Michigan vs. Duke Forum

[pizzaguy1]

So I've asked similar questions before about these two schools but I wanted to tap into the expertise of the TLS posters on what the difference would be between these two schools for biglaw placement in California. I got the impression from previous posts that Michigan was the better choice given the costs associated at both schools were similar, but does the recent job placement of the last Michigan class (which was pretty poor with 31% or so for biglaw) display a bad trend or was it just an anomaly? Any information would help me out as I have about a week to decide between the two and I'm still torn between the two.

[PrincetonBound15]

So I've asked similar questions before about these two schools but I wanted to tap into the expertise of the TLS posters on what the difference would be between these two schools for biglaw placement in California. I got the impression from previous posts that Michigan was the better choice given the costs associated at both schools were similar, but does the recent job placement of the last Michigan class (which was pretty poor with 31% or so for biglaw) display a bad trend or was it just an anomaly? Any information would help me out as I have about a week to decide between the two and I'm still torn between the two.

Not sure on the answer to this, but there seems to be a trend towards more T14 grads turning to public service, government, clerkship, or business jobs after graduation. This is probably due in part to the economic downturn, but not completely perhaps. Also, Michigan still ranks better at big law placement than Duke.

[Near]

Also, Michigan still ranks better at big law placement than Duke.

Source?

[thelawyler]

Michigan probably sends more people to Cali and has a bigger network there, but no firm numbers to back up my opinion.

[NinerFan]

Michigan doesn't have very exact stats for this. Take a look at the map in the link below, which states somewhere between 20 and 99 people work in Cali from class of 2009 to 2011 combined.

http://www.law.umich.edu/careers/Pages/default.aspx

As per this next link, c/o 2009-2011 combined apparently have 84 graduates working either in the Bay Area or LA.

http://www.law.umich.edu/careers/classs ... fault.aspx

As a proportion of their class, 84 out of (379 + 374+ 412) = roughly 7.21% of the classes of 2009-2011 work in CA

This may be leaving out grads outside of those two areas, but I'm guessing it's a negligible amount on the basis of the first link that states that more than 20 but less than 100 work in Cali.


Duke doesn't have c/o 2011 stats yet. For c/o 2010, they claim a little over 16% worked in the "West", and, specifically, 10.9% ended up in California. For c/o 2009, that percentage is 11.5%. For 2008, 10.3%.

source: http://www.law.duke.edu/career/employmentdata

Specifically, 22, 24, and 21 people from 2010, 2009, and 2008 respectively ended up in Cali, a total of 67.

With respective class sizes of 213,219, and 207, (639 total), the overall percentage from 08-10 in Cali is 10.49%

Source: http://www.law.duke.edu/career/resources/facts


I wouldn't put too much stock in the pure percentages. What you should be looking at is what types of firms show up to each places EPI/OCI. How many of the big Cali firms show up? How many firms with big Cali branches show up? Those are what really matter.

[NinerFan]

Also, Michigan still ranks better at big law placement than Duke.

Source?

Here's some numbers if we make some assumptions:
1. We assume big law is 100+ lawyers
2. We assume only federal clerks get big law post clerkship

Duke- http://www.law.duke.edu/career/resources/facts
For c/o 2010, 47.585% of the class was in big law. 16.8% had clerkships. 27 out of the 34 people with clerkships were with federal judges. If we assume that only federal clerks end up in big law, 13.34% are federal clerks. All together, 60.9%

Michigan- http://www.law.umich.edu/careers/classs ... stats.aspx
For c/o 2010, 180 graduates were in firms of 100+ out of 374 total graduates. 38 were clerks. They do not specify federal or state and I'm not going to trawl through their uber detailed list of employers to find out. I'll just assume they're all federal. 180 + 38 = 218, / 374 = 58.29%