Seeking Info On Life At Univ. Of Georgia Law School ?

Q: How is the faculty (they always look friendly and helpful in the catalogs they send me)? What is life like in Athens? How much to rent a 2 or 3- bedroom apartment? Are there any other married 30-somethings with children there? Especially interested in the Intellectual Property and Labor/Management Relations/Employment classes.

A:It is a very small city (I lived in ATlanta for more than 2 years), about 70 miles from Atlanta. The life there is exactly what you would expect it to be in small place 70 miles from a major Southern city. well, my advice might sound too "profound" to you now, but try to think about it, especially if you plan to do intellectual property law. It is important and helpful to work part-time during your second or third year. All law firms are in Atlanta. In Athens your are stuck with going to school and living there. In the IP field it is *crucial* to get practical experience while going to law school, no course in IP law will teach you practical skills. There are two law schools in Atlanta, Emory and Georgia State. Emory costs $18,000/year. I went to Georgia University Law School for my first year (my family relocated after that, so I had to transfer). It is a relatively new Law School, 15 or so years old, so it is probably not well-known. But I really advise you to think about it, if you plan to live in Georgia. Georgia State was an EXCELLENT SCHOOL. It was my fourth University in the second country, it was just excellent. The professors that I had during the first year, except for one, were outstanding, just absolutely excellent. The school is becoming very popular and known in Georgia. With Atlanta growing and booming, it is a good place to go to school and find a job. The school was also very friendly. If it were not for my husband's new job, I would never leave it. IT is also not expensive. Taking into account all that, the competition in year '94 (when I applied) was 15 applications per seat. I disagree. UGA Law may have a better reputation (than Emory) in most rural and semi-urban areas of the state, but that's certainly not the case in Atlanta. Emory's reputation in Georgia is a strange thing. Because it (Emory the institution, not just the law school) draws only about a fifth of it's students from in-state,

few alumni return and settle down in small towns in Georgia. They're much more likely to stay in Atlanta or end up in another metropolitan area. As a result, Emory does not have the same foundation of alumni advocacy/visibility that UGA (whose graduates, I presume, are much more likely to return home to small-town roots) does outside of Atlanta. A random anecodote--when i was choosing colleges (and living in po-dunk, georgia, population 15,000), my final decision came down to Emory or Brown. Several adults asked, "oh, Emory? That's up north isn't it? and Brown, what part of Georgia is that in?" I suspect the same may be true for the respective law schools.