Law school rank by top firms/clerking placement Forum

[Shrimps]

(reposted to a more relevant board)

Placement with Vault 100 firms and federal clerkships, 2006

http://lawfirmaddict.blogspot.com/2006/ ... ement.html
http://lawclerkaddict2008.blogspot.com/ ... chool.html

Vault 100 Placement
4 Columbia 80.2%
3 Harvard 74.1%
6 Chicago 71.4%
1 Yale 68.8%
2 Stanford 65.9%
4 NYU 61.2%
11 Duke 55.8%
12 Northwestern 53.1%
7 Penn 49.4%
13 Cornell 43.0%
8 Virginia 41.4%
8 Michigan 41.3%
14 Georgetown 34.4%
16 Texas 28.7%
8 Boalt 27.7%
15 UCLA 19.9%
27 Illinois 19.1%
17 Vanderbilt 19.0%
17 USC 18.4%
22 Notre Dame 18.3%
32 Fordham 15.3%
18 GWU 12.5%
70 Houston 11.9%
TTT Howard 11.9%
22 Boston U 11.6%
27 Boston College 11.3%
39 Wake Forest 11.0%
34 BYU 10.5%
26 Emory 8.9%

Anyone got fresher data (2007-2010)?

Duke, Northwestern and Penn appear to be the best lower tier T14. Any idea on why Duke is doing so well? The Southern thing (i.e. top Southern law firms recruiting heavily at Duke) or some other reason it's outperforming the others?

[20160810]

Interesting ranking, but the V100 is necessarily going to give you a more NYC-leaning focus. Looking at NLJ250 placement might give you a better picture nationally. Also kinda silly in looking just at V100 placement when you consider that it doesn't reflect the high percentage of YS students who do clerkships and the high percentage of Bloat students who self-select PI.

Also, data from 2006 is about as valuable in 2010 as a swift kick to the groin.

[Shrimps]

SBL: that may explain Columbia, but with 56% of Duke grads going to Vault 100, it's curiously relevant. Big Law is Big Law.

Why is 2006 not relevant in 2010?
If it's the state of the economy you're talking about, 2006 is hopefully far more relevant in 2010 than it was back in 2006 (those who were starting law school in 2006-2007 graduated into the worst labor market in decades.. those who start law school in 2011 will hopefully graduate into a booming economy..heh).

Anyway, I'm depressed and cynical.

[vanwinkle]

Why is 2006 not relevant in 2010?

[Shrimps]

G. T. L. Rev.: I want to do business law, international business law preferably, when I graduate, so I'm not particularly interested in PI or clerkships. So, yeah, I know I've only listed the Vault 100 data.

Still, as indication of law school prestige, fed clerkships may be an even better choice than Vault 100 placement (indeed, due to it being somewhat NYC/big city/BigLaw -skewed).

Boalt looks pretty bad in those rankings, btw (for a school USNWR insisted in 2009 was #6 in the nation) . It seems the correlation with LSAT scores alone is far stronger for Vault/clerkship placement than it is with, say, the US News ranking. Boalt's somewhat anti-LSAT strategy works only for public interest jobs (and cheers from the USNWR people). People interested in money or prestige, judging from the above numbers, would be well advised to choose LSAT-centric schools, not Boalt.

My LSAT and GPA both suck, anyway, so this is all purely theoretical for me.

Just be careful with the data. I don't know who you are, but if you are a 0L, then beware of becoming that guy this year--the 0L who eventually fancies themselves as a a law firm/clerkship expert. This happens every year without fail (see, e.g., Mallard from a few years ago with his "gunner rankings"), and every year it ends up looking completely ridiculous.

I can assure everyone reading this that I'm not an expert on ANYTHING when it comes to law. I haven't yet applied to a single law school, got a dismally bad LSAT score in June and a reasonably decent one today (for the Oct test). This is the full extent of my relationship with law (save for two traffic violations which, I suspect, will bury me during the bar "character and fitness" assessment a few years down the road).

[dabomb75]

semi-hijack:

out of the 7-14 schools, is there any sort of consensus/thoughts as to which schools place best among the V100 firms?

[im_blue]

semi-hijack:

out of the 7-14 schools, is there any sort of consensus/thoughts as to which schools place best among the V100 firms?

1. Northwestern (work experience and IP people)
2. Penn (NYC biglaw feeder)
3. Duke (also NYC biglaw feeder)

[Remnantofisrael]

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

[Shrimps]

1. Northwestern (work experience and IP people)
2. Penn (NYC biglaw feeder)
3. Duke (also NYC biglaw feeder)

What's IP people?

out of the 7-14 schools, is there any sort of consensus/thoughts as to which schools place best among the V100 firms?

From my (2006) list for Vault100:
Duke (56%), Northwestern, Penn, Cornell, Virginia, Michigan (41.3%), Georgetown (34.4%)
From Remnantofisrael's 2009 list for NLJ250:
Northwestern, Virginia, Michigan, Penn, Duke, Georgetown, Cornell

Northwestern looks the winner. The problem is, I'd really like to work in a NYC-area business/international business related law firm after I get my JD, and I'm not sure if Northwestern has any ties with New York firms. I wouldn't be eager to stay in Chicago.

Is Duke really a NYC feeder?

[irishman86]

1. Northwestern (work experience and IP people)
2. Penn (NYC biglaw feeder)
3. Duke (also NYC biglaw feeder)

What's IP people?

out of the 7-14 schools, is there any sort of consensus/thoughts as to which schools place best among the V100 firms?

From my (2006) list for Vault100:

Duke (56%), Northwestern, Penn, Cornell, Virginia, Michigan (41.3%), Georgetown (34.4%)
From Remnantofisrael's 2009 list for NLJ250:
Northwestern, Virginia, Michigan, Penn, Duke, Georgetown, Cornell

Northwestern looks the winner. The problem is, I'd really like to work in a NYC-area business/international business related law firm after I get my JD, and I'm not sure if Northwestern has any ties with New York firms. I wouldn't be eager to stay in Chicago.

Is Duke really a NYC feeder?

The thing with Northwestern is that it largely places well because its students have work experience. If you take that work experience to other T14 schools, you are likely to get a similar boost up in employment prospects. It's not because firms recruit deeper into the class simply because it's Northwestern, it's because its students have work experience.

Out of the 7-14, I'd say Penn probably gives you the best odds at NYC. I don't really think Duke is a NYC feeder, at least not moreso than M or V.

[Campagnolo]

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

This is great. Thanks!

It's nice to have such useful information when trying to make choices. I wonder how many of the YHS clerks end up in Big Law after a year? I'm sure it's nearly all of them. I wonder how the list would change if these things were factored in?

[Remnantofisrael]

1. Northwestern (work experience and IP people)
2. Penn (NYC biglaw feeder)
3. Duke (also NYC biglaw feeder)

What's IP people?

out of the 7-14 schools, is there any sort of consensus/thoughts as to which schools place best among the V100 firms?

From my (2006) list for Vault100:

Duke (56%), Northwestern, Penn, Cornell, Virginia, Michigan (41.3%), Georgetown (34.4%)
From Remnantofisrael's 2009 list for NLJ250:
Northwestern, Virginia, Michigan, Penn, Duke, Georgetown, Cornell

Northwestern looks the winner. The problem is, I'd really like to work in a NYC-area business/international business related law firm after I get my JD, and I'm not sure if Northwestern has any ties with New York firms. I wouldn't be eager to stay in Chicago.

Is Duke really a NYC feeder?

The thing with Northwestern is that it largely places well because its students have work experience. If you take that work experience to other T14 schools, you are likely to get a similar boost up in employment prospects. It's not because firms recruit deeper into the class simply because it's Northwestern, it's because its students have work experience.

Out of the 7-14, I'd say Penn probably gives you the best odds at NYC. I don't really think Duke is a NYC feeder, at least not moreso than M or V.

I'm really interested in other's opinions about northwestern in this context. I agree with the statement about Northwestern placement, but I think its misleading in that firms likely KNOW that northwestern is loaded with work-experienced and so have come to trust the consistency of the students. On the flip, someone at Cornell with as much WE I would think isn't getting the same boost.

[09042014]

Also in 2006 Chicago actually behaved like a large market. Between 2006 and 2009 the number of SA spots was cut into a third or so of the peak. And even still Northwestern still placed 60% of people who did OCI in 2009.

But the difference between schools isn't as significant as 0L's and 1L's like to believe it is. Absent strong regional considerations they are pretty much the same. Whether you spot the 9b issue on your Civ Pro final has more to do with your career prospects than Northwestern vs Michigan.

[Shrimps]

But the difference between schools isn't as significant as 0L's and 1L's like to believe it is. Absent strong regional considerations they are pretty much the same. Whether you spot the 9b issue on your Civ Pro final has more to do with your career prospects than Northwestern vs Michigan.

Says who? Anyway, are you talking about graduating cum laude and higher?

[09042014]

But the difference between schools isn't as significant as 0L's and 1L's like to believe it is. Absent strong regional considerations they are pretty much the same. Whether you spot the 9b issue on your Civ Pro final has more to do with your career prospects than Northwestern vs Michigan.

Says who? Anyway, are you talking about graduating cum laude and higher?

Says me. Actually doing really well is where the differences between the lower 14 really become significant. There are a couple top firms that just won't interview at Northwestern. But median at both schools is pretty much identical.

[vanwinkle]

Regarding breaking into NYC... Between lower T14 schools, your grades will matter much more than your school does. Top 10% at Duke will place better than median at Northwestern, but top 10% at Northwestern will place better than median at Duke, on the whole. Firms in NYC know both are quality law schools of similar caliber and will at that point care more about who you are as a student (grades, accomplishments, prior WE, interviewing skills, and so on).

There'll be individual differences from firm to firm (one firm might have a partner from Duke on their hiring committee and insists on hiring more Duke grads, another might have a partner from NW) but on the whole this is what you'll see in NYC.

[rayiner]

Out of the 7-14, I'd say Penn probably gives you the best odds at NYC. I don't really think Duke is a NYC feeder, at least not moreso than M or V.

Penn has great relationships with NYC V25 firms. So does Duke, to a lesser extent. The school has a lot of carpet baggers who come down from NYC and return.

[irishman86]

The thing with Northwestern is that it largely places well because its students have work experience. If you take that work experience to other T14 schools, you are likely to get a similar boost up in employment prospects. It's not because firms recruit deeper into the class simply because it's Northwestern, it's because its students have work experience.

Out of the 7-14, I'd say Penn probably gives you the best odds at NYC. I don't really think Duke is a NYC feeder, at least not moreso than M or V.

I'm really interested in other's opinions about northwestern in this context. I agree with the statement about Northwestern placement, but I think its misleading in that firms likely KNOW that northwestern is loaded with work-experienced and so have come to trust the consistency of the students. On the flip, someone at Cornell with as much WE I would think isn't getting the same boost.

No. You're evaluated as an individual. Your WE is not seen in the context of your school. Your statement only makes sense if you think that some firms don't even bother recruiting at Cornell because they prefer people with work experience and tend to find more with work experience at NU. Hiring has gotten a bit more regional since ITE hit, but I think that many firms go to most of the t-14 to recruit, (Boalt seems to be left out of a lot of East Coast and Midwest hiring).

Also, as someone who just went through OCI this year and seen how some firms fill their class, I think each firm has its own school preferences for hiring, which doesn't necessarily fall in line with HYS CCN MVPB, etc., but probably has to do with how many partners they have from the school or another factor.

Really though, within the t-14 and outside of HYS (it seems grades don't matter as much for hiring, at least for Y and S), your grades are so so so much more important than your school.