation in NY state (esp. in the NYC Metro area).

A:I took a look at Albany a few years back. I spent my undergraduate days in Albany.... They have a nice and modern law library and their facilities overall didn't look too bad. The school itself is accross the street from Albany Medicial Center, Albany's biggest hospitial, and its associated Medical School, Albany Medicial College {semi-related to the law school}. Albany College of Pharamcy, also semi-related, is next to the law school. The area is not bad. Albany is a regional law school, with some strengths in upstate NY and parts of New England. They also send some people down to NYC. I would hazard a guess that Brooklyn would be a better choice if you plan on being in NYC. Albany is also supposed to have the highest bar pass rate in NY, but I don't consider that a useful factor. I think that Brooklyn may be going places long term.... Schools are somewhat touchy about admiting to their pass rate but the highest in Mass is supposed to belong to Suffolk. I wouldn't turn down Harvard or BC or BU or Northeastern to attend Suffolk just because their bar pass rate is higher in Mass than those other four. The same thing is true in New York. Albany Law is supposed to have the highest bar pass rate in NY. Would you go to Albany over Columbia, NYU, Cornell, Fordham, etc because Albany has the higher bar pass rate? Why does Suffolk have the highest bar pass rate in Mass? First thing is that Suffolk has two required years of courses, unlike any other school in Mass. That second

year covers all of the subjects on the Mass bar. Second thing is that Suffolk is basically a regional school; most of its alumni are in Mass. That means that Suffolk can and does concentrate on the law of Mass when it comes to substantive law; eg Suffolk has been known to teach Mass evidence while BU teaches federal and Suffolk people can learn stuff in class like the Mass version of the staute of frauds while I have no idea what the Mass version of the statute of frauds is. Also, according to rumor, Suffolk tends to model exam questions after the Mass bar. None of this is bad by the way, it just shows that there is a reason for Suffolk's high Mass bar pass rate.