When choosing the best environmental law schools, it is important to consider both the prestige of the school and the rigor of the educational program. Usually, a school that is highly prestigious will also be extremely rigorous, but there are certainly exceptions to this rule. Environmental law schools should prepare students to practice environmental law, which is accomplished by giving the student the necessary knowledge and experience to succeed, as well as the capacity to find a job. On a personal level, an individual looking for the best environmental law schools should be sure that he or she will be happy in the program, because every program caters to slightly different interests.
In law, the prestige of a law school can have a striking effect on the quality of job you are able to obtain once school is completed. It is important to ask potential environmental law schools about the number of their graduates who go on to work as lawyers. Many schools boast about the percentage of their graduates who pass the bar examination, but if those who pass are not often able to find work as lawyers, then it doesn't matter much that they passed the bar exam. Going to a school that has many alumni working as lawyers has other benefits as well, as you may be able to contact those people for help when looking for jobs.
Of course, it is equally important to be prepared to practice environmental law. When looking at environmental law schools, it can be hard to judge how rigorous the educational program really is just by posing questions to the school. For this reason, it is important to do additional research about the way the school prepares its graduates to pass the bar exam and practice law.
Law school is often a large investment of both time and money. If you feel that the school itself is unwelcoming because of excessive partying, where it is located, or even the school's stated beliefs, it may not be a good idea to attend. Being extremely unhappy can seriously affect your ability to succeed in an educational program. On the other hand, some people thrive on opposition and can do very well in schools they dislike for personal reasons.
Different people enjoy different aspects of environmental law, but essentially everyone who goes to school in this area intends to become a lawyer. For this reason, it is important to prioritize the aspects of the law school that will allow you to achieve this goal. Even if a law school has great ethics and is in a great area, if it has a bad record of getting graduates into jobs, then it's not a good choice. Keeping this fact in mind when choosing environmental law schools will help separate the good schools from the bad.
