I am a 2L at U of H (Tier 2 US News # 60) and am in the top third of my class. There is a good chance that I will be editor-in-chief (or at least in a managing editor position) of the Houston Business and Tax Law Journal next year and that I may clerk for a US Tax Court Judge this summer. By the time I graduate, I should have 6-7 tax classes under my belt. I am very excited about tax and wish to pursue my LLM.

I just wanted some outside appraisals on what my chances are for getting in to a top ranked LLM program and what salary ranges I might be looking at after completing an LLM program.

Thanks in advance to anybody who responds.

Well, Univ of Houston is a good school. Trying getting admission into a school like Georgetown, DC, for LL.M in tax laws. The graduates of Georgetown usually gets a starting salary of the upwards of more than 100K. All the more better if you could get a fee-waiver.

Thanks for your response!

If you're in the running for Editor-in-Chief, I presume that your law school GPA is over 3.3X and that you expect to perform even better in your tax related courses. Still, you really need to make sure that you keep your grades up so your raw class rank doesn't drop anymore. Class rankings are really skewed after your 2L year if your school has a bunch of people who transfer in as opposed to transfer out. I hope you can get your ranking higher in this (your fifth) semester before the weight of the past units becomes too much to overcome.

If you excel in your 2L year, it will go a long way on the applications. NYU, GT, FL will usually weigh your GPA more than the tier of your school. (However, the tier of your school is a factor when it comes down to the credibility of your GPA - i.e. concerns over grade inflation at some schools - so there's a bit of an inherent Catch-22.)

Basically, it sounds like if you keep notching up each semester, you should be in reasonable shape for most of the programs, and probably some scholarship at programs outside the top ones. But NYU may be a longshot no matter what...

As far as making the big bucks, sure, those in the top of the class from a big 3 program will make well in excess of $125K, but that still leaves the majority of the graduates only hovering "near" $100K, which is not much money if you live in a high cost city and have law school and LLM loans to repay.

If you want to reply privately/off-line, I'm curious to know which USTC judge(s) were interviewing JD's this year. I thought that most of the USTC judges only took graduating LLM's as clerks.

.

Thanks!