Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link) Forum

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vamedic03

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by vamedic03 » Sun May 01, 2011 5:06 pm

upyours wrote:
G. T. L. Rev. wrote:
CanadianWolf wrote:Article III Clerkships: ( from: USNews & World Report)

1) Yale 27% - I would be floored it this was not incorrect
2) Stanford 24%
3) Harvard 18.1% - Probably incorrect
4) Univ. Washington 18%

5) Arizona 12.3%
6) Duke 12% - Probably incorrect
7) Georgia 11%
8) Michigan 11% - Definitely wrong
9) Virginia 11% - Definitely wrong
10) Penn 10.4% - Definitely wrong
11) Charleston 10%
12) Vanderbilt 10%
13) Colorado 9.5% - Probably incorrect

14) Berkeley 9%
15) Chicago 9%
16) Northwestern 8.1%
17) Columbia 8%
18) NYU 8%
19) Texas 8%

(20 through the end of the list is probably also littered with improper data) yea WUSTL we know is like dead last instead of 80 something

2011 USNews & World Report data & rankings based on 2009 placements.

fixed.

I can speculate out of my ass as well
GTL wasn't speculating out his ass. I'm sure he was basing his assessment on his experience as a clerk, knowledge of other chambers, and the fact that those percentages don't add up with either:

(a) Schools's own published information, and

(b) resources such as law clerk addict.

The USNEWS list is dangerous if anyone believes it. As anyone who has had any experience with the clerkship market can tell you - school rank + grades + connections all combined make the difference.

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by upyours » Sun May 01, 2011 5:09 pm

vamedic03 wrote:
upyours wrote:
G. T. L. Rev. wrote:
CanadianWolf wrote:Article III Clerkships: ( from: USNews & World Report)

1) Yale 27% - I would be floored it this was not incorrect
2) Stanford 24%
3) Harvard 18.1% - Probably incorrect
4) Univ. Washington 18%

5) Arizona 12.3%
6) Duke 12% - Probably incorrect
7) Georgia 11%
8) Michigan 11% - Definitely wrong
9) Virginia 11% - Definitely wrong
10) Penn 10.4% - Definitely wrong
11) Charleston 10%
12) Vanderbilt 10%
13) Colorado 9.5% - Probably incorrect

14) Berkeley 9%
15) Chicago 9%
16) Northwestern 8.1%
17) Columbia 8%
18) NYU 8%
19) Texas 8%

(20 through the end of the list is probably also littered with improper data) yea WUSTL we know is like dead last instead of 80 something

2011 USNews & World Report data & rankings based on 2009 placements.

fixed.

I can speculate out of my ass as well
GTL wasn't speculating out his ass. I'm sure he was basing his assessment on his experience as a clerk, knowledge of other chambers, and the fact that those percentages don't add up with either:

(a) Schools's own published information, and

(b) resources such as law clerk addict.

The USNEWS list is dangerous if anyone believes it. As anyone who has had any experience with the clerkship market can tell you - school rank + grades + connections all combined make the difference.
What the school rank from USNEWS?

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by BobSacamano » Sun May 01, 2011 5:26 pm

Pitt was left off the list entirely. Why would USNWR even publish this list? I mean, it's pretty obvious that Ava Maria, Dayton, and Liberty aren't placing 5% of their classes into Article III clerkships. Did they even bother to double check with the schools before publishing this list? Talk about irresponsible journalism (not that this is a surprise).

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by CanadianWolf » Sun May 01, 2011 6:03 pm

The USNews list includes two categories: All clerkships & Article III clerkships. I just copied the Article III clerkship data column from the USNews list referenced in the original post.
Last edited by CanadianWolf on Sun May 01, 2011 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Rurik

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by Rurik » Sun May 01, 2011 6:07 pm

CanadianWolf wrote:The USNews list includes two categories: All clerkships & Article III clerkships.
Which seems to point towards the fact that it wasn't just school ignorance in filling in "all clerkships" when the questions asked for "Art III clerkships."

Fuck, I don't even know, but I am curious as to how Charleston was put down as getting 10% art III clerkships (beating Chicago and Columbia) or Washington at 18% (virtually tying with Harvard). I am just floored. Did nobody at USNWR read the list before posting? I don't even know what........so confused..........

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CanadianWolf

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by CanadianWolf » Sun May 01, 2011 6:09 pm

Why not contact the schools in question & ask ?

I'll call some on Monday.

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FlightoftheEarls

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by FlightoftheEarls » Sun May 01, 2011 6:54 pm

upyours wrote:
fixed.

I can speculate out of my ass as well
Wait, so you changed it so that many of the most well-respected law schools in the world are the ones fudging the numbers, but Charleston is legit? What a stupid post. And not even funny.

142.

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by upyours » Sun May 01, 2011 7:26 pm

FlightoftheEarls wrote:
upyours wrote:
fixed.

I can speculate out of my ass as well
Wait, so you changed it so that many of the most well-respected law schools in the world are the ones fudging the numbers, but Charleston is legit? What a stupid post. And not even funny.

142.
Omg no I didn't I'm such a monster!!

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by upyours » Sun May 01, 2011 7:45 pm

G. T. L. Rev. wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if some of the lower-ranked schools were counting internships and externships as "clerkships," thus resulting in the completely not-believeable Article III data.

So the clerkship data that USNews uses is wrong but their rankings are right? Also since you know should we trust the other Clerkships # or have the people at USNews told you otherwise? Also article III clerk what am I thinking right now?

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by sbalive » Sun May 01, 2011 7:52 pm

G. T. L. Rev. wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if some of the lower-ranked schools were counting internships and externships as "clerkships," thus resulting in the completely not-believeable Article III data.
It's also possible that some schools counted all federal clerkships as "Article III clerkships" in their reports.

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by rayiner » Sun May 01, 2011 7:56 pm

FlanAl wrote:Yeah but UofA and UW? What about Charleston (I didn't even think they were ABA approved yet) This makes me definitely re-think the tls metric of NLJ+clerkship. It also makes it more obvious why Vandy kills it in clerkships (since they don't place anyone outside their neighborhood). Seems like clerkships are really regional, like REALLY regional. Maybe thats old news but its new to me.
U of A and UW are not really surprising. They probably own D. Ariz. and E.D. Wa., W.D. Wa., respectively.

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by whymeohgodno » Sun May 01, 2011 7:57 pm

WUSTL why are you TTT at everything. Biglaw? TTT. Clerkships? TTT.

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rayiner

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by rayiner » Sun May 01, 2011 8:09 pm

Just to point out one thing re: the numbers, at least for the T14. This isn't a "ranking" measuring "clerkship placement power." It's a listing of how many people at each school went into clerkships. For C/O 2009, many people who could have gotten clerkships decided to pursue $160k instead. This is especially true for places like CLS, NYU, which are biglaw-focused and full of people who don't want to leave NYC, and NU which is biglaw focused and full of old people who want to get back to work.

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by FlightoftheEarls » Mon May 02, 2011 11:32 am

rayiner wrote:Just to point out one thing re: the numbers, at least for the T14. This isn't a "ranking" measuring "clerkship placement power." It's a listing of how many people at each school went into clerkships. For C/O 2009, many people who could have gotten clerkships decided to pursue $160k instead. This is especially true for places like CLS, NYU, which are biglaw-focused and full of people who don't want to leave NYC, and NU which is biglaw focused and full of old people who want to get back to work.
And a clerkship isn't work? People going to school in places like Philadelphia aren't interested in being in a city and that's why they're more likely to clerk? Living outside of a big city for a few years means people won't get out to advance their careers? People at other schools don't choose 160k over clerkships as well?

I don't know - they're easy explanations for self-selection, but I don't really buy it. Also, just because almost everyone at a school like NU has work experience doesn't mean that the same doesn't hold true for almost 3/4 of the students at other schools. If anything, I think an equally plausible argument can be made that 160k is much more immediately attractive for students who have never made actual money, whereas people with established careers might be more inclined to see the value of a clerkship for their future. Self-selection may explain some things, but I don't think it explains this nearly as well as suggesting that NYU and Columbia students just don't want non-SDNY clerkships, or that 25% more NU students have had pre-law school careers and therefore automatically are more likely to want $160k.

Edit: Also, I seem to recall NU students boasting about great NLJ placement and suggesting that the school placed better in a metric of particular interest only to biglaw-bound students because firms were all about NU's work experience requirement (which I believe, insofar as the firms liked the particular students' work experience, but I think had little to do with NU apart from collecting them in one place - a very smart strategy, nonetheless). Considering that, I find it interesting that A3 clerkships, which by most accounts are far more difficult to obtain than a NLJ firm and are particularly valuable regardless of whether one wants to litigate in biglaw or public interest (and hence, might be more representative of student's actual interests than just looking at NLJ numbers and pretending like that tells a real story), are now merely "how many people went into clerkships" but not a "ranking measuring clerkship placement power." I must ask: For the one metric that seems to be the most universally desired for litigators across all different fields of law, why the changed tone now?

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by david787 » Mon May 02, 2011 12:04 pm

I think the UofA numbers could be accurate. There are plenty of federal judges in the state of Arizona and those positions would be readily accessible to UofA students. There should also be less competition from the T14s since their graduates most likely would not want to move to Arizona. Also, the school is quite small so the actual number of students isn't that high (it's still significant though).

Maybe I'm just talking myself into it since UofA offered me some nice $$ and I'm considering it...

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Stringer Bell

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by Stringer Bell » Mon May 02, 2011 12:41 pm

Patriot1208 wrote:
HeavenWood wrote:
beachbum wrote:T13 10 t6t5or bust.
Only plebes settle for Dook. :wink:
lol penn
lol NYU

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by paulinaporizkova » Mon May 02, 2011 12:53 pm

sanetruth wrote:This list makes Georgetown look terrible.
add it to the list

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rayiner

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by rayiner » Mon May 02, 2011 6:13 pm

FlightoftheEarls wrote:
rayiner wrote:Just to point out one thing re: the numbers, at least for the T14. This isn't a "ranking" measuring "clerkship placement power." It's a listing of how many people at each school went into clerkships. For C/O 2009, many people who could have gotten clerkships decided to pursue $160k instead. This is especially true for places like CLS, NYU, which are biglaw-focused and full of people who don't want to leave NYC, and NU which is biglaw focused and full of old people who want to get back to work.
And a clerkship isn't work? People going to school in places like Philadelphia aren't interested in being in a city and that's why they're more likely to clerk? Living outside of a big city for a few years means people won't get out to advance their careers? People at other schools don't choose 160k over clerkships as well?
A clerkship isn't "settle down somewhere and get on with your life" work. Re: geography, it isn't that people at MVP have shown they don't care about being in a city, but rather that there are way more people at CLS, NYU, NU, and Cornell who are there b/c they are from the area and don't want to leave. People at Michigan aren't from Ann Arbor and people at Virginia aren't from C-ville. They have shown their willingness to relocate by the school they go to. Re: age, the average age at NU is about two years older than the average age at the other T14s. People who left their jobs themselves to go back to school are less likely to want to take a job knowing they'll relocate again in a year than people who took a year off to save some money before going to LS. And while people at all schools choose $160k over a clerkship, I think there are a disproportionate number at some schools.

At least here at NU, the culture is very corporate heavy. Non-trivial number of people from consulting and banking backgrounds. Also a ton of engineers, who tend to skew away from clerkships (if an engineer is in law school, more likely than not he just wants to improve his/her earning potential). Also don't forget women. For at least a few, that extra year is a serious consideration when they graduate at 28-29 versus 26-27. Also married people (of which there are a disproportionate number at NU), who are less likely to be willing to move away from the SO for a year.

Are these self-selection effects small? Sure. But we're also talking about small distinctions here, just 2-3%.

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by Rurik » Mon May 02, 2011 7:41 pm

Arizona Law just confirmed to me that the USNWR number is essentially correct (actually 12.24% instead of the reported 12.3%) for the class of '09. Also said that the number for the C/O 2010 was substantially worse (less than half of that 12.24%). So there you go.

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by Grizz » Mon May 02, 2011 7:46 pm

rayiner wrote:
FlanAl wrote:Yeah but UofA and UW? What about Charleston (I didn't even think they were ABA approved yet) This makes me definitely re-think the tls metric of NLJ+clerkship. It also makes it more obvious why Vandy kills it in clerkships (since they don't place anyone outside their neighborhood). Seems like clerkships are really regional, like REALLY regional. Maybe thats old news but its new to me.
U of A and UW are not really surprising. They probably own D. Ariz. and E.D. Wa., W.D. Wa., respectively.
Agreed.

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by rundoxierun » Mon May 02, 2011 7:54 pm

Dont know about the rest but those HYS numbers are pretty close (+/- 1%)

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by buddyblack » Mon May 02, 2011 8:36 pm

rayiner wrote:
FlightoftheEarls wrote:
rayiner wrote:Just to point out one thing re: the numbers, at least for the T14. This isn't a "ranking" measuring "clerkship placement power." It's a listing of how many people at each school went into clerkships. For C/O 2009, many people who could have gotten clerkships decided to pursue $160k instead. This is especially true for places like CLS, NYU, which are biglaw-focused and full of people who don't want to leave NYC, and NU which is biglaw focused and full of old people who want to get back to work.
And a clerkship isn't work? People going to school in places like Philadelphia aren't interested in being in a city and that's why they're more likely to clerk? Living outside of a big city for a few years means people won't get out to advance their careers? People at other schools don't choose 160k over clerkships as well?
A clerkship isn't "settle down somewhere and get on with your life" work. Re: geography, it isn't that people at MVP have shown they don't care about being in a city, but rather that there are way more people at CLS, NYU, NU, and Cornell who are there b/c they are from the area and don't want to leave. People at Michigan aren't from Ann Arbor and people at Virginia aren't from C-ville. They have shown their willingness to relocate by the school they go to. Re: age, the average age at NU is about two years older than the average age at the other T14s. People who left their jobs themselves to go back to school are less likely to want to take a job knowing they'll relocate again in a year than people who took a year off to save some money before going to LS. And while people at all schools choose $160k over a clerkship, I think there are a disproportionate number at some schools.

At least here at NU, the culture is very corporate heavy. Non-trivial number of people from consulting and banking backgrounds. Also a ton of engineers, who tend to skew away from clerkships (if an engineer is in law school, more likely than not he just wants to improve his/her earning potential). Also don't forget women. For at least a few, that extra year is a serious consideration when they graduate at 28-29 versus 26-27. Also married people (of which there are a disproportionate number at NU), who are less likely to be willing to move away from the SO for a year.

Are these self-selection effects small? Sure. But we're also talking about small distinctions here, just 2-3%.
These are all good points.

I'm also curious if/how grads who clerk after a year or two at big law are counted. As I understand it that's becoming more common (perhaps especially in the most competitive districts? <- pure speculation). Might this skew the numbers too?

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by Rurik » Mon May 02, 2011 11:33 pm

G. T. L. Rev. wrote:
Rurik wrote:Arizona Law just confirmed to me that the USNWR number is essentially correct (actually 12.24% instead of the reported 12.3%) for the class of '09. Also said that the number for the C/O 2010 was substantially worse (less than half of that 12.24%). So there you go.
Are they including magistrate clerkships? If so, their count needs to be revised, as those are not Art. III clerkships. If not, I am both very surprised and impressed -- and I will readily admit my mistake.
I don't know. I didn't really feel like replying to their e-mail asking for more data and being a pest. But the Dean of Career Development was explicit insofar as 12.24% = Article III clerkships. I'm assuming since practically every second semester 1L (at least at my school) knows magistrates aren't Art III judges, that the Dean of Career Development at a respectable law school would. I actually just shot out a few e-mails to schools whose numbers looked fishy, entirely out of curiosity as to what they would say. AZ is the only one to get back to me (and rather promptly too, so +1 to Arizona Law).

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by Rurik » Wed May 04, 2011 3:45 pm

Colorado just confirmed that, indeed, they placed 9.5% into Article III clerkships. No word from Charlotte Law yet (lol?).

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Re: Recent Clerkship Data From US News (Link)

Post by zonto » Wed May 04, 2011 7:33 pm

I smell an A3 clerkship question coming up on a future logical reasoning section...

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