HYSB for SF and Seattle? Forum

[Veil of Ignorance]

Hello all,

I've been searching the threads and I've been seeing people say that if you are 100% sure about wanting to do biglaw in the Bay Area or secondarily in Seattle, that HYS and Berkeley are the way to go. HYS makes sense, but if I really was sure about SF and knew I didn't want NY or Chicago, would Columbia, NYU, Chi, Penn be worse than Berk?

[curry1]

,

[dabigchina]

I think it would actually be easier to get a biglaw job in SF/SV out of Harvard with good bay area ties than out of Stanford (assuming median/below median grades).

wat?

Anyway OP, if you want Bay Area Biglaw you are probably going to want S>HYB. In my experience, CCN is not really a thing for the Bay Area. CCNMVP seem more or less fungible to a lot of Bay Area firms.

[Veil of Ignorance]

I think it would actually be easier to get a biglaw job in SF/SV out of Harvard with good bay area ties than out of Stanford (assuming median/below median grades).

wat?

Anyway OP, if you want Bay Area Biglaw you are probably going to want S>HYB. In my experience, CCN is not really a thing for the Bay Area. CCNMVP seem more or less fungible to a lot of Bay Area firms.

Would you say that the LA market is more discerning regarding the T14? I was looking at a prestigious SF lit firm and there seemed to be more Hastings grads than Columbia or Chicago. I couldn't believe it.

[dabigchina]

I think it would actually be easier to get a biglaw job in SF/SV out of Harvard with good bay area ties than out of Stanford (assuming median/below median grades).

wat?

Anyway OP, if you want Bay Area Biglaw you are probably going to want S>HYB. In my experience, CCN is not really a thing for the Bay Area. CCNMVP seem more or less fungible to a lot of Bay Area firms.

Would you say that the LA market is more discerning regarding the T14? I was looking at a prestigious SF lit firm and there seemed to be more Hastings grads than Columbia or Chicago. I couldn't believe it.

I focused exclusively on Norcal so I have no idea what the specifics of the LA are like. However, I will say that there is a fairly strong contingent of UCLA/USC grads at most of the LA offices/firms.

Ultimately, you should go to the school that gives you the best shot at the market you want to practice in, so I'm not sure you should worry about LA.

ETA: A few more observations regarding what you are seeing. Hastings used to have much stronger placement. You are probably seeing alums from that era.

CCN grads seem to be better represented in New York satellite offices.

[Anonymous User]

I mean, what I would do is go on LinkedIn, pick a few BigLaw firms, filter by "San Francisco Bay Area" and then look at the schools represented. It's not *perfectly* representative...but it's pretty representative of who actually gets these jobs. Just for kicks, I did this for Wilson Sonsini and Quinn Emanuel, two highly regarded BigLaw firms with large West Coast offices. Berkeley Law was actually the best represented at both, with Stanford a close second.

This matches with my experience working as an analyst and associate in (San Francisco-based) bulge bracket investment banking - the majority of the lawyers I have worked with (at similar highly ranked, Vault whatever firms) came from Berkeley and Stanford.

So I have no idea whether a dedicated Columbia Law or NYU Law or whatever student *would* place better into West Coast BigLaw than an equivalent Berkeley Law student, but it appears that the lawyers who *do* work at these places are predominantly from...the two best West Coast law schools, Berkeley and Stanford.

Hopefully this is helpful! (Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer or current law student.)

[mcmand]

...

[lawlorbust]

Hello all,

I've been searching the threads and I've been seeing people say that if you are 100% sure about wanting to do biglaw in the Bay Area or secondarily in Seattle, that HYS and Berkeley are the way to go. HYS makes sense, but if I really was sure about SF and knew I didn't want NY or Chicago, would Columbia, NYU, Chi, Penn be worse than Berk?

If you're trying to do Seattle, you'd be better off going to UW. If you're a good student, you'll rise to the top, so grades won't be a barrier, and most of the mid-law and biglaw firms here take at least 1 or more UW people each year. You could even go to Seattle U! (I know many people on this forum would be aghast at the very thought.) Their top students place quite well among all employers in the Seattle area, although I think they have more of an uphill battle than UW students do.

Why UW or SU over HYSB? Seattle is still a cozy, small-ish legal market, despite the economic growth it's seeing. Everyone knows each other. Firms frequently ask people why Seattle in interviews and some of them look down on any indication you might leave the state. The more clearly you demonstrate ties to the area, the better.

That's not to say HYSB wouldn't serve you well; they have alumni here at the big firms (Perkins hires most from UW and Harvard). But a friend of mine who went to UW undergrad and then went to NYU Law still got frozen out of the market in Seattle. That's not unheard of.

Of course, if the Bay Area is your first pick, then HYSB are best. UW won't go quite as far, although ironically I will be working in the Bay Area as a UW alum this next fall, along with two other classmates doing BigLaw, so it's not improbable/impossible.

No offense, but like, the six of them? That's ... not reassuring?

[Tiago Splitter]

For Bay Area with ties, probably similar from B relative to the rest of the T-14 but it is nice to be close by.

[mcmand]

...

[dabigchina]

OP isn't Seattle or bust. Therefore, there are many other schools that he/she should prefer over UW.

[mcmand]

...

[Veil of Ignorance]

For Bay Area with ties, probably similar from B relative to the rest of the T-14 but it is nice to be close by.

Didn't you go to Chicago or Columbia? I know those schools place less than 20% in CA, but did you get the impression that the placement was actually weaker in SF/SV than in NY?

[Dcc617]

Hello all,

I've been searching the threads and I've been seeing people say that if you are 100% sure about wanting to do biglaw in the Bay Area or secondarily in Seattle, that HYS and Berkeley are the way to go. HYS makes sense, but if I really was sure about SF and knew I didn't want NY or Chicago, would Columbia, NYU, Chi, Penn be worse than Berk?

If you're trying to do Seattle, you'd be better off going to UW. If you're a good student, you'll rise to the top, so grades won't be a barrier, and most of the mid-law and biglaw firms here take at least 1 or more UW people each year. You could even go to Seattle U! (I know many people on this forum would be aghast at the very thought.) Their top students place quite well among all employers in the Seattle area, although I think they have more of an uphill battle than UW students do.

Why UW or SU over HYSB? Seattle is still a cozy, small-ish legal market, despite the economic growth it's seeing. Everyone knows each other. Firms frequently ask people why Seattle in interviews and some of them look down on any indication you might leave the state. The more clearly you demonstrate ties to the area, the better.

That's not to say HYSB wouldn't serve you well; they have alumni here at the big firms (Perkins hires most from UW and Harvard). But a friend of mine who went to UW undergrad and then went to NYU Law still got frozen out of the market in Seattle. That's not unheard of.

Of course, if the Bay Area is your first pick, then HYSB are best. UW won't go quite as far, although ironically I will be working in the Bay Area as a UW alum this next fall, along with two other classmates doing BigLaw, so it's not improbable/impossible.

Mcmand, you sort of won the law school game. It's not good advice to tell other people to necessarily follow in your footsteps "if they're a good student." People can't assume they're going to be at the top of their class, because not everyone will be. It's sort of insane to pick UW in order to have a shot at a handful of jobs if you're at the top of your class after three years competing against smart people.

Bad advice.

[Tiago Splitter]

For Bay Area with ties, probably similar from B relative to the rest of the T-14 but it is nice to be close by.

Didn't you go to Chicago or Columbia? I know those schools place less than 20% in CA, but did you get the impression that the placement was actually weaker in SF/SV than in NY?

I went to Columbia. I think getting a job in the bay area is only harder than nyc because there are way, way more jobs in nyc. But if you have ties and do some legwork it shouldn't be any harder to get sf/sv than it is from berk.

[mcmand]

...

[Dcc617]

Hello all,

I've been searching the threads and I've been seeing people say that if you are 100% sure about wanting to do biglaw in the Bay Area or secondarily in Seattle, that HYS and Berkeley are the way to go. HYS makes sense, but if I really was sure about SF and knew I didn't want NY or Chicago, would Columbia, NYU, Chi, Penn be worse than Berk?

If you're trying to do Seattle, you'd be better off going to UW. If you're a good student, you'll rise to the top, so grades won't be a barrier, and most of the mid-law and biglaw firms here take at least 1 or more UW people each year. You could even go to Seattle U! (I know many people on this forum would be aghast at the very thought.) Their top students place quite well among all employers in the Seattle area, although I think they have more of an uphill battle than UW students do.

Why UW or SU over HYSB? Seattle is still a cozy, small-ish legal market, despite the economic growth it's seeing. Everyone knows each other. Firms frequently ask people why Seattle in interviews and some of them look down on any indication you might leave the state. The more clearly you demonstrate ties to the area, the better.

That's not to say HYSB wouldn't serve you well; they have alumni here at the big firms (Perkins hires most from UW and Harvard). But a friend of mine who went to UW undergrad and then went to NYU Law still got frozen out of the market in Seattle. That's not unheard of.

Of course, if the Bay Area is your first pick, then HYSB are best. UW won't go quite as far, although ironically I will be working in the Bay Area as a UW alum this next fall, along with two other classmates doing BigLaw, so it's not improbable/impossible.

Mcmand, you sort of won the law school game. It's not good advice to tell other people to necessarily follow in your footsteps "if they're a good student." People can't assume they're going to be at the top of their class, because not everyone will be. It's sort of insane to pick UW in order to have a shot at a handful of jobs if you're at the top of your class after three years competing against smart people.

Bad advice.

I'm not at the top of my class by a long shot, law school isn't a game, and the point of my advice is you have less of a shot at the handful of Seattle BigLaw jobs by attending a non PNW school.

Is this somehow not clear? I thought I was clear, but maybe everyone's obsession with BigLaw and T14 on this forum is leading everyone to think "well of course it's bad advice because you might end up not getting BigLaw." I made my point that if you weigh Seattle more, then T14 doesn't do you much good in comparison. If you are BigLaw or bust, then it doesn't make much sense.

I'm sure the response to this will be "if you're not biglaw or bust you're a fool." Which is a whole separate issue.

Okay, so law school is very expensive. There are people on this site who do not know very much about law school placement or legal employment statistics as a whole.

What I am saying is that you were able to go to school and get a good, high paying job.I consider that to be winning law school, because there are a lot of people who will graduate from lower schools and not be able to find any work, let alone one that lets them repay their loans. So it is bad advice to tell some of these newer kids on the forum to go to UW or Seattle U because their top students place relatively well in a tiny legal market, and that being a top student is something foreseeable or predictable.

It may in fact be dumb to be Seattle or bust. People should be making decisions based on whatever affordable school they can go to that will give them a good chance of achieving their regional and professional goals from median. If it is impossible to be confident in getting Seattle from median at any school, then it is dumb to be Seattle or bust. If the school's median result is bad, and the school is super expensive to attend, then it is bad to go to that school.

In short, it is bad advice to tell people to make law school decisions based on getting one of a dozen jobs from the top of the class.