Future Law School Rankings Forum

[los blancos]

lol @ the "death" of biglaw

actually, if anything, a theoretical 'death' of biglaw would probably cement the schools in the top half of the T13

i doubt it, because non t 14s know how to place their students into non biglaw jobs, or perhaps "networking" among non top 14s will help their grads more. Getting ANY job is a struggle for JDs now.

guess who will start getting non biglaw jobs if biglaw dies?

alumni of the employer's school (non top 14)?

agree to disagree. i'm admittedly an idiot in general so you probably win the argument. but somehow i doubt that kind of movement could happen on a large scale.

[09042014]

That isn't true. Rep scores are the results of a survey. Academic placement isn't a direct factor.

It affects what judges and peers think, particularly judges. I don't think NU will shoot up any time soon given its low rep scores.

It probably does affect what they think but I think NU's rep problems aren't really based on that. Cornell does just as bad but does better in rep.

[los blancos]

Ask the peers and judges who fill out the annual surveys. I think it's partly because of its business, rather than academic slant, in its curriculum. This is also partly why it has a poor showing in academia.

It doesn't have the name recognition the others do to begin with. And its law school is a bit of a rising star. Plus some resent it for being Kellogg disguised as a law school.

So, essentially, peer ratings are inversely proportional to how practically-focused a school is? That's pretty idiotic. Outside of Harvard and Yale, isn't the proportion of JD graduates that go into academia pretty minuscule anyway?

Also: this view isn't shared by employers, right? I thought NWU did really well with biglaw.

Such is the nature of it. And yeah, NU is a biglaw factory. It's second to UChicago in its own city but Chicago disperses its grads a lot more and has a smaller class size to begin with so for Chicago biglaw, NU is a really great place to be.

[autarkh]

It probably does affect what they think but I think NU's rep problems aren't really based on that. Cornell does just as bad but does better in rep.

I'm genuinely curious. If it's not academic placement, what is it? Its "Northwesterness" or something else, equally intangible? Maybe I'm naive, but when I visited I was blown away. Much more so even than U of C.

[irishman86]

Ask the peers and judges who fill out the annual surveys. I think it's partly because of its business, rather than academic slant, in its curriculum. This is also partly why it has a poor showing in academia.

It doesn't have the name recognition the others do to begin with. And its law school is a bit of a rising star. Plus some resent it for being Kellogg disguised as a law school.

So, essentially, peer ratings are inversely proportional to how practically-focused a school is? That's pretty idiotic. Outside of Harvard and Yale, isn't the proportion of JD graduates that go into academia pretty minuscule anyway?

Also: this view isn't shared by employers, right? I thought NWU did really well with biglaw.

Harvard has a more "practical" focus than Yale but its rep is about the same as Yale's. There is not necessarily an inverse relationship between practicality and rep scores. NU places less into clerkships, PI, government than many of the other top 14. Its strength is biglaw, but its advantage has been shrinking in this economy (if you look at the most recent biglaw placement statistics). I'm also guessing that its 2 year "expedited" program also gives it some crap with peers/judges who think that the education isn't thorough enough, but who knows.

[barkingbug]

Ask the peers and judges who fill out the annual surveys. I think it's partly because of its business, rather than academic slant, in its curriculum. This is also partly why it has a poor showing in academia.

It doesn't have the name recognition the others do to begin with. And its law school is a bit of a rising star. Plus some resent it for being Kellogg disguised as a law school.

So, essentially, peer ratings are inversely proportional to how practically-focused a school is? That's pretty idiotic. Outside of Harvard and Yale, isn't the proportion of JD graduates that go into academia pretty minuscule anyway?

Also: this view isn't shared by employers, right? I thought NWU did really well with biglaw.

Yes. NU was just ranked #1 overall for biglaw placement by the nat law journal. It has a great reputation with the people that matter.

[09042014]

It probably does affect what they think but I think NU's rep problems aren't really based on that. Cornell does just as bad but does better in rep.

I'm genuinely curious. If it's not academic placement, what is it? Its "Northwesterness" or something else, equally intangible? Maybe I'm naive, but when I visited I was blown away. Much more so even than U of C.

I don't know what I'd guess its a mix of the following

• business orientated
• rep scores are laggin indicators and NU has gotten better over the last decade
• arguably the worst faculty of the t13

Faculty is probably the big reason. The lawyer/judge score is worthless. Virgina ties Columbia. That is ridiculous.

[autarkh]

I don't know what I'd guess its a mix of the following

• business orientated
• rep scores are laggin indicators and NU has gotten better over the last decade
• arguably the worst faculty of the t13

Faculty is probably the big reason. The lawyer/judge score is worthless. Virgina ties Columbia. That is ridiculous.

Interesting.

When you say "worst" faculty, do you mean in terms of publication/research, or teaching ability?

[ValiantVic]

I don't know what I'd guess its a mix of the following

• business orientated
• rep scores are laggin indicators and NU has gotten better over the last decade
• arguably the worst faculty of the t13

Faculty is probably the big reason. The lawyer/judge score is worthless. Virgina ties Columbia. That is ridiculous.

Interesting.

When you say "worst" faculty, do you mean in terms of publication/research, or teaching ability?

Publications and too many non-trad professors.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

1. Yale
2. Stanford
3. Harvard
4. Columbia
5. NYU
5. Chicago
7. Penn
8. UVA
9. NU
10. Michigan
11. Duke
12. Berkeley
13. Cornell
14. UT
15. GULC
16. Vanderbilt
17. UCLA
17. USC
19. ND
20. WUSTL
20. Emory
20. GW