Top Placing Classes (NLJ250 and Federal Clerkships) Forum

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***Corrected on 02/22/10 to reflect the ultimate "Go-to" list released by the NLJ***
***Corrected on 03/22/11 to match 2009 NLJ250 placement with 2009 Article III clerkship placement***

Note: Now that the 2009 clerkship data is available on the U.S. News website, I have updated the list to match the 2009 data sets with each other. The principal complaint was that it would be inaccurate to view 2009 firm data with 2008 clerkship data. This complaint is now moot; however, the placement data is now a year old, so the this information is admittedly less valuable today.


Data used:

Clerkships
U.S. News Premium Data

Firms
http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/law%20sc ... page12.pdf

For this chart to be even remotely meaningful you need the sum of clerkships + firm hiring.

1. Stanford - 78.1%
2. Harvard - 65.7%
3. Northwestern - 64.0%
4. Virginia - 63.8%
5. Columbia - 62.4%
6. Yale - 62.3%
7. Chicago - 62.1%
8. Michigan - 62.0%
9. Duke - 61.8%
10. Penn - 61.2%
11. Berkeley - 59.0%
12. NYU - 58.1%
13. Vanderbilt - 57.1%
14. Georgetown - 48.1%
15. Cornell - 47.5%
16. USC - 45.3%
17. Texas - 44.6%
18. UCLA - 41.8%
19. Boston College - 38.9%
20. Boston University - 38.1%

[awesomepossum]

That's a little more sensible but still really really surprising. I didn't think U of M and UVA would have done that well. What the heck happened to NYU, Berkeley and Penn who did significantly worse?

where did you get the clerkship info btw?

[showNprove]

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[awesomepossum]

my bad....I assumed the link was the NLJ thread. I'm pretty hungover and thus kind of lazy.

[270910]

That's a little more sensible but still really really surprising. I didn't think U of M and UVA would have done that well. What the heck happened to NYU, Berkeley and Penn who did significantly worse?

where did you get the clerkship info btw?

M and V really clean up if you look at anything other than 'number of grads employed in NYC sweatshop firms'.

Ever seen the list of where federal judges have their degrees? V and M 'over' perform by a wide margin there too.

[Flanker1067]

Northwestern Vs. Chicago is interesting.

[Kretzy]

Thanks for adding in clerkship data; much more useful!

[Stringer Bell]

This is fairly surprising. These numbers make the CCN distinction look much less relevant.

[Amelie]

I'm probably taking $$ at M or V... so this makes me feel pretty good.

[270910]

Quick PSA: The data does distort some very real distinctions. I can all but guarantee you that even though Chicago and Northwestern are with .1% of each other in terms of firm + clerkship placement, Chicago will place its grads in 'better' and 'more desirable' firms/clerkships at a higher rate than Northwestern. Same same for places like Harvard.

The prestige of the degree does two things: First, it makes employers dig deeper into the class. This is good for everyone. Second, it opens up more competitive positions - which is a distinction that gets blurred out when you look at data like this. For example, UVA places a lot of clerks, but many many of them are federal district as opposed to court of appeals clerks. Still great, but when you collapse data into 'federal clerkships' some legitimately meaningful distinctions disappear.

So these data are interesting, but don't take it as gospel, neh?

[awesomepossum]

Quick PSA: The data does distort some very real distinctions. I can all but guarantee you that even though Chicago and Northwestern are with .1% of each other in terms of firm + clerkship placement, Chicago will place its grads in 'better' and 'more desirable' firms/clerkships at a higher rate than Northwestern. Same same for places like Harvard.

The prestige of the degree does two things: First, it makes employers dig deeper into the class. This is good for everyone. Second, it opens up more competitive positions - which is a distinction that gets blurred out when you look at data like this. For example, UVA places a lot of clerks, but many many of them are federal district as opposed to court of appeals clerks. Still great, but when you collapse data into 'federal clerkships' some legitimately meaningful distinctions disappear.

So these data are interesting, but don't take it as gospel, neh?

That makes a lot of sense. However, when people are worried about getting A job, those distinctions are less important IMO. But yeah....there are a lot of firms in the NLJ 250 that folks wouldn't consider as 'good' firms.

[tram988]

Thanks for the clerks- very helpful!

[270910]

That makes a lot of sense. However, when people are worried about getting A job, those distinctions are less important IMO. But yeah....there are a lot of firms in the NLJ 250 that folks wouldn't consider as 'good' firms.

No doubt. I just don't want any 0Ls to run around proclaiming that NU == Chicago. They're great and similar schools, but 10 minutes of research would show Chicago cleaning up on the 7th circuit, academic positions, top firms, etc. compared to NU. For the most ambitious 0L beavers, Chicago still wins. For those hoping to land 6 figures with little interest in clerking or the name of the firm cutting their check, the schools are probably very very similar.

[thepunisher24]

That's a little more sensible but still really really surprising. I didn't think U of M and UVA would have done that well. What the heck happened to NYU, Berkeley and Penn who did significantly worse?

where did you get the clerkship info btw?

M and V really clean up if you look at anything other than 'number of grads employed in NYC sweatshop firms'.

Ever seen the list of where federal judges have their degrees? V and M 'over' perform by a wide margin there too.

Where can I find this data at?

[beesknees]

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[WellNow]

FWIW. These numbers also miss self-selection for public interest and government positions, many of which are obviously highly competitive. Which may help explain why Harvard drops ten points relative to stanford. It also puts berkeley's position in some context, as berkeley traditionally places 10 percent of its class in public interest and a smaller but significant percent in government (which according to NALP, are much larger percentages than many peer schools).

[oneforship]

FWIW. These numbers also miss self-selection for public interest and government positions, many of which are obviously highly competitive. Which may help explain why Harvard drops ten points relative to stanford. It also puts berkeley's position in some context, as berkeley traditionally places 10 percent of its class in public interest and a smaller but significant percent in government.

Perhaps a similar explanation for NYU.

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[Kretzy]

FWIW. These numbers also miss self-selection for public interest and government positions, many of which are obviously highly competitive. Which may help explain why Harvard drops ten points relative to stanford. It also puts berkeley's position in some context, as berkeley traditionally places 10 percent of its class in public interest and a smaller but significant percent in government (which according to NALP, are much larger percentages than many peer schools).

Stanford historically places ~10 percent of graduates into public interest and gov't positions. I don't know Harvard's number, but is it really near 20 percent?

[Helmholtz]

(Michigan = Harvard) > Columbia/Chicago

[women'ssoccer]

For those interested in how the rest of the "Go To Schools" shake out:


21. GW 36.5
22. Fordham 35.3
23. Wustl 32.5
24. Illinois 31.8
25. BU 30.8
26. Emory 28.8
27. W&M 26
28. W&L 25.9
29. Wake Forest 25.7
30. Wisconsin 25.3

31. SMU 25
31. Iowa 25
33. Washington 24.7
34. Ohio State 24.3
35. Minnesota 23.9
36. Georgia 21.8
37. Houston 21.6
37. Howard 21.6
39. Cordozo 21.5
40. Temple 20.9

41. Arizona 20.3
42. BYU 19.6
42. Villaova 19.6
42. UC-Hastings 19.6
45. Maryland 18.4
46. UC-Davis 17.6
47. UNC 16.3
48. American 16.2
49. Loyola-C 16

I'm confused. TLS consensus is UNC >>>>>>>>>> Wake Forest.

This does not seem to be the case at all.

UNC's extremely high peer review scores do not seem to help in placement to these upper-tier jobs?

what am I missing? is it the fact that UNC places better in NC, a state whose legal market is more "mid-law" than 'big-law"?

[WellNow]

FWIW. These numbers also miss self-selection for public interest and government positions, many of which are obviously highly competitive. Which may help explain why Harvard drops ten points relative to stanford. It also puts berkeley's position in some context, as berkeley traditionally places 10 percent of its class in public interest and a smaller but significant percent in government (which according to NALP, are much larger percentages than many peer schools).

Stanford historically places ~10 percent of graduates into public interest and gov't positions. I don't know Harvard's number, but is it really near 20 percent?

Hmmm... Your right. according to NALP Law School Directory (which is a pretty trusted source for law firm data and seems pretty accurate regarding law schools) stanford and harvard are pretty close in terms of PI and govt. placement. Both are around 6.5 for PI and another 3-4% for government work. The biggest distinctions are between schools like Berkeley, NYU, and Michigan which traditionally seem to place around 8-10% for PI and govt. work combined, compared to schools like NW, Chicago (less than 2% combined) and Columbia (less than 5% combined). Berkeley, in particular, places a very large amount in PI/PS, usually around 15%. Nalp also has numbers for "business and industry" which for all the schools above seems to be between 3-5%. HArvard and Stanford then, are probably better explained by class size than self-selection.

[Dignan]

Date used:

Clerkships
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =1&t=75513

Firms
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2443758843

We may be adding figures from different years here. I think the clerkship data is for the class of 2008, while the hiring data is for the class of 2009. The clerkship thread is quoting figures from the April 2009 USNWR rankings, which I believe are based on 2008 graduates.

I've heard that a couple of schools--Harvard and Columbia--increased their clerkship placement significantly with the class of 2009, which was no doubt partly due to the lousy big law market. It's probably misleading to combine the 2009 firm figures with the 2008 clerkship figures.

[showNprove]

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[OperaSoprano]

For those interested in how the rest of the "Go To Schools" shake out:


21. GW 36.5
22. Fordham 35.3
23. Wustl 32.5
24. Illinois 31.8
25. BU 30.8
26. Emory 28.8
27. W&M 26
28. W&L 25.9
29. Wake Forest 25.7
30. Wisconsin 25.3

31. SMU 25
31. Iowa 25
33. Washington 24.7
34. Ohio State 24.3
35. Minnesota 23.9
36. Georgia 21.8
37. Houston 21.6
37. Howard 21.6
39. Cordozo 21.5
40. Temple 20.9

41. Arizona 20.3
42. BYU 19.6
42. Villaova 19.6
42. UC-Hastings 19.6
45. Maryland 18.4
46. UC-Davis 17.6
47. UNC 16.3
48. American 16.2
49. Loyola-C 16

Nightrunner, many thanks. 35.3% it is --> top third will hopefully still be golden in '12.

Interesting to note: Cardozo is leaving Brooklyn in the dust.