Top Law Schools

dingbat wrote:

romothesavior wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:The LST chart for c/o 2009 does show about 50% making 145K or more. C/O 2008 is more than 55% making 150K+.

Okay, didn't realize we were talking about different years. I'm skeptical of LST at times. I mean, break down their Fordham c/o 2009 data... the exact same %age of people work in firms under <145k, 145-160k, 160k, and >160k? Am I reading that right? That is sketch as hell. But I mean, the data is apparently the best we can do for salary info, so I suppose I will defer to it.

And yes dingbat, I do agree that c/o 2010 data is not indicative of the current state of hiring. But it isn't anywhere near pre-ITE either. Probably closer to the former than the latter.

I do respect your opinion and while I sometimes disagree, I think you're one of the better informed and more intelligent posters here.

I am sometimes a little too fast to spout out answers, I know the NY market better than most 0Ls. My firm does business with numerous biglaw firms, whether directly or through the IBs we work closely with. (not to mention my personal contacts and the fact that I research the shit out of things)

sounds like a lot of sketch fordham employment data to me; they were after all tangentially implicated in the employment reporting scandals...though it does seem like fordham gives me better biglaw odds than dozo.


sounds like my chances at biglaw or gov in dc are pretty poor at all these schools. is dc that much tougher than ny?

Okay so I'm still struggling with this one. LST says 50% with 145k+ jobs for the c/o 2009, right? Well the NLJ 250 Report for 2009 says only 29.4% of Fordham grads had NLJ jobs: http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2443900085

What am I missing? How are 20%+ of Fordham kids landing 145k+ jobs that are not NLJ 250 firms?

romothesavior wrote:Okay so I'm still struggling with this one. LST says 50% with 145k+ jobs for the c/o 2009, right? Well the NLJ 250 Report for 2009 says only 29.4% of Fordham grads had NLJ jobs: http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2443900085

What am I missing? How are 20%+ of Fordham kids landing 145k+ jobs that are not NLJ 250 firms?

Yeah this has been discussed pretty extensively over the last week or so. The issue seems to be that a significant number of NLJ250 firms didn't respond to the survey NLJ sent them. There also appears to be some discrepancy in how deferrals and not-yet-admitted first years are treated. Pretty much all of the top schools' websites show much higher NLJ250 placement in 2009 than the NLJ itself did. For 2010, the issue seems to have been focused on mainly the NYC schools.

dingbat wrote: I'm on a cell phone do I can't post links, but the 2009 employment status sticky post in this forum gives that salary information. (I have seen other pages with more details, but can't find it look things up that easily now)

Note: this does mean comparing 2009 and 2010 statistics, which I realize is a nono.
Can we agree that 2010 employment data should be considered a worst case scenario? While the future might not be as good as it once was, legal hiring has picked up (especially in NY) so it is unlikely to be worse

Ah, ok, this might be where I was thinking your numbers were a bit rosey. To put things in perspective about the difference between '09 (data from LST) and '10 (data from Fordham website):
'09: 71.9% working in law firms (91.5% employed x 78.6% of those employed working at firms).
'10: 47.0% working in law firms (93.1% employed X 50.5% of those employed working at firms).

So, yeah, optimism about Fordham is gonna depend which year we think it's most like. It's hard to say '10 is gonna be the "worst case scenario" because '11 looks worse than '10. I agree things have bounced back from the absolute nadir, but I just don't know by how much.

To break down the '10 numbers a bit more, that means, as a percentage of the whole class:
501+ lawyers: 22.4% (47% employed at firms X 47.6% at this size firm)
251-500 lawyers: 6.5% (47% employed at firms X 13.9% at this size firm)
101-250 lawyers: 4.3% (47% employed at firms X 9.1% at this size firm)
51-100 lawyers: 2.4% (47% employed at firms X 5.2% at this size firm)
26-50 lawyers: 1.8% (47% employed at firms X 3.9% at this size firm)
11-25 lawyers: 3.5% (47% employed at firms X 7.4% at this size firm)
2-10 lawyers: 5.9% (47% employed at firms X 12.5% at this size firm)

Hence my skepticism of "midlaw."

(As always: I didn't go to law school because I was good at math, feel free to double check my figures.)

EDIT: I believe all these numbers included deferred associates, per the note on the bottom of Fordham's page.

Tiago Splitter wrote:

romothesavior wrote:Okay so I'm still struggling with this one. LST says 50% with 145k+ jobs for the c/o 2009, right? Well the NLJ 250 Report for 2009 says only 29.4% of Fordham grads had NLJ jobs: http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2443900085

What am I missing? How are 20%+ of Fordham kids landing 145k+ jobs that are not NLJ 250 firms?

Yeah this has been discussed pretty extensively over the last week or so. The issue seems to be that a significant number of NLJ250 firms didn't respond to the survey NLJ sent them. There also appears to be some discrepancy in how deferrals and not-yet-admitted first years are treated. Pretty much all of the top schools' websites show much higher NLJ250 placement in 2009 than the NLJ itself did. For 2010, the issue seems to have been focused on mainly the NYC schools.

Yeah I'm sure that's part of it, but 40% of the students who got biglaw from Fordham in 2009 were unrepresented in the NLJ-reported data? Seems sketch.

I think no-offers and deferrals are the more likely culprit. Based on my conversations with the dean of our law school on how the old employment reporting methods worked, schools basically would collect data early and never update it. This is possibly what happened here. The students were marked as "employed at graduation" because they had a job offer at the end of their SA that the school knew about, and then were subsequently marked as "employed at 9 months" despite never starting their jobs or starting their jobs after the 9 month mark.

This is just a theory. Based on what I've learned in the past few weeks about previous data-reporting, it makes sense that this could happen, but maybe it didn't.

romothesavior wrote: I think no-offers and deferrals are the more likely culprit. Based on my conversations with the dean of our law school on how the old employment reporting methods worked, schools basically would collect data early and never update it. This is possibly what happened here. The students were marked as "employed at graduation" because they had a job offer at the end of their SA that the school knew about, and then were subsequently marked as "employed at 9 months" despite never starting their jobs or starting their jobs after the 9 month mark.

This is just a theory. Based on what I've learned in the past few weeks about previous data-reporting, it makes sense that this could happen, but maybe it didn't.

I think it's deferals, too. A couple years ago I did a write up on Fordham's c/o 2009 stats. I pulled the chart because the linking got screwed up, if there's interest I can try to find it and upload it again. But some of my conclusions included that

While about 50% of the class has jobs in firms of at least 101 lawyers, a smaller percentage (about 36% of the entire class) have actually started that job by February 2010

JusticeHarlan wrote:

timertimer61 wrote:so what percentage of the class of 2009 would you consider got biglaw?

No to be pedantic, but to answer that you fist need to define "biglaw" and "got."

Most favorably, we can say that somewhere around half of the class got jobs paying at or near market rate.
Less favorably, we can note that many of these jobs aren't at NLJ250 law firms or similarly sized firms, and that number is closer to a third of the class.
Least favorably, we can see that many of those have been deferred (hence defining what you mean by "got," as they secured such a job but haven't necessarily started yet), and the number of Fordham grads from 2009 working at very large firms right now is probably around a quarter of the class (though as noted deferments data is less accurate).

Make of that what you will.

So, yeah, lot of deferments for that class.

In other words, nothing to see here. Dead horse.

At the end of the day though, Fordham is a solid school, just so expensive and stingy that I can hardly think of a reason to go there for most people.

romothesavior wrote:In other words, nothing to see here. Dead horse.

At the end of the day though, Fordham is a solid school, just so expensive and stingy that I can hardly think of a reason to go there for most people.

ehhh but do i have any better options here? that's the question...

GokartMozart315 wrote:

romothesavior wrote:In other words, nothing to see here. Dead horse.

At the end of the day though, Fordham is a solid school, just so expensive and stingy that I can hardly think of a reason to go there for most people.

ehhh but do i have any better options here? that's the question...

well, a better question is why is it crucial to start law school this year? can you not retake the lsat, score a few more points, then get into better schools or get $$$ at these?

GokartMozart315 wrote:

romothesavior wrote:In other words, nothing to see here. Dead horse.

At the end of the day though, Fordham is a solid school, just so expensive and stingy that I can hardly think of a reason to go there for most people.

ehhh but do i have any better options here? that's the question...

No one should ever feel like they have to go to law school. You never have to. Taking out well over 200k in non-dischargeable debt is not a decision to rush into because you feel like you have no other options. There is always the choice to wait, or not go at all.

So while retake/reapply seems to be TCR in your case, I also think all three of your other options are better options at their price than Fordham at sticker.

romothesavior wrote:

GokartMozart315 wrote:

romothesavior wrote:In other words, nothing to see here. Dead horse.

At the end of the day though, Fordham is a solid school, just so expensive and stingy that I can hardly think of a reason to go there for most people.

ehhh but do i have any better options here? that's the question...

No one should ever feel like they have to go to law school. You never have to. Taking out well over 200k in non-dischargeable debt is not a decision to rush into because you feel like you have no other options. There is always the choice to wait, or not go at all.

So while retake/reapply seems to be TCR in your case, I also think all three of your other options are better options at their price than Fordham at sticker.

thanks buuuut as i've tried to state, money isn't really the issue here; i'm going to law school this cycle, i just need to make the decision that is most likely to net me the best legal career.

can you adjust your answer to focus on the job placement aspect, and ignore the financial risk aspect? i'm not going to not go to fordham because it's too expensive if it will offer me the best option. i'm keeping it in mind, but i need to determine the value of these schools' diplomas before i can factor in the financial aid

Considering your goals and the fact that money is no option, your order of preference should be Cornell -> GW -> Fordham -> everything else
Good luck with Cornell and/or riding the waitlist.

f0bolous wrote:

GokartMozart315 wrote:

romothesavior wrote:In other words, nothing to see here. Dead horse.

At the end of the day though, Fordham is a solid school, just so expensive and stingy that I can hardly think of a reason to go there for most people.

ehhh but do i have any better options here? that's the question...

well, a better question is why is it crucial to start law school this year? can you not retake the lsat, score a few more points, then get into better schools or get $$$ at these?

not retaking the lsat, don't anticipate a score increase; i put plenty of work in and am not doing it again. i'm also two years out, don't think i have much more to gain on this career track w/o a jd, and don't have another option in the bag. always planned on law school, this is the timing

dingbat wrote:Considering your goals and the fact that money is no option, your order of preference should be Cornell -> GW -> Fordham -> everything else
Good luck with Cornell and/or riding the waitlist.

thanks, that is helpful!

GokartMozart315 wrote:thanks buuuut as i've tried to state, money isn't really the issue here; i'm going to law school this cycle, i just need to make the decision that is most likely to net me the best legal career.

can you adjust your answer to focus on the job placement aspect, and ignore the financial risk aspect? i'm not going to not go to fordham because it's too expensive if it will offer me the best option. i'm keeping it in mind, but i need to determine the value of these schools' diplomas before i can factor in the financial aid

I often feel bad for law students and recent grads who are drowning in a mountain of student loan debt, but then I read stuff like this an I don't feel quite so bad. Sorry, but unless you have significant nest egg, trust fund, family paying for your degree, etc., then this is a pretty odd way to think about your investment. "Only tell me about the upside potential, I don't care about the cost or downside."

Based purely on job prospects, BU > Fordham >> Emory >> Dozo

If money isn't a factor, then why does your thread title start by telling us your scholarships?

romothesavior wrote:

GokartMozart315 wrote:thanks buuuut as i've tried to state, money isn't really the issue here; i'm going to law school this cycle, i just need to make the decision that is most likely to net me the best legal career.

can you adjust your answer to focus on the job placement aspect, and ignore the financial risk aspect? i'm not going to not go to fordham because it's too expensive if it will offer me the best option. i'm keeping it in mind, but i need to determine the value of these schools' diplomas before i can factor in the financial aid

I often feel bad for law students and recent grads who are drowning in a mountain of student loan debt, but then I read stuff like this an I don't feel quite so bad. Sorry, but unless you have significant nest egg, trust fund, family paying for your degree, etc., then this is a pretty odd way to think about your investment. "Only tell me about the upside potential, I don't care about the cost or downside."

Based purely on job prospects, BU > Fordham >> Emory >> Dozo

If money isn't a factor, then why does your thread title start by telling us your scholarships?

OP stated s/he will have help paying for law school.
The stated preference is DC -> NY -> everything else.
While BU might have better job prospects overall, it mainly places in Boston.
While BU probably has better placement in DC vs Fordham, in both cases it's only the very top who have a chance. If OP goes to BU but doesn't rank well enough to get DC, NY will pretty much be out if the question as well. At Fordham, while there's a slightly smaller chance of getting OPs first choice (DC), there is a much better chance of getting at least OPs second choice (NY).
For purposes of choosing between those schools, I won't consider the possibility of OP being bottom of the barrel, because then OP is equally screwed no matters here s/he goes

dingbat wrote:

romothesavior wrote:

GokartMozart315 wrote:thanks buuuut as i've tried to state, money isn't really the issue here; i'm going to law school this cycle, i just need to make the decision that is most likely to net me the best legal career.

can you adjust your answer to focus on the job placement aspect, and ignore the financial risk aspect? i'm not going to not go to fordham because it's too expensive if it will offer me the best option. i'm keeping it in mind, but i need to determine the value of these schools' diplomas before i can factor in the financial aid

I often feel bad for law students and recent grads who are drowning in a mountain of student loan debt, but then I read stuff like this an I don't feel quite so bad. Sorry, but unless you have significant nest egg, trust fund, family paying for your degree, etc., then this is a pretty odd way to think about your investment. "Only tell me about the upside potential, I don't care about the cost or downside."

Based purely on job prospects, BU > Fordham >> Emory >> Dozo

If money isn't a factor, then why does your thread title start by telling us your scholarships?

OP stated s/he will have help paying for law school.
The stated preference is DC -> NY -> everything else.
While BU might have better job prospects overall, it mainly places in Boston.
While BU probably has better placement in DC vs Fordham, in both cases it's only the very top who have a chance. If OP goes to BU but doesn't rank well enough to get DC, NY will pretty much be out if the question as well. At Fordham, while there's a slightly smaller chance of getting OPs first choice (DC), there is a much better chance of getting at least OPs second choice (NY).
For purposes of choosing between those schools, I won't consider the possibility of OP being bottom of the barrel, because then OP is equally screwed no matters here s/he goes

This

TLSwag wrote:

OP stated s/he will have help paying for law school.
The stated preference is DC -> NY -> everything else.
While BU might have better job prospects overall, it mainly places in Boston.
While BU probably has better placement in DC vs Fordham, in both cases it's only the very top who have a chance. If OP goes to BU but doesn't rank well enough to get DC, NY will pretty much be out if the question as well. At Fordham, while there's a slightly smaller chance of getting OPs first choice (DC), there is a much better chance of getting at least OPs second choice (NY).
For purposes of choosing between those schools, I won't consider the possibility of OP being bottom of the barrel, because then OP is equally screwed no matters here s/he goes

This

BU places great in Boston and fine in both NYC and D.C. While Fordham is a solid NYC option and has an edge in NYC, BU is better for job placement overall (including D.C.) and will be almost as competitive for NYC biglaw. Not sure we're really in that much disagreement, but I stand by the BU > Fordham >> Emory >> Dozo post, even given OP's DC > NY > everything else preference. Boston has a decent edge for DC and "everything else," and I think that outweighs Fordham's edge in NYC. Unless OP is set on NYC, I see no reason to take Fordham over BU.

romothesavior wrote:

TLSwag wrote:

OP stated s/he will have help paying for law school.
The stated preference is DC -> NY -> everything else.
While BU might have better job prospects overall, it mainly places in Boston.
While BU probably has better placement in DC vs Fordham, in both cases it's only the very top who have a chance. If OP goes to BU but doesn't rank well enough to get DC, NY will pretty much be out if the question as well. At Fordham, while there's a slightly smaller chance of getting OPs first choice (DC), there is a much better chance of getting at least OPs second choice (NY).
For purposes of choosing between those schools, I won't consider the possibility of OP being bottom of the barrel, because then OP is equally screwed no matters here s/he goes

This

BU places great in Boston and fine in both NYC and D.C. While Fordham is a solid NYC option and has an edge in NYC, BU is better for job placement overall (including D.C.) and will be almost as competitive for NYC biglaw. Not sure we're really in that much disagreement, but I stand by the BU > Fordham >> Emory >> Dozo post, even given OP's DC > NY > everything else preference. Boston has a decent edge for DC and "everything else," and I think that outweighs Fordham's edge in NYC. Unless OP is set on NYC, I see no reason to take Fordham over BU.

thanks all, i know this was a slightly more complicated breakdown but it's what i was looking for. parents/grandparents are paying for law school, but i get to keep scholly money, and as i'm not super thrilled with any of these schools, cheapening the tuition costs go a long way towards peace of mind. this is why it's a factor, but not going to sway my decision by itself.

BU is really that much better than Fordham? Interesting. and yeah if i'm bottom of the barrel at these schools i'm screwed anyway, will be shooting for top 10-20% of course...

would love any supplemental opinions on the BU vs Fordham breakdown. yes, i know these schools are both at sticker, but if they're both worthwhile than the other two, being bribed to go shouldn't color my decision that much

edit- OP I didn't see that your grandparents are paying for law school. do whatever you want to do then. just know that there are wiser ways to spend 120,000 dollars of your grandparents' money.

and don't take out more than 60k loans for any purpose (this includes UG debt).

ze2151 wrote:edit- OP I didn't see that your grandparents are paying for law school. do whatever you want to do then. just know that there are wiser ways to spend 120,000 dollars of your grandparents' money.

and don't take out more than 60k loans for any purpose (this includes UG debt).

well i'm trying to get a clear answer on the quality of schools. guys, i'm not basing my law school decision solely on what a bunch of TLS posters say. i just respect your opinions, and want to get as much knowledge as i can. i'm just saying that the investment's going to be made, and i'm going to enroll in law school in the fall; how do i make the best of that?

GW student chiming in - although not one of your current choices, you mentioned you were on the WL, so thought I would at least give you some info.

Best guess at BigLaw placement: about 20% of Class of 2013 have SAs
Composition of BigLaw placement: generally Top 10-15% or Top 1/3 w/ legit/interesting work experience

DC is a tough market to crack. Going to GW is no shoe-in for landing here, although definitely impossible.

monkey85 wrote:GW student chiming in - although not one of your current choices, you mentioned you were on the WL, so thought I would at least give you some info.

Best guess at BigLaw placement: about 20% of Class of 2013 have SAs
Composition of BigLaw placement: generally Top 10-15% or Top 1/3 w/ legit/interesting work experience

DC is a tough market to crack. Going to GW is no shoe-in for landing here, although definitely impossible.

thanks! i'd pick gw over any of the schools i've gotten into, which is why i haven't asked for info on it. i know a bunch of gw students but honestly too embarassed bout wl to talk with them about it...

are those BigLaw numbers in DC, or across the board? of course i'll be shooting for both those categories but probability is a bitch. you'd agree that dc is harder than ny? have heard this recently and i find it surprising

GokartMozart315 wrote:

romothesavior wrote:

TLSwag wrote:

OP stated s/he will have help paying for law school.
The stated preference is DC -> NY -> everything else.
While BU might have better job prospects overall, it mainly places in Boston.
While BU probably has better placement in DC vs Fordham, in both cases it's only the very top who have a chance. If OP goes to BU but doesn't rank well enough to get DC, NY will pretty much be out if the question as well. At Fordham, while there's a slightly smaller chance of getting OPs first choice (DC), there is a much better chance of getting at least OPs second choice (NY).
For purposes of choosing between those schools, I won't consider the possibility of OP being bottom of the barrel, because then OP is equally screwed no matters here s/he goes

This

BU places great in Boston and fine in both NYC and D.C. While Fordham is a solid NYC option and has an edge in NYC, BU is better for job placement overall (including D.C.) and will be almost as competitive for NYC biglaw. Not sure we're really in that much disagreement, but I stand by the BU > Fordham >> Emory >> Dozo post, even given OP's DC > NY > everything else preference. Boston has a decent edge for DC and "everything else," and I think that outweighs Fordham's edge in NYC. Unless OP is set on NYC, I see no reason to take Fordham over BU.

thanks all, i know this was a slightly more complicated breakdown but it's what i was looking for. parents/grandparents are paying for law school, but i get to keep scholly money, and as i'm not super thrilled with any of these schools, cheapening the tuition costs go a long way towards peace of mind. this is why it's a factor, but not going to sway my decision by itself.

BU is really that much better than Fordham? Interesting. and yeah if i'm bottom of the barrel at these schools i'm screwed anyway, will be shooting for top 10-20% of course...

would love any supplemental opinions on the BU vs Fordham breakdown. yes, i know these schools are both at sticker, but if they're both worthwhile than the other two, being bribed to go shouldn't color my decision that much

Its actually easier to get a NYC offer than one in Boston from BU given that the Boston market isn't that big and NYC is huge. To have a realistic shot at a DC bigfirm, you need top 10% + LR (there are outliers). It will be a serious uphill battle to get one of the Cov/WH tier of firms, but others are attainable. For NYC, you likely need top 1/3rd + secondary journal - although people sometimes get offers from the cadwalader-type firms with median + secondary, or top 1/3rd no secondary. Boston access depends a lot on ties - for WH/R+G/GP you probably need to be top 10-25%, other firms its mostly about fit, less about rank, etc. There is also a luck factor in OCI that you can't quantify.

Fordham and BU are complete peers - BU trumps Fordham only in that it gives you access to Boston as well with only slightly less access to NYC. BU still places in the top NYC firms just like Fordham does (Cleary/SullCrom, etc), but its likely easier to get some random NLJ250 NY firm from Fordham than BU.

The above response is absolutely correct in comparing BU to Fordham.
For NY biglaw they're about the same, but if you don't make it Fordham does better in NY midlaw