Top Law Schools

...

Massachusetts probably goes like this:

1) BC/BU (tie)
3) Northeastern
4) Suffolk
5) New England School of Law

Feel free to correct me if that seems off.

Missouri:

1) SLU
2) WUSTL

Thomas Jefferson wrote:VA: W&L > W&M, IMO, but this is debatable so perhaps they should just be tied
NY: 1. Fordham 2. (don't know enough about the rest)

I agree with this. At the least, W&L and W&M should be tied, if not actually reversed.

RayFinkle wrote:Missouri:

1) SLU
2) WUSTL

Blatant anti-Mizzou/UMKC trolling!

GA

1) Emory
2) UGA
3) Georgia State
4) Mercer
5) John Marshall

orphanarium wrote:For CA-SF Area, I'm pretty sure out of non-T14s, the best schools would be: UC Davis & UC Hastings

P.S. Chapman trumps Southwestern for California.

Blatant anti-UCLA/USC trolling

For Mass.

Why is BC>BU???

For non T14s, I would think that Vanderbilt trumps a lot of the other southern schools. Certainly Georgia and maybe North Carolina.

whitman wrote:For non T14s, I would think that Vanderbilt trumps a lot of the other southern schools. Certainly Georgia and maybe North Carolina.

Blatant anti-Wake trolling.

But Vanderbilt places better than all three, I would say.

For South Carolina: I think if a UNC, UGA, Emory, or Vandy alum really was dead set on living and working in SC, then they may even have a leg up and a SC grad.

Same thing in Mississippi: if an Alabama, UGA, or Vandy alum was dead set I think they beat an Ole Miss grad.

Same thing in Arizona: if a UCLA, USC, or Texas grad really was dead set on Arizona they would beat out a UA or ASU alum

and so on...

im_blue wrote:

RayFinkle wrote:Missouri:

1) SLU
2) WUSTL

Blatant anti-Mizzou/UMKC trolling!

What is a SLU?

INDIANA:

Bloomington
Notre Dame
Indianapolis
Valpo


Bloomington and ND are tied at #23, but anyone from the midwest will tell you that Notre Dame is really an Illinois school. More ND grads sit for the Illinois bar than any other state, including Indiana. You could probably include it as #4 on Illinois' list after Chicago, Northwestern, and Illinois.

.

Illinois:
UIUC
Loyola
Kent
DePaul
Northern
JMLS
SIUC (maybe flip-flop SIUC and JMLS?...but probably not)

RickyRoe wrote:INDIANA:

Bloomington
Notre Dame
Indianapolis
Valpo


Bloomington and ND are tied at #23, but anyone from the midwest will tell you that Notre Dame is really an Illinois school. More ND grads sit for the Illinois bar than any other state, including Indiana. You could probably include it as #4 on Illinois' list after Chicago, Northwestern, and Illinois.

Gonna go ahead fix my post...he's right.

Illinois:
UIUC
Notre Dame
Loyola
Kent
DePaul
Northern
JMLS
SIUC (maybe flip-flop SIUC and JMLS?...but probably not)

Ohio:

OSU
Case
Cincy (a close third)
CM/Capital
Akron/Toledo/Dayton
Ohio Northern

This list, of course, for the bottom half, depends on where you want to work

This is a great idea for a thread, very helpful.

As far as Missouri goes, there might actually be a case for putting SLU ahead of WUSTL in terms of job placement in Missouri. Are we using actual placement or potential placement? If we're basing things on job potential/prestige/quality of the school, then WUSTL is clearly the best school in Missouri. If we're basing things on actual job placement in the state of Missouri, SLU might have a case. Remember, SLU grads almost exclusively practice in Missouri (St. Louis) after graduation- and SLU dominates the St. Louis market. Based on personal research, a lot of WUSTL grads seem to go elsewhere- although this is without doing much research into the overall job placement statistics within state.

If we're doing things based on quality of school, though, the list would be:

1) WUSTL
2) Mizzou
2) SLU

If you want to go by USNews rankings, Mizzou has the edge over SLU- but both schools offer similar educations and strong regional placement with poor placement outside of that region. I've done zero research on UMKC, though I suspect that it would probably trail SLU/Mizz (but this is based on gut feeling and nothing more).

Edit: A lot of WUSTL grads choose to go elsewhere because, obviously, there are better/more lucrative places to work than St. Louis/Missouri. WUSTL clearly has the best law school in Missouri and will provide successful students the best job opportunities overall. The field is a bit more level if you're looking strictly at Missouri placement, though. And some Missouri employers view WUSTL grads as flight risks.

RickyRoe wrote:INDIANA:

Bloomington
Notre Dame
Indianapolis
Valpo


Bloomington and ND are tied at #23, but anyone from the midwest will tell you that Notre Dame is really an Illinois school. More ND grads sit for the Illinois bar than any other state, including Indiana. You could probably include it as #4 on Illinois' list after Chicago, Northwestern, and Illinois.

This might be true, but a Notre Dame degree will still carry more weight than an IU one, even in Indiana. So Notre Dame is indeed #1 in Indiana.

Shifting schools into another state will eventually make this point untenable.

Texas: TEXAS TTTECH UNIVERSITY!

So Cal

UCLA = USC > UC Irvine > UC Davis = UC Hastings > USD = Loyola = Pepperdine > The rest

If you were hiring in So Cal, would you hire a Loyola Law Grad over a UC Irvine/Davis/Hastings Grad (other factors being equal)? I think not.

Kentucky:

University of Louisville
University of Kentucky
Northern Kentucky University

- Even though UofL is a T2, in my experience it places better within Louisville (the largest city in KY). It seems that every attorney I meet in the area graduated from UofL. Plus, there is a strong rivalry between these two schools and a UofL grad will hire another UofL grad over a UK grad just for spite.

lawhawk wrote: Same thing in Mississippi: if an [strike]Alabama[/strike], [strike]UGA[/strike] Vandy alum was dead set I think they beat an Ole Miss grad.

FTFY

Ole Miss grads get the jobs they want in MS because that state's functionally an aristocratic oligopoly of good ol' boys.

Please note that for the state of Vermont, the law school is "Vermont Law School," and not "University of Vermont."

gatorlion wrote:Please note that for the state of Vermont, the law school is "Vermont Law School," and not "University of Vermont."

Noted