Top Law Schools

In to Penn, NYU and Duke. Very blessed to have family that is willing to help out with tuition and COL, so I'm really just interested to hear what people think about the merits of each school as I decide. What are strengths that people know of for each? Weaknesses? I'm
Really not sure what I want to end up doing so as broad a brush stroke as you can paint would be appreciated. I'm leaning towards Penn but my perception has been that it doesn't get much love in these forums. Could just be what I've been exposed to.

Also WL at two other T6s, so waiting on those

Thanks!

I think Penn gets plenty of love on these forums with people designating it a "T7" and have lately been pegging it a notch above the schools that have normally been considered its peers in the lower T14. However, I think the T6 schools are still considered a bit better in terms of placement than Penn. While a similar number of students from each school are getting BigLaw, NYU probably gives you easier access to the most prestigious firms in NYC. Both of them are predominantly placing into NYC BigLaw but NYU students are probably placing into more prestigious firms than the Penn students. NYU is also better if you're public interest work.

I think an argument could be made for Duke if you were targeting southern markets exclusively, but otherwise you should be deciding between NYU and Penn. I think it would be best to pick between them based on which school's culture and student you prefer. But NYU probably gives you the best chance of placing into the most prestigious NYC firms.

Post removed.

Penn is the NYU of Philly & NYU is the Penn of NYC. Duke for lacrosse, Southern & Mid-Atlantic placement, and for easy joint-degree options. Regardless, if you get in off the waitlists of Harvard or Columbia, then your dilemma is solved.

Choose whichever you prefer and/or flip a coin

If you want a job in the south/southeast I'd lean Duke, anything else I'd choose between Penn/NYU most likely.

mg has provided a thoughtful response
however, i would like to push back a bit on the portability assertion re: nyu

we all recognize that nyu, a school located in nyc, sends a lot of grads to work in nyc, which happens to be the largest legal market in the country. but the idea that it's hard to leave nyc from nyu, though often stated, is questionable imo. why? first, take a look at the location data in these nalp reports
http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/do ... 13/nyu.pdf
http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/ ... tion/2013/
http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/do ... lumbia.pdf
http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/ ... /location/
you will see a similar pattern. 63.7% ny placement for nyu, 66.6% ny placement for cls. to advance the argument about nyu based solely on the nalp/aba location disclosure data is to equally advance the argument against cls, another school with massive nyc biglaw self-selection, and which no one claims is limited to the nyc market
(sidenote: i say this not to spark a cls vs nyu debate. i bring the data up only to show that relying on the nalp/aba location disclosure to determine portability has necessary implications that are, in the opinion of many tlsers, myself included, untenable)
the vast majority of the students i've spoken to at nyu are targeting nyc, and only nyc. the other day, when discussion began of markets other than ny during our oci meeting, you saw the pens go down and the phones come out
of course no one could plausibly claim that nyu is equally strong in every market. and no one has made such a claim. you'll recall that the other day we had a discussion along these lines re: duke, in which i argued that duke probably had more sway in certain southern markets, like nyu does in certain northern markets
and of course i do not mean to assert that 100% of the concentration of nyu grads in nyc is self-selection
i am suggesting that the concentration of nyu grads in nyc is a combination of factors, but is largely not due to an inability for nyu grads to leave nyc. there is the fact that nyu is in the nation's largest legal market, and is a school where nyc firms heavily recruit. and yes, self-selection has at least some role in that students targeting certain markets are likely to matriculate at schools located in that region
it should also be noted that national reputational scores, not that they matter, show consistently strong performance by nyu, which reflects not just the local nyc market, but a cross-section of the profession (though, of course, one might respond that a large portion of the profession is in nyc, accounting for this result. but even if that were the explanation, which i don't know that it is because i don't know the exact methodology behind the score, i think in that case it would lend additional support to my self-selection assertion)

I really, really hope this thread turns into a 5 page long Columbia vs NYU debate

Brut wrote: you will see a similar pattern. 63.7% ny placement for nyu, 66.6% ny placement for cls. to advance the argument about nyu based solely on the nalp/aba location disclosure data is to equally advance the argument against cls, another school with massive nyc biglaw self-selection, and which no one claims is limited to the nyc market

I think mg probably would make that argument.

I agree with advice given in the thread. I would say that NYU probably opens up a few more PI opportunities than Penn or Duke but my guess is you'll follow the pack into the big firm world and Penn and NYU both place equally well there.

nyu has generally led penn in elite firm placement
there was a study done on this a while back, i'll try to find it later
but yeah, they're both good for biglaw

meyer5541 wrote:In to Penn, NYU and Duke. Very blessed to have family that is willing to help out with tuition and COL, so I'm really just interested to hear what people think about the merits of each school as I decide. What are strengths that people know of for each? Weaknesses? I'm
Really not sure what I want to end up doing so as broad a brush stroke as you can paint would be appreciated. I'm leaning towards Penn but my perception has been that it doesn't get much love in these forums. Could just be what I've been exposed to.

Also WL at two other T6s, so waiting on those

Thanks!

if your parents aren't exceedingly wealthy and you don't really care about where you end up (ie you're fine with ending up in NYC), go to the cheapest one.

If money is truly no object and you know you don't want to live in the south or in Alaska, then pick personal preference between NYU and Penn. If you want to be anywhere in the south long term I would consider Duke over the other two.

Post removed.

Brut wrote:nyu has generally led penn in elite firm placement
there was a study done on this a while back, i'll try to find it later
but yeah, they're both good for biglaw

In elite NYC firms. Penn doesn't target the exact same market as NYU, and beats them in overall placement, 78% BL+FC last year.

lol that's not how it works dude

first, you can't compare 2014 penn data to 2013 nyu data
i know for a fact that 2014 nyu data hasn't come out yet
as the market improves, of course 2014 numbers will be better than 2013 numbers
so this was a dishonest tactic you used

second, you've been here for a while, and should know by now that higher bl+fc ≠ "beating them in overall placement"
call penn on monday and, as an admit, ask them for 2014 oci success rate
i will tell you nyu's oci success rate in 2014: 88%, excluding positions obtained through mass mail, referrals, networking
please report back in this thread with the details

third, i was referring to leiter's study, which included a range of firms nationwide
you can attack it for being an old study, but this strange criticism that it is limited to nyc firms is most certainly untrue

I've seen those v10 stats linked a few times. No one ever seems to point out that ~40% of penn grads go to nyc vs ~65% of cls and nyu grads. I imagine it would be a bit closer were all things equal, but whatever

i'm in agreement that v10 nyc stats will inflate cls/nyu numbers
although i'm still glad nekro posted it b/c i find this kind of stuff interesting

No doubt there are better statistics, they're almost identical in NLJ250 numbers. But I would say they are for all intents and purposes peers.

As noted above Penn places more kids into non nyc big law, Philly and D.C.mainly. Obviously more people wanting Philly biglaw means less people going to nyc, which means less going to V10 firms. I'd feel better about inferring Penn can't place into V10 after looking at data that say "of the nyu and Penn students who went to NY, this percentage went V10"

@mack

weighted nlj250 numbers suffer from the same problem as bl/fc

but re: your larger point
of course they're largely peers
all t14 schools are, to some extent

my point wasn't that they're not peers
if that was how i was coming off, i apologize for the miscommunication
i was just saying that, based on the data that's out there, nyu might have an edge on penn in elite firm placement, in the same way that cls might have an edge on nyu in elite firm placement
but they're seriously all really good schools for biglaw. any of them gets you there. it's a curve, not a cliff
my other point was that i'm wary of using raw bl/fc as a measure of placement power. you'll recall that this metric results in penn > cornell > nyu > yale
oci success rate, imo is a better measurement (we should try to fill the void here)

Another data point:

http://lawfirmaddict.blogspot.com/2007/ ... ement.html

I do think top of the class at NYU self selects away from biglaw 2L summer as much as any T14.

very interesting tiago

re: top of the class nyu
i think it's certainly a possibility
tho, of the class overall, quite a high percentage end up doing pi
and many of the top students here are pi scholars with obligations on their $$$

Tiago Splitter wrote:Another data point:

http://lawfirmaddict.blogspot.com/2007/ ... ement.html

I do think top of the class at NYU self selects away from biglaw 2L summer as much as any T14.

More than Yale or Boalt or Stanford? Why do you say that?

(I'm not saying you're wrong, it just seems like something that would be hard to know.)

I'd much rather see callback GPA data between NYU and Penn. I think those V10 firms dig a little deeper into the class at NYU than Penn.

And for who said something about 100+ firms and Fed Clerkships, Cornell beat NYU last year. Does that mean Cornells placement power is more than - or even equal to NYU?

Tiago Splitter wrote:Another data point:

http://lawfirmaddict.blogspot.com/2007/ ... ement.html

I do think top of the class at NYU self selects away from biglaw 2L summer as much as any T14.

2006 hiring market must've been majestic

And wasn't tuition only like high 30s?

Ugh

rpupkin wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:Another data point:

http://lawfirmaddict.blogspot.com/2007/ ... ement.html

I do think top of the class at NYU self selects away from biglaw 2L summer as much as any T14.

More than Yale or Boalt or Stanford? Why do you say that?

(I'm not saying you're wrong, it just seems like something that would be hard to know.)

i think tiago was saying the opposite

rpupkin wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:Another data point:

http://lawfirmaddict.blogspot.com/2007/ ... ement.html

I do think top of the class at NYU self selects away from biglaw 2L summer as much as any T14.

More than Yale or Boalt or Stanford? Why do you say that?

(I'm not saying you're wrong, it just seems like something that would be hard to know.)

That's why I said as much as and not more. NYU gives PI scholarships to people with really strong numbers. Obviously numbers don't guarantee grades but with more than 5% of the class on PI full rides you have to figure there are some really strong candidates opting out of biglaw. But mostly I'm just anecdataing.