Top Law Schools

jetsfan1 wrote:I like it as well. Tagging.

JXander wrote:Above the Law just released its rankings of ABA accredited law schools with a clear, interesting methodology.

Thoughts?

I am glad they placed so much weight on employment outcomes, but I go back and forth as to whether ignoring FA and numbers completely is appropriate.

nickb285 wrote: I also don't give two shits about how many grads from three decades ago managed to become judges--that's not much different than people on here defending TTTs by talking about how many partners at local firms went to said TTT--nor do I give a shit about SCOTUS clerkships, because I'm not going to HYS, and the odds of that happening outside of HYS and especially outside of the T14 are so slim as to be completely irrelevant to a school decision. Even if you're going to HYS, there's absolutely no way that your odds of becoming a SCOTUS clerk or a judge should be as important to your decision as how much you're going to pay for school.

ph14 wrote:Interesting for the most part, but the percentage of SCOTUS clerks and federal judgeships seems to be of minimal importance to the average person picking a law school. They should just roll that in with the other categories.

JXander wrote:

ph14 wrote:Interesting for the most part, but the percentage of SCOTUS clerks and federal judgeships seems to be of minimal importance to the average person picking a law school. They should just roll that in with the other categories.

That was also my thought, but ATL did justify its choice of methodology with its reader poll:

"When we surveyed our audience about what are the most relevant factors that potential law students should consider in selecting a school. By a large margin, these were the top choices, along with the percentage of respondents classifying them as “highly relevant”:

Employment data (90.3%)
Large firm placement (54.42%)
Federal clerkship placement (49.07%)
Tuition/Cost – (37.27%)"

I am not saying this justification undermines your claim that the "average person" selecting a school does not consider this to be as important as other factors, but I think it is reasonable basis for ATL's specific ranking system.

ph14 wrote: Interesting for the most part, but the percentage of SCOTUS clerks and federal judgeships seems to be of minimal importance to the average person picking a law school. They should just roll that in with the other categories.

SportsFan wrote:Most surprising thing to me is that Columbia is so low, at 8, below UVA and Duke, and NYU at 10.

stuckinthemiddle wrote:Best thing about those rankings: The pretty graphics <3

How is Columbia so low, though?

beepboopbeep wrote:

SportsFan wrote:Most surprising thing to me is that Columbia is so low, at 8, below UVA and Duke, and NYU at 10.

The NYC schools got screwed by dat CoA, I'd guess - I'm surprised the "quality jobs score" didn't push them up higher, given their reputations for NYC biglaw. I wonder what the granularity is for that metric.

piccolittle wrote:Yeah, I really think they should have used tuition cost rather cost of attendance, as it penalizes schools that happen to be in high cost-of-living areas. I understand that cost of attendance is most relevant to prospective students' choices, but I think using COA unfairly rewards schools with high tuitions in low cost of attendance areas. Then again, CLS and NYU both have astronomical tuition costs too...

dixon02 wrote:Only other small complaint is that I wish legitimate PI could somehow be factored in, but I know that's really hard because some of it is actual self-selection and some of it is a poor outcome and last resort. Still, I'd think you could get close by looking at the data over a 5-year span and regressing it, and maybe including something about the quality of the school's LRAP in there since that would likely be correlated to self-selection (better LRAP more likely to attract people planning to do PI willingly). There are people who legitimately want those jobs, and those plus Big Gov are all very good outcomes that shouldn't count against a school. This problem at least really only affects the margins.

untar614 wrote:I'm guessing CLS and NYU are so low due to higher COAs. I really don't agree with including educational cost in there as this is something that varies from student to student, and so it is something that should be compared separately from what the school offers outcome-wise. If GULC had very low tuition, would that make it a better school than CLS (I don't know how the actual ATL score would be affected, just making a point)? No, but it might be a better deal for the money, but that all depends on what an individual student is going to pay. If they have a Hamilton or Butler, it's a different story.

ChampagnePapi wrote:Why are they using the NLJ data when we have the ABA data now?

Did they do it to avoid a situation, perhaps in subsequent years, where people just go "LOL HYS not top three rankings are DUMBBBB!!!" by placing undue weight on extremely unusual elite outcomes?

hibiki wrote:

ChampagnePapi wrote:Why are they using the NLJ data when we have the ABA data now?

They're using it to distinguish "good" biglaw jobs from just jobs, I think. It's a bit of a broken metric, but the reasoning behind it was good.

Did they do it to avoid a situation, perhaps in subsequent years, where people just go "LOL HYS not top three rankings are DUMBBBB!!!" by placing undue weight on extremely unusual elite outcomes?

No, I think ATL honestly cares a lot about elite outcomes. David Lat did the whole Underneath Their Robes/Article III Groupie thing. It's not surprising that it has an influence.